We all know the history and some of the outcomes of dealing with poor-faith buyers and sellers, but when there is an honest mistake, and the seller sends the wrong item(s)… Does the seller have a Right to ask the buyer to return the items? Ethically.
I’m not talking about what should happen, what ebay policy states, or what is a moral good. but what MUST happen. In other words, would you say the buyer MUST return the wrong item(s), by default, regardless.
YES, must be returned.
NO, it’s totally on the seller, in every way.
Not black and white. It depends on the money involved.
0voters
If you’d like to offer debate (civilized) or nuance below, please do.
Again, not asking about ebay or any bylaws, just specifically an ethical question. Who has a right to those items. Personally, I feel that once it leave my hands as a seller whether it’s $10 or $1000, if I screwed up the address, or if I sent it uninsured, or if I sent the wrong item, it’s totally one me.
I shouldn’t expect them back, even though I would, as a good person send them back were the positions reversed.
tldr: Citigroup accidentally wires Revlon $500 million instead of $7.8 million. Technically they owed the money but did not need to pay it all at once so it was a clear accident. Revlon chose to keep the money. Originally the courts ruled in favour of Revlon. On very recent appeal, Citigroup is entitled to the money back.
IMO keeping the case you describe in the OP is worse because the item was never owed to the buyer. It’s basically the equivalent of theft to keep the item. Seller should cover all expenses to get it back though
I have accidentally sent the wrong card to a buyer. When I was notified and found the correct card in my inventory, I sent it free of charge. There was no expectation for the buyer to return the original card to me. But these were ~$20 cards, not $2,000.
I would feel differently if there was a substantial amount of money accidentally changing hands.
Edit: I also fully refunded the purchase price too. So they got the original card and the actual purchased card for free.
I guess there’s a practical question of whether the value of the item is worth the hassle but I think value is just a proxy for something else. If the seller doesn’t want the item back either because it’s too much work or too expensive to ship back then it’s the equivalent of a gift. If the seller wants the item back and is offering to pay for shipping and you refuse to send it back, you are stealing that item. It’s pretty unambiguous.
That’s a good way of looking at it. Because you were owed amount A in agreed itemX, but received amount Ax100 in itemY, if you refuse to return it at no expense to you, then you’re stealing it from the seller. A contract establishes a business exchange in many legal systems, and as such, it establishes a tit-for-tat interaction, not a gift-type transaction like a tip or “freebie” would be.
Receiving extras in an order is a grey area, but receiving the wrong order is clearly NOT an intended act upon that tit-for-tat contract. TY for the thought exercise, PFM.
I’m confused by you’re saying “not what is moral good” but what is ethical. Aren’t they the same thing? But then you clarified “can the buyer expect to get that item back?”. Answer: no.
The seller has the right to ask for the item back and the buyer has the right to decline. If Amazon sends me an iPhone 14 instead of the a toy phone I bought for my child, they’re not going to ask for it back, they just eat the cost and say damn it. Because they know they have no recourse. If this happens to, you’re reliant on the buyers kindness.
That’s because it’s not worth their time and they consider it a sunk cost, not because you’re entitled to it. If they sent you 120,000 iPhone 14s by accident instead of a toy phone, it would be the same type of mistake but you better bet they will try to get them back.
Ethics address the communal or societal rules and code. (not legal code, which is law, but social standards) Justice. Law attempts to get at the same thing, but one is legal and one is ethical. Considering things that lie outside of the values and virtues of an individual. Such as a business agreement, or the well-being of different groups of people. Ethics exist once we inter-personal interactions.
Morals on the other hand, address the good or bad, without attempting to find a rational or logical justice, or ethical solution. Morals stop at trying to establish what the solution should be, and simply whether there is a problem.
The terms are often interchanged, but academically, Morality relates to good/bad; Ethics to right/wrong.
Even if it’s a 5$ card, but somehow was really important for seller and was sent in a good faith mistake, I will return the item.
Sure, they must pay the shipping price and understand the discomfort caused, but who am I to keep something never intended to be mine?
If you insist to keep it, you’re clearly trying to take advantage (or really don’t bother to do a kindness act).
If you find something on the street and the owner gently asks you to return it, are you gonna keep it? In case of face-to-face relationship it’s not that easy, and people would at least show some remorse. On the Internet everything seems not that big of a deal, but in reality there aren’t many differences: the object isn’t your, it’s not what you payed for.
As a seller, I will make sure that I send the right item or the refund etc, however, I should not be expecting any buyer to return a wrong item regardless of the price. I feel that equation is not in my hands and I just have to learn from my mistake. I can ask, but the onus is on the buyer.
As a buyer myself, I will always send the wrong item back regardless of the price and if they want it back. This is how I ensure my own long term happiness because if the act of not returning the wrong item bothers me (which it probably will) and if I have to spend my time thinking over it and justifying it to my inner self that what I did was ok, I prefer to not do so.
I once got sent a $1 Pokémon card instead of a $25 Pokémon card (wrong variant sent). The seller wanted it back and provided a return label. I was not happy about it because it was a ton of work - making a special trip driving to the farm to print off a label, use my own bubble mailer and packing tape, and walking to the post office to drop off the package. All for a $1 card. In this case the seller should have just sent the full refund and PayPal me $1 for a stamp and envelope and call it done. I guess I am in the minority of not having a printer at my house.
In most cases, I think the buyer should be obligated to return the card, assuming the seller supplies funds for the time and materials to return it.
Yes, the seller can and should ask for the wrong item to be returned. The buyer should, to the best of their ability, return the card assuming the seller provides all necessary materials.
Legally, however, buyers are not responsible for returning unwanted items that are shipped to them. Sellers should recognize that when they ask buyers to return items that were shipped to them as a result of a mistake by the seller, buyers are taking time out of their day to help the seller. Things like sending respectful and courteous messages, thanking the buyer, etc. can go a long way.
If the card is relatively cheap, I’d hope the seller would just tell the buyer to keep the item and have a nice day. If we’re talking about a $100 or $1000+ item, buyer should be a decent person and send it back, it’s not theirs. Seller should cover all expenses, and if it’s a valuable item, I’d even say go as far as giving the buyer some small token as a thank you for being honest and taking the time to send it back (though this should not be expected nor necessary).
This is classic “Golden rule”, treat people how you’d like to be treated. There’s only one right answer imo.
I dug a bit deeper into this topic and I did find that when you’re dealing with retailers, you can basically keep anything they’ve sent you by accident according to the FTC
This makes sense, otherwise you’d have Walmart accidentally sending things all the time and then charging money for it. It’s more a protection against malicious practices from the seller than anything.
I’m not sure how big of a seller you have to be to for this to apply to you. For example, consider this:
I would think that this would be treated the same as lost property. In most places, if you notice lost property (for example because the postman hands it to you) you have the choice of ignoring it (don’t touch it, don’t accept it from the postman), or you have to make reasonable efforts to find the owner and return it.
If you as the sender had no idea who received the package so you cannot contact them, and there was nothing in the package identifying the sender, the receiver would be able to keep the package when their efforts of finding the owner fail. But if you manage to contact them, then the receiver knows the owner, so there is no legal excuse to keep the package.
So it seems that the relationship between the sender and receiver factors in as well
