Question:
If I receive furniture I have not ordered or paid for, do I need to return it?
Answer:
By law, recipients of unordered merchandise may keep the goods and are under no obligation to pay for or return them.
You may treat the merchandise as an unconditional gift — and can use or dispose of the furniture any way you want. You may also refuse to accept delivery.
Here is a true story about a furniture delivery error.
My wife and I were shopping for a wood porch swing. We picked out and paid for one made by a small Arizona manufacturer..
After making the payment we mentioned to the salesperson that we were also interested in looking at futon sofa beds although we weren’t quite ready to purchase yet.
Shortly afterward the salesperson was called away to deal with another customer and she handed us an order sheet and said to make notes about anything that we wanted more information about.
We made some notes and handed them to the receptionist on our way out the door.
Three months later a huge tractor-trailer pulls up to our little log cabin in West Virginia with two large boxes from the Arizona company.
Upon opening the first box we saw at least three dozen different wooden parts and assorted hardware. There were no markings on the outside of the box and no instructions inside.
My wife and I assumed that this was our new porch swing, and we set about trying to understand how to assemble it.
The other box looked identical and there were so many parts in the first box that we figured they had accidentally sent us an extra swing.
After over three hours of attempting to assemble the pieces from the first box into a porch swing, we finally gave up for the night.
The next day another truck showed up with another box from the Arizona company. This box held our porch swing.
Only then did it dawn on us that the other two boxes held the frames for two futon beds (which we had not ordered or paid for.)
We called the Arizona company to explain the situation and ask what they wanted us to do with the futon beds. We were willing to return the furniture.
They said the cost of picking up the boxes and returning them to Arizona would be more than the cost of building new ones and said we would be doing them a favor to accept the futon sofas for free.
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