Zavvi Sent Free Vitas By Mistake, Threatens Legal Action

[Jumwa]

If a company sends something by mistake, whatever the item, it should be returned or the person that received it must notify the company about it, if you "send too much money" you're an idiot, that's pretty much basic legal procedures.

You make a mistake: You're an idiot.

Company makes a mistake: You're a jerk for existing and should inconvenience yourself and waste your time free of charge because the company is infallible.

The eagerness of people to shit on others and praise businesses is just mind boggling.

 

[Matt K]

Hold your horses there...

See, different countries, different laws.
ou didn't order, send it to YOUR HOME, in YOUR NAME, then, by brazilian law, it IS yours to keep.

From what I remember from law school, it's the same in the US as well. If you receive it addressed to you then it's yours no questions asked.

 

[Weaver]

We have tried to contact you on numerous occasions to give you the opportunity to return this item to us (at our cost and at no inconvenience to yourself) but to date you have refused to do so

To me, going to the post office is a huge inconvenience. They're only open work hours and the closest one is so far I have to drive there. Not sure how it is in the UK but if I have to take time off work because you fucked up that's not really fair, is it?

If they want them back they can schedule a personal courier to pick it up at peoples houses at a time of their choosing.

 

[walrusaurus]

While they may be within their rights to demand the devices back it does seem to be a particuarly boneheaded action. Surely the cost of pursuing legal action against multiple parties will vastly outweigh to value of the devices if they were to be recovered. Particularly seeing as at this point, most of the recipients likely have opened the packaging/used the dvcs so they can no longer be sold as new. To say nothing of the negative PR suing your customers will incur.

 

[Quellist]

I honestly don't understand how anyone in their right mind would think its ok for these people to keep the vitas. Seriously, Zavvi has been polite and they are firmly in the right here. What on earth is wrong with some people...

Totally agree. If i'd gotten one then i'd either have contacted them right away to send it back or asked if i could buy it at a small discount to save them the trouble of sending me a return lable.

 

[Mortuorum]

Well frankly they should send them back, they didn't pay for it and even if the company made a mistake the law is pretty clear.

Maybe it's not that clear-cut. If they sent an item to one person and it was received by another due to a postal error (and that person didn't surrender it), that would be theft under the law. Under common law, sending something completely unsolicited is a gift. I'm not familiar with the exact provisions of the Distance Selling Regulations, but I suspect this isn't going to be as clear-cut as Zavvi would like it to be.

 

[Sofus]

I don't do anythng for free, and I imagine that some of the people who received a Vita by mistake feel the same way as I do. Zavvi are the ones who made a mistake and they are the ones who will have to fix the problem. People obviously aren't allowed to use the Vitas once they have received the letter which mentions that the item in question was mailed by mistake, but nobody is required to send it back.

 

[Ruzinus]

There's something very upsetting about the idea of someone just derping along, minding their own business, and then end up being threatened with legal action because something was mailed to them.

No one stole these things.

 

[Scorpid]

I reckon I may be fairly unpopular on this thread for this view (well, gamers are the most self-entitled pricks of all the major entertainment consumers, and I say that as an avid gamer myself), but I'm firmly on Zaavi's side here. They've made a mistake, owned up that they've made a mistake, and have got in touch through the proper means and methods with customers to try to fix the mistake. They've given plenty of opportunity to customers to send the Vitas back and the customers have refused, and if the law is on Zaavi's side (which it appears to be) then they have every right to pursue legal action to reclaim their property. If I was one of those gamers who had ended up with a free Vita by mistake I would still be on Zaavi's side, because the law is fairly clear and even if it's a mistake they are doing the correct thing in the correct way to rectify it.

Let the shitstorm commence...

No they are not. They are just the most avid about their industry perhaps only rivaled by the comics books industry or WH40k Tabletop players (...overlaps!?).
But you're right, they should send them back. Unsolicited or not it's sort of dickish to call it a gift. I mean if you accidentally left your wallet with these people would they call it a "gift" if they took it? No, so why are they calling it a gift here? Greedy British people! Never seen that before.

 

[weirdee]

hm

on the reasoning side here, no matter how many butts there exist in the world, their presence does not lessen your own buttness if you also make the choice to be a butt

the things we percieve as truth are sometimes just there to make us feel better about ourselves

 

[barbzilla]

Here's the deal, they got sent by mistake. Plain and simple, and for those who are decent enough to give them back, good on ya, but the rest that didn't go back, there shouldn't be any legal action. If I accidentally ship something to the wrong address with my business, I am out that component, and I still have to ship another one to the correct address, there is no legal loop hole for small businesses to get their shit back, so why should large corporations get theirs back?

To make it a bit more on topic: The same can be said if I accidentally let a disk or component slip into a box that I ship to a customer, I'm not going to get that back, unless that customer just happens to be one of the few honest people left and decides to let me know.

 

[Roxas1359]

I've got to side with Zavvi on this one, as other people have already pointed out they are in the legal right. Now I also wonder that if the people were to send money to Zavvi for the Vitas would they be able to keep them?

 

[Raziel]

I'm surprised they don't do this the secure and subtle way, you charge their credit cards for the price of the Vita and then wait if anything comes back, in that case even if it doesn't everything got covered.

I don't think its legal for them to just charge a credit card. And I don't think it would do much to the recipients anyway. They'd just contact the credit card companies and tell them they never ordered any vita and have the charge removed.

 

[FoolKiller]

1. the morally right thing to do is let them come pick it up at your convenience
2. if you keep it, Sony could get involved and they could easily brick it based on serial numbers.
3. the only problem is what happens if someone gave it away? If i got one i would have just given it to a kid in my building since I already have a Vita.

 

[J Tyran]

I would give it back, as long as they send a courier to collect it at a time of my choosing.

 

[XDravond]

Well my mailman often put stuff in the wrong box and sometimes some stuff might get stolen... If I haven't signed anything you can't prove I got this PS Vita I currently playing on is from you guys...

Jokes aside they are probably right though, but they would pay me for postage and work for going to the post office, otherwise it would just stay unopened on my desk for a month or two before I could claim that they have not made enough effort to collect it and therefore it's mine... I don't work for free you know even though I probably return it, since I'm ridiculously honest if I can get caught...

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

1. lie and say you never got it (no law against lying to retailers) refuse to sign anything or make an official statement with police or anyone else, note this doesnt work if you signed for the package
2. buy a doa one off of ebay or craigslist, place in box, return
3. ignore them until you get a communication from a sheriffs deputy or an officer of the court (they won't bother for a $200 device that is much less in profit)
4. lie and say you donated it to a charity unopened
5. don't lie and actually donate it to a charity unopened
6. if you are spiteful: smash with hammer, place pieces in bag, return, ignore further communication
7. pay shady lawyer $30 to draft letter claiming stress from the threatening communications, request no contact and threaten suit for intentional infliction of emotional distress if they continue

There are many ways to keep it if you wanted to. I would also feel no moral obligation to help any corporation increase its revenue...if they made a mistake let them eat it.

 

[michael87cn]

I feel its wrong for them to threaten people.

Unfortunate what happened to them; but they should accept the consequences of their mistakes.

It's like a kid that dropped his juicy and he wants it back NOW or ELSE!

Sometimes, you just gotta learn to roll with the punches, and not throw a fit like a baby when you screw up.

 

[Lieju]

I'm surprised they don't do this the secure and subtle way, you charge their credit cards for the price of the Vita and then wait if anything comes back, in that case even if it doesn't everything got covered.

I highly doubt that's legal. If it was, you could send random junk to people and then charge their card for it. Or send them other more expensive products and charge them.

Stuff like the distance selling regulations exist to avoid that sort of stuff.

 

[Chad Brumfield]

If your bank makes an error and deposits a hundred thousand dollars into your account, you're held liable if you go on a wild spending spree with that money and then someone discovers the error later. This kind of thing has occurred several times in the U.S. and I imagine the laws in the UK aren't much different. You only get away with something like this if you don't get caught. Well, they've been caught.