Now the first thing I ought to say is that I would never pay for urgent or express shipping, you know. I'm just not in that much of a hurry now that I'm retired. And I live, as they say, on a fixed income. The second thing I want to say is that I'm not making this up.
The only thing I've ordered recently that would have fit into the box the delivery guy handed me is a book — Jean-Pierre Coffe's 2015 autobiography called Une Vie de Coffe. I couldn't believe a book vendor would send me anything express, because I hadn't paid extra for delivery. I expect to receive the book on Monday or Tuesday.
When I got back into the house and opened the box, I was assuming it was a delivery from Amazon. Above you can see what I saw when I opened the package. What I saw didn't look like the cover of the book I had ordered. Then a look at the packing slip showed me that the package had not been sent by Amazon.fr at all.
I called the seller of the iPhone and talked to two different support or customer service representatives. They told me they could see that I hadn't paid for the phone with my own bank card, and they said somebody had apparently hacked into my account with the company and placed the order. Whoever paid for it botched the delivery address, I guess.
One of the reps said I would receive an e-mail in just a few minutes authorizing the return of the merchandise and including the pre-paid mailing labels and everything else I'd need when I took the package to the bureau de poste. As of this morning, there is still no e-mail from the seller. Also, there's no sign of any suspicious activity on any of our bank accounts in France or in the U.S. It's still a mystery.
A few minutes ago, I spent some time looking at the seller's web site. In tiny print at the bottom of a page, I found a link to a form I can fill out and send back requesting a return of merchandise authorization. I'll try doing that this morning and see if I can get noticed by somebody there. The company is in the Lyon area, I believe.
Bizarre, and unsettling. A scam of some sort or a gremlin in the vendor's software I would guess. I can't work out what a scammer would get from it unless they attempt to extract cash from you in exchange for the phone (after having used a stolen credit card to purchase it in the first place) or something like that. Seems way too convoluted to bother with on the scammers part.
ReplyDeleteI tend to agree with you. I think it might just be a gremlin in the seller's web site.
DeleteI agree with Susan that this is more a malfunction of the I-phone seller's software that was probably sending out shipment order without a paid purchase from the customers. Or it could be a shipment was initiated by the bugged software to the wrong account due to its mis-linking of an identifier that is attached to that account in the software's database. Or it was human logical error that incurred the shipping department personnel that processed that shipping order. There can be many other reasons for this. As a management consultant, I had seen numerous incidents like this in my clients' businesses. From what I am seeing, it's unlikely that it's a scam triggered by hacking of your account, simply because nothing was charged to your credit card for this purchase. It's mostly due to a bug in the seller's computer system.
ReplyDeleteProbably all that. No definitive answer yet though.
DeleteI can see immediately that it isn't from Amazon...they've used four times as much paper to stuff the box with!!
ReplyDeleteAll our latest Amazon.fr purchases...or ones ordered in the UK but sent from their French depot have had a couple of sheets of what looks like the old Izal bog roll!!!
Good luck with trying to return it... If you can't, tuck it away carefully and wait until the person who did buy it contacts the vendor...they'll send you the necessary forms toot-sweet after that!! They know you've got it...you have tried to return it...wait for them to act.
And they need to sort their sales software...
I've put a summary of the rainfalls up on yesterday's post...2012, 13, 14 and 15....
All I'll say is... It's been wet!!
From what I've read, best to send them an email so that you have something in writing. Phone calls aren't enough.
DeleteIt really is an odd mystery.
ReplyDeleteOnce, about 10 years ago, I received a phone call that I could barely understand...because the caller was Asian, and could barely speak English. All I could make out, was what seemed like, "You get package, you send back!" I had no idea what he was talking about.
A little while later, I got a call from my credit card company, about suspicious activity on my card. Someone had used it to buy a laptop (from an Asian company) (and also to set up an account on one of those dating sites LOL). I don't think a laptop ever did arrive at my house, but the sale was cancelled, and I got a new card. It was kind of a funny event-- since I wasn't held responsible for the purchases :)
The last purchase I made on the company-in-question's site was one I charged to a U.S Visa card that I still have. I keep checking that account on line for anything suspicious. So far so good. Same goes for French accounts. Still nothing from the vendor about the RMA.
ReplyDeletemy favourite cell phone
ReplyDeleteHere is another scenario that occurred to me. Could it be that someone you know sent you a gift from that vendor at some time in the past? The person perhaps ordered the phone him- or herself but clicked on the wrong address on the Ship To page and then did not pay attention on the Confirm Order page before clicking Place Order. I almost did this once when I ordered something from Amazon. The first address was not my address. I caught it just before I hit Place Order.
ReplyDeleteI almost did that the other day. I was ordering something from Germany and I came this close to sending it to my mother's address in Morehead City rather than having it sent to my address in France. I don't know if that could have happened in the case of the mysterious iPhone. The seller says somebody ordered it from inside my account on the company's site.
DeleteThe Amazon site is very corrupt in the scam area, everytime we order something we get emails to say they cannot process our card and to follow a link to update our card details, we never do as we know the card is ok
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting. I've never had any trouble ordering from Amazon in France, whether paying with a card issued by a U.S. bank or by a French bank. Are you trying to order from amazon.fr or from amazon.co.uk?
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