My book treated as rubbish

This is quite the point.


If the company didn't actually do anything wrong - what do they owe a
customer if that customer is mad?

Does being mad, regardless of the reason, entitle someone to anything
extra?


I ask because, for this case, we never really found out if the
customer gave them the correct address to begin with, or if the
customer attempted to contact them at all to get the book re-sent. So
we in all fairness cannot say the company did anything wrong at all.


And, I've seen other stories where a company *did* make a mistake and
the customer accepted it and left, only to later say they wanted
compensation because they thought about it and got madder afterwards.



So this also raises the question... is a company responsible for that
kind of anger either?


At what point is a customer's angry mood not their problem to fix?

Strictly from a legal standpoint (and I think Deb would back me on
this) a "reasonable person" would realize that their personal "issues"
are never the companies fault, nor are they legally compensable.

Can a company go ahead and soothe an upset customer by placating them?
Sure, but boy will that ever set precedent! Do they really want to
end up having to suck up to every honked off customer?

Bottom line is, it's NOT their problem. If she got it, they fulfilled
their obligation to her, they can tell the misdirected recipient to
eat the book for all they care! It's of no consequence to her.

I'd still like to know the circumstances of HOW the book ended up at
the wrong address in the first place.

I understand being very upset. However I find your accusations
towards them to be a bit steep.

Mainly because... they didn't just pull an address out of a hat to
send it to. They sent it to one of your previous addresses.

Although you want them to reimburse you and give you extra money for
gas, this is a case where you need to verify that you gave them the
correct address first.



I say this because... it happens sometimes. I once ordered something
from amazon and didn't really think before clicking through
everything. I ended up picking a previous address that was over 100
miles away.

And I didn't even know it until Mom called me to tell me my DVD had
arrived.



And of course as others have said, it may be easier for them to just
remake the book vs changing the shipping.

Maybe someone at shutterfly figured it might just be easier/cheaper to
remake the book and send it to your correct address, once you
contacted them?

Nice idea to make the book and take it to the reunion. Sorry about
your brother.

When you finished your order, why did you put in your old address for
shipping? If you used them before and had items shipped to your old
address, why didn't you update your address when 'checking out'?

Why is Shutterfly to blame for you shipping mistake?

Alright, I sell a lot online. Things like this have happened to me
before. The difference here is shutterfly is a big company and I am a
small one so I have a little bit more wiggle room.

First, they don't make up the address they ship too, somewhere along
the way, your old address was in there -- I don't know if this was a
credit card order or a paypal order but yes, your old address wasn't
changed somewhere.

Second, you never contacted shutterfly. How exactly were they to know
you did not get your order? Yes, you stated the person who got the
book called, but that doesn't mean that the person on the other end of
the phone took the invoice number and knew where it was supposed to go
- normally when people do not get their order they contact the seller
and they track it down or re-ship as needed. You didn't do that. You
just went and got your order and left shutterfly out of the loop. For
all you know at this point, they have re-shipped a book.

Third - it was a custom order - the bulk of what i do as well is
custom stuff, it is normally cheaper for me to remake the item and
reship from my address rather then me pay for the return of the item
and then reship. I would also have told the person to discard the
item. However, I WOULD have gotten enough information so I could
contact the original buyer and explain the delay, and most likely
offer a discount.

Like I said, I have had this happen once or twice over the years and i
know lots of other sellers this has happened too as well. You really
should have contacted shutterfly directly about the mix up and allowed
them to correct it. Most likely they would have rushed you out another
book at no expense - that is just about how ever other retailer
handles mix ups like this.

My first thought after reading this was that maybe you updated just
the billing address and accidentally left the shipping address the
same. I know that is something easy to do on certain websites. My
second thought was that of McJohn's, is it possible that the company
planned to investigate and simply send you a new book rather than have
the old one shipped back to them and then on to you. It makes sense
to me that a big company like Shutterfly would rather save themselves
the time, headache and expense.

Amazon did this to me as well. I asked them if they wanted me to mail
it back (at their expense of course) and they said no just keep it or
throw it away they would mail the customer a new copy to the correct
address.

sent to the wrong address (for whatever reason), and they don't want
to pay the postage to have it returned. a lot of companies would tell
the accidentally-wrong consignee the same thing: Toss it.
I hope you can see that it wasn't personal. I'd hate for anything to
happen to you over a simple mistake.

Jane D.,

While this could have been handled better one has to wonder how they
had your old address if you updated it at the time of the order.

The service to our nation by your brother is appreciated.

BillR.