All knowing board...
Got a voicemail this afternoon from DHL regarding a shipment coming out of Heathrow to Dulles, arriving at my residence tomorrow or Wednesday. Looked the tracking number up on their website and it's a legit shipment headed my way. Neither my wife nor I have any idea what it could be, and there aren't any unexpected charges on our credit accounts.
Has this ever happened to you? I'm rather leery (unless it's a cute 25 year old female housekeeper, which I guess would be OK).
Don't know if International shipping is different than domestic when it comes to obligations and fraud.
If you are not expecting anything I'd advise to refuse shipment if you are home when it is delivered. You can see who the sender is to make sure it is not something you might otherwise accept, but the chances of that are slim to none.
We have had two experiences with receiving merchandise that was not ordered (both domestic).
If it is merchandise, you will see an invoice. You might not hear from anyone until one day a collection letter arrives from a collection agency putting you on notice for the amount owed plus collection charges. As noted, I don't know if International is different than domestic. In one case of the two we had, one was a company reachable by phone. You are not under any obligation to pay for merchandise shipped to you that you did not order, nor do you have to pay for return freight. We demanded they provide to us a prepaid shipping label that all we had to do was slap on the box and have picked up.
In the second case, it involved something ordered on-line as a sample. The sample showed up but so did an item that was not ordered. It was a small item, hand crème. There was no invoice received in the shipment. It was in this case that we then received a collection letter. The letter indicated that we were only to deal with the collection agency as it had been turned over to them. Included was a copy of the invoice. The small item was a very high priced one, as one might have guessed. (I researched this on-line before doing anything and found out it was a scam, the on-line company and collection agency while in different parts of the US were suggested as related, and others had been frustrated with trying to make it go away.)
I wrote a letter, as there was no number to call the collection company, indicating that we did not order it (fortunately we had our original order support), and I demanded that I receive a prepaid mailer to return the item. I received a subsequent letter that apologized and said to do nothing more, the matter was closed.
Don't be intimidated, but unfortunately if you do not refuse the item when it is delivered, you may get pulled into it. Since you have the tracking number, be sure to go on-line after refusing it and print yourself a copy when the refusal is posted just in case.
