Amazon Sent Me a $339 Item I Didn’t Order…What Happened Next is Crazy
Have you ever had something show up at your door from Amazon.com, or another site, that you didn’t order? If you have, it can be a bit of head-scratcher. This happened to me last week when we received an item that Amazon sells for a whooping $339.
I knew I couldn’t just keep it without contacting Amazon first as I figured someone had paid for it and was wondering when it would be showing at their front door. Here is how the whole thing went down and what Amazon told me to do with the expensive item…
Huge Box Shows Up at My Door
So last week, a big ol’ Amazon box shows up at our front door and my son tears it open thinking it’s his new school backpack.
To his surprise, and disappointment, the box contained a VERY expensive BIG brown comforter set for a full-sized bed.
We all scratched our heads and tried to figure out if my wife ordered it, or maybe it was a gift from someone?
We don’t have a full-sized bed in our home so we were quite perplexed. Once my wife got home, she was equally confused and had no idea why it showed up.
See Also: 6 Brilliantly Slick Ways to Get Amazon Prime for Free
Amazon Has No Record of the Order
So I took to the inter-webs and logged into our Amazon account to see if there was any record of the comforter set. Nada.
So I hit up Amazon live chat and explained the situation to the operator.
The only record of the order I had was the UPS sticker on the front of the box as it showed up without a packing slip.
After snapping a pic of the label and getting it to the Amazon rep, she could not find any record of the order anywhere in their system.
What Amazon Told Me To Do
“Keep it.”
Yes, Amazon told me to keep the $339 comforter set.
Since they had no record of the order, and thus couldn’t create a return label so I could return it, they simply told me it was mine.
But I was like, “I didn’t pay for it” and they were like, “Nothing for you to worry about, I will going to leave a note on your account” in case someone claims the bedding set at which point they’ll offer a refund or replacement.
I figured they’d thank me for my honesty and politely ask me to return it.
I guess that’s more of a pain-in-the-ass for them than it’s worth.
I wonder at what price point they’d ask me to return the item? $500, maybe $1,000? Anyone know?
The most amazing part of this whole dealio? A quick Amazon search shows this comforter set is being sold for $339. I guess I’ll put it up for sale on eBay unless you know someone who may be interested?
I plan to donate the money earned from the sale to charity.
Below is the transcript of my chat session with Amazon and details how the whole thing went down…
(Update 1/11/20) – According to this LifeHacker article, scammers could be sending you stuff you didn’t order as a way to steal Amazon boxes from your porch once they get delivered.
Apparently they use your old credit cards on your Amazon account to make it happen then swipe the stuff before you get home from work or brazenly take them while you’re home.
This could be worth a look if you think your account has been hacked recently.
See Also: Did Your Amazon Account Get Hacked? 6 Things To Do Immediately
Ask the Reader: Have you ever had a package show up at your front door that you didn’t order? How did you handle it, and if you contacted the company, what was their response?
By Kyle James
I started Rather-Be-Shopping.com in 2000 and have become a consumer expert and advocate writing about out-of-the-box ways to save at stores like Amazon, Walmart, Target and Costco to name a few. I’ve been featured on FOX News, Good Morning America, and the NY Times talking about my savings tips. (Learn more)
I have an amazon package due to arrive today in the mail…but didnt order anything….nothing in my orders or anything…no gifts being sent…that i know of….and no idea what the heck its going to be!
I was sent a fifth gen iPod with the largest FB available. It was a godsend. There was no shipping no receipt no nothing. I had ordered a $17 case of canned chili and it hadn’t showed up. It was not marked as delivered. They sent my chili and I got to keep the iPod. There were so many severe reasons I needed it. I have low vision and wasn’t able to see my surroundings or screen I was stuck in a hotel in Jersey during hurricane Sandy. Yes it came to me at a hotel. I was marooned and had filled up the hard drive ignored my other device and I needed to continue working on a video and writing project in order to survive. I will never forget that moment. I thought it was a phone case at first. Amazon angels.
Wow, ordered a case of chili and ended up with a free iPod…crazy.
i do a lot of online purchase but i keep tracking of all transaction on my paypal and credit card. 2 weeks ago i received a 150$ heavy duty good quality inflatable unicorn shipped with first class expedited 2day shipping.. no packing slip, and the address was a forwarding company.. so useless.
today i received a bunch of hdmi cable , with expedited 2-3 day shipping , no packingslip, address is a business tower that rent to various business type,
these 2 parcel came addressed to my name and address, no transaction were made my postal service cant trace them. i posted on facebook and gave them to people needed it the most for free since nobody claimed it
Man oh man…
Starting last month, I had all of these problems that you guys are commenting about.
Instead of a camera that was ordered off of my linked card, it was a watch. I have yet to receive my refund and I keep getting items that I didn’t order, nor do they show up in my order history. Heres the crazy thing, I’m not getting charged for these items (aside from the watch) AND items that ive ordered in the past (that I’m currently using), I’m starting to get refunds for them when I didn’t ask for refunds. And they are going onto an Amazon gift card that is linked to my account that I cant remove.
So suffice to say, this is extremely confusing. Aside from the refund for the watch taking forever, I’m not not out any money for the items but I still feel violated/stalked. (poor choice of words I’m sure)
Anyone else having these problems?
I am not sure if it’s generated from Amazon or not, I just assumed as I buy almost weekly on there, but the past six months, almost weekly a package comes and it’s usually weird things, a couple I could use but most are just weird. A bath tub mat, plastic straws with a straw cleaner, a cellphone case for a cellphone I don’t own, tempered glass for a Kindle I don’t own, 2 Medium swimsuits on two different days (I’m a large), 2 different Fitbit watch bands on two different days for specific off-brands and I don’t own one, a large printer cartridge not for my printer, a package of sticks for crafting, a fidget spinner, a hikers sleeping bag, a set of elbow-length black ladies gloves like you’d wear to a ball (I’m saving those for Halloween) a cell phone case that actually did fit my phone, bicycle tire reflectors, a beard trim measurer (I’m a girl) , a set of artist paintbrushes, and the list goes on and on. I have absolutely no idea but it’s kind of fun now to open the package and see how weird it will be this time. There’s never been anything else in the package and if there even is a return address, it’s never the same place, sometimes China, and the address doesn’t give me any clue. The envelopes are usually those yellow padded ones and have never said eBay or Amazon on them, or any company for that matter. I’d guess if they wanted me to “test” their product and give a rating they’d include a link to it or put some type of note in the package, but never, never a clue. I’ve gotten probably 30 things now. Since I buy so much on Amazon, I have to assume it’s generated from there but I’m never charged. Oh and lately it will be addressed to me with the first name of Jeff, or Lucy above my name. I live alone and have lived here 19 years so beats me what’s going on but oh well, it’s kind of fun!
Very bizarre. My 13-year old son received two such a generous package which he thought were his prizes from a techie youtuber’s online giveaway. No packing slip on one, and the 2nd one which we did not open had shipping info that Amazon could not trace. My son did not order (his Amazon activity and gift card balance confirms this) and no one in the family ordered it. The online giveaway site requested for his name, home address, email, and gender; no payment info. We did not know that he entered such contest at that time, only when he received the 1st package, which he thought contained his cool prizes.
HOWEVER, just found out a couple of days later that there were more than a couple of unauthorized and expensive Amazon charges on my credit card account. The CC was linked to my Amazon acct (but not on my son’s; he does not have access to or know how to use credit cards or even checks ). And his name/address is not linked to my address book. My son is very creep-ed out especially now that a 2nd pkg with unknown contents arrived again addressed to him. We are waiting for Amazon to get back to us on how to return those packages.
In checking my son’s Amazon account activity, there was nothing in his order history that indicated that he ordered those pkgs. However, his last legit purchase around 2 weeks ago that was worth around $23 was not posted in his order history. He received the order, no issues there, and his Amazon gift card balance confirmed the recent $23 purchase. But no order history nor email notification from that transaction.
I received an item from Walmart.com that I did not order. Next day I found someone pulled about $2000 from my checking account. Watch out because someone has your information if your getting stuff you didn’t order.
In the past four months I’ve had three things come from Amazon that I didn’t order with no other info coming with them. No one else in the family admitted to ordering them. The first was a negligee sort of thing that’s a one size fits all back in April (hubby thought I had a secret admirer LOL), the second was a bicycle mount for an electronic device that came in June (son put that to use!), and yesterday I got a grill mat.
This morning I decided to call Amazon and see if they could give me a clue where these items came from. I gave the guy the tracking information from the package from yesterday, and this is where it got weird. He said it was from me. I said no way.
He asked if I had another Amazon account, to which I said no, asked if I had another other email addresses (hah! doesn’t everyone?), and said there was another Amazon account with my name, address, email address beginning with the letter “x” (not one of my many email addresses). There was no phone number with the account. Said account does not have any of my credit cards on it, was created in June of 2016, and has made 18 purchases, all from gift cards, that have been sent to various addresses in the US, which included four to me, the first one was from last June – a make-up tote bag I don’t remember.
I asked CS how I could go about getting this account deleted and was told it couldn’t be done. He eventually sent me to a supervisor who gave me the same run around, but said the two step-authentication I already have enabled is the best thing I could do, as not even CS can access my account without a code I give them.
If some strange person is going to use my name and send me things, can’t they at least send me something I’ll use?!?!
Ok, I wondered if I was the only one this was happening too and nope, that’s not the case.
Two weeks ago I received a package from Amazon addressed to me, which is a common occurrence as I frequent Amazon. When I opened it, it was a mustard yellow shower curtain that I didn’t order. No packing slip inside. I immediately thought that someone I know must have selected the wrong ship to address. I queried my sisters and both said no, but thought it was hilarious. I phone Amazon customer service and was told due to privacy they cannot share with me who sent the item and suggested it may be a gift and to keep it. haha….I have glass shower doors, can’t even make use of this item.
I threw the package in the spare bedroom and didn’t really think about it again. Then Two days ago another package arrives, again I get weekly if not daily packages so I assumed it was something I ordered. Nope…this time a fancy HDMI cable, same scenario no packing slip, shipped from an Amazon affiliate. Once again, I phone my sisters and call them out “really you guys aren’t messing with me?” both deny knowing anything about it and this time and let me know how funny they think it is and that if it were them they would send me something that I would find funny.
Another phone call to Amazon, this time the CS rep is willing to research the packages with the shippers tracking numbers to locate the accounts they came from. He finds them and tells me the orders were placed on two different accounts and they only have my name and address as the shipping information. Additionally the accounts are incomplete and have different names on them. He verifies my credit card information is not on either of the accounts but is not able to remove my information from them. He said he will escalate the issue to be investigated and again states I can keep the items.
So weird, I asked if this could be someone testing a stolen credit card and he said he wasn’t sure but wouldn’t think they’d ship it to my address, that they’d ship it to themselves.
One of my friends suggested the stolen credit card idea as well, but put a spin on it and said what If they are camping out in your neighborhood waiting for packages to be delivered…WHAT?? that is scary, I certainly hope that isn’t the case. They picked the wrong house if they are hoping to snag packages left on the porch, I get so many packages that I am always checking and I work from home a good majority of the time and haven’t ever had a package stolen from the door.
we just received 2 packages from Amazon we didn’t order (or need) smartphone screens. One sent to my husband, one to me. Both from the Kentucky distribution center. When I went to the post office to send it back, they had DOZENS of such packages with “bad addresses” (ours just has our street name, but we are a small town, so everyone know us.) from the same place. Sounds like Amazon might has some ticked off employees that are just randomly shipping stuff everywhere – basically internal theft as revenge?? We called Amazon – they said keep it. Again no trace of the order in our Amazon account. no shipping slips or return labels, nothing deducted from our bank cards.
Toys r us if you order more then certian amount of stuff is known for throwing in gift item. It doesn’t make sense the gift item ever.k think I ordered some Shopkins stuff I’m over it and they sent me boom co sticks few years ago. Small pack with mat. But unlike Amazon they typically write gift on receipt mine just said boom co. I don’t even look at those kind of items. I’ve heard other stories like that. There’s no hard and fast rule but they are known to do stuff like that at toys r us as premotion for brands. It’s weird when Amazon sends stuff and usually most of it to much effort to take back.
I’m going through this right now. Except that the address was right but the name on the box is not. Happened about 4 times And each time I chat with the Amazon people and they told me to keep it. You’re right, something is going on. Caveat: I’m not getting expensive items, just crap
We just received a box too addressed to our house, but completely random name. Talked to amazon, could not find who ordered it so they told us to keep it. Opened box to find a smaller box for sports in-ear headphones. However, upon opening that box, found just a bunch of white posterboard squares filling the box and no headphones. Soooo odd. No packing slip either. Also from Kentucky center.
I ordered a car jack for $160 on Amazon, and instead they sent me a $1500 gaming computer! I contacted them and they told me to keep it, and that my jack would arrive the next day (today)! Awesome company!
The same happened with me once, ordered an NVidia GPU but instead got a WD Passport; I had just got some extra external storage just a week before that so there really was know use for it even.
After telling Amazon about the issue they sent me my GPU within a week but no pickup was initiated. On letting them know that I have the wrongly delivered item with all of its packaging intact they said I got a very delayed response from them saying that a pickup is initiated, got no notification however, a week after was told that the order could not be identified and cannot be picked up. Around a couple of months after that got a mail from them regarding the same, no response yet again, asked them if I should drop it off somewhere but got know response for a while followed by an apology regarding the inconvenience and a statement that the order was not trackable and that they will not be able to pick it up.
Happened to me a long time ago. I ordered some books. The box contained all the books I had ordered, but also an additional book which I hadn’t ordered. Amazon told me to keep the book. I suppose that return shipping across the Atlantic Ocean would have cost Amazon more than getting a new copy of the book from the publisher.
About four weeks ago we started getting a couple of packages a week with random cheap Chinese goods in them. Completely random stuff, headphones, bathroom scale, pajamas, some pillows, exercise bands, infrared thermometer, alarm clocks, it just keeps coming.
I tried three times to report this to Amazon but they refuse to give me a case number or anything to indicate they have any way to track the issue. Sometimes the packages have my name, sometimes someone named “Nick Tovar”. Sometimes there’s an apartment number (we live in a single family house).
I have some theories as to what is going on, mostly having to do with their internal database being corrupted, but they seem to be unwilling or unable to deal with this issue.
We are keeping a pile of crap to donate to charity, except the pillows we can use, an they sent a nice milk-frother. And some cheap kitchen shears. There seems to be no way to stop the Amazon machine.
That is soooo crazy. Does the stuff get delivered to your home even when it has a different address on the box?
I’m so glad I’m not the only one this is happening to. Everyday for the past week I’ve recieved a package from Amazon. All addressed to me with no slip or return label. After the third package arrived (it was a breast pump and I’m not pregnant) I called CS and talked to a very nice man who told me that the packages were all sent from a fulfillment center in Kentucky. Nothing has been charged on my cards and there’s nothing in my order history of these purchases. He told me to keep or donate the items. Very confused because he seemed like it wasn’t a big deal and said it would be “investigated”. 4 days later and 4 more packages of the most random stuff! I’ve recieved a bottle of vitamin c facial serum, 2 phone cases for phones I don’t have, a breast pump, yoga pants that are too big, dog treats, a Christmas coffee mug, and today a 5 in 1 beauty brush from China that I have no idea what it is or how it works. I emailed CS and I’m waiting to hear back. I really don’t want any of it and will donate it but I’m getting tired of all the stuff being delivered. Does anyone that kept receiving items know how to resolve this?
I had the exact same thing happen to me. I received an item from Amazon that I did not order and was told to keep it, give it away, dispose of it, or donate it. The item cost $350.00.
We just received a cheap knock-off cell phone on our doorstep this past weekend. My wife called Amazon CS and they told her it was purchased with a gift card. Our concern is that someone has her name, address, and phone number (these were all on the shipping label.) Not sure if this is some social engineering effort or ID theft scheme.