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Thread: they sent me something. do I owe them anything?

  1. #1
    God/dess anomar's Avatar
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    Default they sent me something. do I owe them anything?

    Quite a long time ago, I signed up for a subscription service for coffee w/ Gevalia. This means that about once every two months they would send me coffee and automatically bill my credit card for about $12. Eventually I put the shipments on hold for 6 months (meaning that it would be postponed until about April of this year). Last December, I cancelled the credit card that was linked to that account.

    Today I got a shipment of coffee. Independently of that I got a letter from them, explaining that they had not been able to charge my credit card. The letter asks me to contact them and to please give them a new credit card number.

    I don't want to give them any money at all, and as of right now they do not have the ability to just get the money from my credit card company, since that CCN doesn't exist anymore. Can I just ignore this letter and keep the coffee? Can I call them and say I no longer want to be on their subscription service at all and don't want to pay for the coffee (i.e. give them a credit card number)? No where on the letter does it say that I really owe them money, it just says "Amount Due" on it.

    I feel that the implication of this situation is that they want me to give them $12 but I'm not obligated to, legally -- they tried to automatically charge my credit card and were denied, but they still went ahead and send me the coffee in hopes that I would give them $12 after receiving the package.

    What should I do in order to minimize my own inconvenience and avoid paying money? I'm confused about what is necessary -- they don't threaten to send a payment service after me or anything, so I don't know if I'm legally obligated to give them $12, or if it's more like a gift for which I *should* give them $12.

    Thanks!

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    Featured Member Vamp's Avatar
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    Default Re: they sent me something. do I owe them anything?

    Well since you did not cancel the subscription you are, under law, obligated to pay even if they do not have your current card number.

    I would send back the coffee and cancel the subscription. If you don't the amount that piles up from you not paying will show up on your credit report as a collections issue.

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    God/dess Bridgette's Avatar
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    Default Re: they sent me something. do I owe them anything?

    ^^ What Vamp said.

    Quote Originally Posted by pheno View Post
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    God/dess Emily's Avatar
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    Default Re: they sent me something. do I owe them anything?

    FYI....

    I had a gym membership that I paid cash for for a whole year. I gave them a credit card because I had to, but I asked them not to use it. I later cancelled that card.

    Anyway, a few weeks ago, a year after I started my gym membership and almost a year after I cancelled the card, I got a bill with a charge for one month's gym membership. I was annoyed at my gym for not telling me that I was up, but even more annoyed that I got a bill from a cancelled card.

    So I called up the CC and they said that for up to a year open charges can still go through.

    The coffee place might have sent it thinking they could get the money legitmately.

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    God/dess VenusGoddess's Avatar
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    Default Re: they sent me something. do I owe them anything?

    If you want to keep the coffee...you pay for it, otherwise it's stealing.

    If you don't want the coffee you send it back. You will still have to pay for whatever amount of time you had the subscription. And, if you put the subscription on hold for 6 months, you would still be liable for that length of time on the subscription.

    If you contact the company (and send the coffee back) and tell them that due to financial hardships, you cannot continue the subscriptions, they may let you out of it.

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    Featured Member Vamp's Avatar
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    Default Re: they sent me something. do I owe them anything?

    Quote Originally Posted by Emily
    FYI....

    I had a gym membership that I paid cash for for a whole year. I gave them a credit card because I had to, but I asked them not to use it. I later cancelled that card.

    Anyway, a few weeks ago, a year after I started my gym membership and almost a year after I cancelled the card, I got a bill with a charge for one month's gym membership. I was annoyed at my gym for not telling me that I was up, but even more annoyed that I got a bill from a cancelled card.

    So I called up the CC and they said that for up to a year open charges can still go through.

    The coffee place might have sent it thinking they could get the money legitmately.
    Was it a debit card or credit card? Seems an odd way to do buisness. They are opening themselves up to fraud. So what they are sayin is if you close your credit card with them and someone steals your number later it will still go thru? Banks are weird.

    The Credit cards we have at work, once they are blocked or closed thats it.

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    Default Re: they sent me something. do I owe them anything?

    Plus they could send that amount to a collections agency and put a bad mark on your credit. "Amount due" means the money that you owe them for the coffee. Since you didn't cancel the memebership, you just put it on hold, you are obligated to either pay for it or cancel the membership and send the coffee back. The only time you are allowed to keep something mailed to you is if you never asked for it, signed up for it, etc. Like if a company accidently sends you something but was a mistake or something. By law if a company sends something to you that you did not have any affliation in it whatsoever, you are not obligated to send it back, I know this because that happened to me and I was allowed to keep it.

  8. #8
    PhillyDancer1982
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    Default Re: they sent me something. do I owe them anything?

    Quote Originally Posted by Vamp
    Was it a debit card or credit card? Seems an odd way to do buisness. They are opening themselves up to fraud. So what they are sayin is if you close your credit card with them and someone steals your number later it will still go thru? Banks are weird.

    The Credit cards we have at work, once they are blocked or closed thats it.
    That happened to me before. I had a credit card with a rather stupid, careless company. I paid off the balance in full, closed it in May 2005, but then in August 2005 a $125 transaction for Hot Topic was billed to my card. And I hadn't shopped at Hot Topic in well over a year!! But I did shop at that specific location in the past(over a yr prior) and used that exact credit card to make purchases, so most likely what happened was, one of the young punks stole my credit card number, retained that account number with god knows how many others, and later in time forced a transaction to go through on a now-closed credit account. Good thing I would still log into my closed card's online account, otherwise I woulda never known about the charge, and it probably woulda gone unpaid and badly affected my credit!

    Good for me though, I disputed the transaction with my credit card company and within a few days they had it completely removed. I guess when they investigated the transaction, Hot Topic had no proof to provide them that showed that I'd made the transaction or authorized it(because I DIDN'T do it!). But yeah, like I said before...if I hadn't been overly paranoid to still log onto the websites of closed accounts, I woulda never been aware of this and it woulda caused damage to my credit and then I woulda had to explain/dispute that too!

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    Member NewGirl9's Avatar
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    Default Re: they sent me something. do I owe them anything?

    Quote Originally Posted by anomar
    No where on the letter does it say that I really owe them money, it just says "Amount Due" on it.
    Uhm, what?

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    God/dess Emily's Avatar
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    Default Re: they sent me something. do I owe them anything?

    Quote Originally Posted by Vamp
    Was it a debit card or credit card? Seems an odd way to do buisness. They are opening themselves up to fraud. So what they are sayin is if you close your credit card with them and someone steals your number later it will still go thru? Banks are weird.

    The Credit cards we have at work, once they are blocked or closed thats it.
    It was a credit card...a Bank Of America mastercard.

    I guess because I had a revolving subscription for which I initiated when it was active, it could still go through? Don't know....really seemed off to me too.

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    God/dess scarlett_vancouver's Avatar
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    Default Re: they sent me something. do I owe them anything?

    I think you'll probably get away with not paying them (who sends $12 to collections?), but ethically, you owe them. I don't know why it's worth it to you to be dishonest for $12.

    In any case, they didn't send it to you as a gift, they sent it to you in good faith based on your subscription to their service and your history of payments.

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    Featured Member Vamp's Avatar
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    Default Re: they sent me something. do I owe them anything?

    Companies that deal with those kinds of services will send it to collections. It is their only recourse really. They can't seize anything for payment.

    I had $50 show up as a collections once.

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