This is really messed up, and I sympathize with her situation, but this is not torture. Words matter. I’d call this harassment, fraud, or malicious company behavior, but not torture. Doesn’t mean it’s right, and the company/seller should absolutely be held responsible.
I looked at it again and it reads “tortured“ woman. I think this is an older usage that most people now aren’t used to seeing. What this means is tortured, is not ‘being tortured’, it’s used as an adjective not a verb. So what I remember from a long time ago was the phrase “she/he had a tortured look on their face”. It doesn’t mean literal torture in the Abu Ghraib sense. BUT, I’m still gonna go with: click bait!
It’s hyperbole. You’ve never been very hungry and said “I’m starving” or been out in very hot weather for a while and said “I’m dying out here”? I’m pretty sure the average reader is able to figure out from context she has not actually been abducted to a black site and waterboarded.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A Canadian woman, Anca Nitu, told CBC that over the past two months, more than 50 packages have arrived at her home.
Nitu said she has lost sleep trying to make the packages stop coming, and so far she’s accrued Collect-On-Delivery customs charges from UPS that now exceed $300.
Ars could not reach Nitu for comment, but she told CBC that neither UPS nor Amazon has helped her dispute the charges or correct the issue.
Ars could not immediately reach either company for comment, but a UPS spokesperson told CBC that it’s investigating the complaint.
An Amazon spokesperson told CBC that “the case in question has been addressed, and corrective action is being taken to stop the packages.”
At one point, she contacted police, who advised her to open the packages, then dispose of them, CBC reported.
I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Amazon isn’t the one responsible for this action; rather, it’s the sellers who are altering the return address of their products to evade return fees. Opting for a random address is a more cost-effective choice for them. Amazon can stop it.
So it’s not Amazon’s responsibility to confirm the address of companies they allow to sell products on their site? I think that’s at least partially in Amazon’s domain, they can at least confirm addresses and where sellers are shipping products from compared to their return labels. It may be cost effective but if the seller doesn’t expect their shoes back why even bother? Oh cause then customers would take advantage… yeah can’t have that.
The responsibility lies with Amazon, although it’s probable that sellers manipulated the automated-system, a tactic they frequently employ.
Morally yes in the sense that they can do shit about it and bloody should, legally I think the ball is in the court of delivery companies, though. Providing fake return addresses is not something they should let senders get away with, least of all commercial ones. Write contractual damages into the delivery contract, hook legal up to the data feed, done.
Deny the ones with customs charges. Keep, donate or sell the rest of it. For $300 I’d be happy to donate decent stuff to local shelters though.
How can she be charged for parcels she did not actually accept? Or is the law quite different over there? As in, how would she be charged, there’s no signature of her to agree to pay, say, customs. As she never signed for the parcel.
The law says you are right. UPS ignores this and sends the invoice anyway with some added bullying to pay the outstanding amount. As long as somebody pays and they don’t get a letter from a lawyer or they get sued for littering nothing happens.
She likely can’t be compelled to pay for the packages. If they are COD it’s up to the shipper to get the Cash on Delivery and they are failing in that. Still a big annoyance I’m sure.
She probably has her credit card info on Amazon and the seller got it and has been automatically charging her. It’s harder and takes longer to get charges reversed than to just not respond to a bill in the mail
Oh I see they’re abandoning the packages. So what’s she had to pay then? I guess I don’t understand was she sent to collections? The whole point of CoD is the carrier has package as collateral so…?
Even still if ups refused to resolve the issue I’d let them sue me and get it thrown out in time.
UPS is being UPS here.
They’re abandoning packages, then sending her a bill for COD as if she accepted the package but didn’t pay.
The fact that if she digs in and fights it she can eventually dispute each charge is somewhat separate from UPS and their collections contractors harassing her about the ‘debt’, or the new packages that keep showing up.
They cannot charge you for something you didn’t order. Take the credit card off the account and chargeback previous charges. Anything they send you without your permission is free.
why is Collect-On-Delivery even allowed? It should be a gamble for the shipper. The person being delivered to can pay if they want. If not then they should not send Collect-On-Delivery stuff to them.
Well even if it is collect-on-delivery, the woman is clearly not actually taking a delivery. So there ought to be nothing to collect and the parcel goes back to the sender. The whole article ultimately comes down to some shady dealers (not Amazon) sending a woman stuff, and USPS (not Amazon) being assholes and trying to strongarm her into paying because they don’t want to take the parcels back despite her legally not accepting them.
As far as Amazon goes they are assholes, but mainly for not verifying that the return address sellers use is actually valid, but I also wonder to what degree they can know. I guess they could require a business contact at that address to verify that yes, this is indeed the return address for parcels by company XYZ?
