http://www.computerandvideogames.com/44 ... ing-vitas/

I fail to see why this is a news story; they are entirely within their rights to collect an item sent in error.

You have to wonder how many they sent out for it to go this far - the second they start talking to lawyers could cost them more than the Vitas!

I believe that keeping the Vitas in these circumstances could be deemed theft, or similar.

Another article read said it's rather a grey area. Under certain circumstances you can keep things that are sent to you without you asking for them. Under others, you're required to notify the sender then it's up to them to collect and if they don't it's yours. And in other circumstances it would indeed be considered theft.

I think Zavvi have been badly advised in this case. Even if they won a court case (which as above they might not do) they'd have to employ a debt collector to retrieve the goods, the cost of which woudl weigh against the value of the retrieved goods (and used Vitas aren't worth that much..) Plus on the list of 'things you shouldn't do if you want to stay in business' 1) Suing your customers and 2) Sending the bailiffs round to your customers are both on there, especially over what is probably a few hundred quids worth of kit.

The bare fact is everyone who ordered the game from them already had a Vita anyway, so if they'd said to people 'OK, we made a mistake, please send the Vita back, we'll pay postage and we'll send you a voucher for £20 off your next purchase as a reward' they'd probably have got most of them back, it would have cost them a fraction of the cost of debt recovery and they'd have got good PR out of it, rather than diabolically bad PR.

Yes they could have dealt with this a better way. It is amazing how badly some companies are run.

Unsolicited goods you can keep, if you keep them unopened for 6 months or for 6 weeks (ISTR), if you have informed the sender and they have not asked for it back.

Items sent by mistake (i.e. you ordered something and got a different product), the seller can request the items back, at their cost.

(2 years of commerce law in the late 80s, so I'm a bit rusty and I don't know if the law has changed in the meantime.

I got a phone call from someone I work for a few years back. He wanted to know if I wanted a wardrobe because he had one going spare. What had happened was that he had ordered one from IKEA, and they delivered the wrong one to him. So he phoned up and asked them to remedy the mistake. They did - but they did not want the wrongly sent one back because it would cost more to restock than it was worth. So he got a spare wardrobe to get rid of.

Thing is, they made the same mistake with the second one the sent....

You have to wonder if any of those mis sent Vitas have been sold on or been given away by now....

I know it's policy/practice now with excitable BBC headlines, but here's an example of why it's a fcuking stupid idea



Zavvi threatens shoppers after accidental PS Vita deliveries

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25330615

I predict it won't be long before that sort of thing comes under scrutiny.

Oh - hello:


http://dshub.tradingstandards.gov.uk/Explained

I wonder if this is applicable...

They were solicited by an order but they were sent the wrong item by their error which they tried to fix, I'm no lawyer but they aren't unsolicited goods in that respect.

They also sent out the Vitas 2nd class with no tracking apparently, I'd pull the "Never received it" card and with the value well over the £40/50 for RM insurance I doubt they would even think of reimbursing it