Abandoned property, legal issues

Tim

Tim

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like all highly intelligent people, I am coming to an Internet forum seeking legal advice.

Here are the facts..l.

- I ordered a bunch of materials to build a deck.
- materials were delivered and the deck got built
Fast forward 3 weeks..
- I come home to find a completely new set of materials piled in my driveway, blocking access to garage, parking, etc. My name is written on the shrink wrap.
- I called the vendor and let them know. Person answering the phone was confused, didn't know what to do. I told her to schedule someone out to retrieve the stuff.
- I called again a couple days later; no response.

Fast forward a week....No call back, no action.

The material is shrink wrapped and bound to pallets. I don't have a pallet jack so there it all sits. I don't want to break it down and move by hand if they're coming to get it.


At what point does this material simply become "mine"?

If it's mine....the boys are getting a kick ass tree house.
 
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Jaysq said:
I would call and ask for a manager. I could not, in good conscience, keep the material
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Yeah....me neither. That's why I called same day. The person I spoke with identified herself as a manager. I should have mentioned I made a follow up call a couple days later with no call back.

That said, I'm not going to load this stuff on a trailer and haul it back for them.

If they show no interest in reclaiming the stuff, I need to get it out of the driveway. Doing so means breaking down the pallets/shrink wrap, etc and finding a good place to stack it.
 
SPST said:
Is it under the same po# as your original order?
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There is no paperwork visible anywhere. Just my name/address in sharpie on the shrink wrap.
 
Did you pay cash or with a card?
If card, see if you get double billed. If cash, well, vendor is SOL if they aren't making an effort to get it...
 
My wife had a boarder abandon a few horses at our place a few years back. She had to file some sort of claim and either have the owner served or post something in the paper for "X" amount of time. After that time was up, she was legal owner of the horses.

That may not apply here and does absolutely nothing to help you get it out of your way. lol. I think there's a section on Craigslist for free stuff. Building materials will be gone in a matter of hours I would think.


CHRIS
 
I'm not an attorney although I do play one on television. ;)

I believe I'd send them a letter, return receipt requested. In it, I'd explain the situation (including the inconvenience caused to you) and give them 7 calendar days to pickup the goods. I would finish stating that on the eighth day you will consider the goods to have been abandoned by them and you will dispose of them as you see fit.
 
Jeppo said:
I'm not an attorney although I do play one on television. ;)

I believe I'd send them a letter, return receipt requested. In it, I'd explain the situation (including the inconvenience caused to you) and give them 7 calendar days to pickup the goods. I would finish stating that on the eighth day you will consider the goods to have been abandoned by them and you will dispose of them as you see fit.
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I was going to suggest something similar.
 
ok if you've contacted the vendor and they've not said they were coming to get it,with you making multiple attempts to get them to get it then it should be yours. Point that you really don't feel right just taking it I understand. If you paid cash and didn't give them any card information to collect from. Then if you really feel you shouldn't just take it then call one more time, if still nothing us and abuse make good use of it.
 
Looks like you get a new fort. Claim its a tree house for the kids. Win Win.
 
I had a similar situation with some tools from Amazon. They finally understood and issued a return tag... Then refunded my money. I felt kind of stupid telling them they needed to bill me again to make it even.
 
Slosolo2 said:
I had a similar situation with some tools from Amazon. They finally understood and issued a return tag... Then refunded my money. I felt kind of stupid telling them they needed to bill me again to make it even.
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Seems habitual. I had the same experience with a garbage disposal.
 
Document who you’ve spoken to and what was said, ask if it is their property and if/when they are coming to get it. Send them the certified letter with return receipt summarizing your efforts and plans to dispose of the materials on a date certain if they are not removed.

Of course, you don’t even really know that they sent it, maybe it’s from Santa. Not a legal defense, but still.

By the way, my guess is that the mixup was at the lumberyard, not with your contractor. Contractor won’t know about the problem until they reconcile the bills from the lumberyard, assuming that they even get billed.
 
Sometimes, depending on the actual cost of the item(s), it's cheaper to just leave it and write it off rather than have to send someone out to retrieve the items or have them shipped back.

I remember a situation where a lady ordered a coat on the internet and didn't like it or it was too small or something. She contacted the company and they sent her a new one and just suggested she donate to other one to Goodwill or some charity. Great company and got lots of great free publicity from it.
 
It's called an unsolicited gift. Give it 30 days and claim salvage rights.
 
I’d start my tree house. When they show up and ask where it went, I ordered, you delivered, I built a deck. Thank you. Get the hell off my property.
 
Burt Gummer said:
I’d start my tree house. When they show up and ask where it went, I ordered, you delivered, I built a deck. Thank you. Get the hell off my property.
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Along this line I usually correct stores when they make a glaring mistake in my favor. It just feels like the right thing to do. BUT! Would you be doing them more of a favor by taking the deal? That way they discover the error and likely dumb-arse employee that cost them money. Then they can replace that dufus and save themselves money in the long run. Just food for thought.
 
Wel, since I've already called them a couple times, it's obvious I'd rather do the "right" thing. I just don't want to do it enough to do it for them. If they don't come get it all in a reasonable amount time, I'll put the stuff to good use.
 
Tim said:
Wel, since I've already called them a couple times, it's obvious I'd rather do the "right" thing. I just don't want to do it enough to do it for them. If they don't come get it all in a reasonable amount time, I'll put the stuff to good use.
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FIREPIT!!! !!!

Come on man! :p
 
If there's any 16 foot 2 by 12, I need about eight of them. I'll be glad to take those off your hands. LOL
 
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We were double shipped an order once. We called the company and just like this situation, they didn't have a process for it. Months went by and then their collections department started calling us about an unpaid order. When we explained it was their error and they were free to have it back. They acknowledged it and it falls into another black hole for months. Then an attorney calls again about an outstanding bill. Once again we explain the situation and he agrees that it's their error. He says they will arrange to have it picked up. They will send us shipping labels. Never heard from them again. I think they realized that it was going to cost them over $500 in shipping to recover dated product that was now a year old. I'm sure it was easier to just right it off.
 
You know what would be really cool?

You do the right thing (like you're doing by trying to return this material) and they come out and pick it up.

Then they refund your money for returning the material...

:D
 
RetiredUSNChief said:
You know what would be really cool?
You do the right thing (like you're doing by trying to return this material) and they come out and pick it up.
Then they refund your money for returning the material...

:D
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Only Amazon does that. ;)
 
I think you need to CYA with written, certified mail letters informing them of the error and keep a log of all your attempts to contact them for the reasons @georgel mentioned above. Eventually someone's going to figure it out and they'll try to bull you for the material. Obviously your duty to inform nd be deprived access to your garage, etc is limited but you need to be able to show you made a good faith effort.

I also think that there is something to the public notice, i.e. newspaper, regarding abandoned property and your legal stance. As stupid as it is, this is one of those cases where you need to make sure you've followed the legal protocols because that will be your defense if they try to sue you or file a collection against you.
 
Slosolo2 said:
I had a similar situation with some tools from Amazon. They finally understood and issued a return tag... Then refunded my money. I felt kind of stupid telling them they needed to bill me again to make it even.
Click to expand...

I had an issue one time where I bought a bunch of stuff. I didn't realize until I got home that they had failed to charge me for a $40 item. So I returned to the store and told the clerk you forgot to charge me item X. Clerk replied "I can't do a return without you bringing the item back". Let me try this again, I'm not returning anything, I have the product, you didn't charge me for it. "Those were closeout items, so no return anyway". OK, last time I'm going to explain this and then I'm going to consider it a free gift from y'all (manager steps over). Thank you very much for coming back in sir, if you'll step over here I'll take care of it for you.
 
Chdamn said:
I had an issue one time where I bought a bunch of stuff. I didn't realize until I got home that they had failed to charge me for a $40 item
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The propane tanks on my travel trailer expired and I wanted some new ones (yes, I can get them recertified). I stopped at Tractor Supply and went to buy a new one. I picked up what I thought was a 30lb tank, but it was a 40lb. None of them were marked with a SKU so they looked it up and charged me for a 30lb tank. They gave me $5 off for the trouble as they had a hell of a time looking up the SKU too. I didn't realize until I went to install it that it wasn't the correct one. Well, I still needed a 30lb tank, so I went back and told the clerk what happened and got a new 30lb tank and filled it. At the register, they "returned" a 30lb tank that was taken out of inventory and gave me credit at the full price (they were currently on sale), sold me the 40lb tank so that I effectively paid the price difference, and rang up the new 30lb tank. It corrected their inventory control, I paid them the correct price for item I purchased, and got about $15 in discounts in the process. Sometimes karma works out.
 
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