Ftyjtk

Last week I ordered 2 kits of impact drivers due to the unbelievably low price.

The product was discounted from 300EUR to 100, so I bought 2 of them. Next day I received an email from the company, that the given price was a mistake and that the order will be cancelled any my money was refunded.

But to my surprise, today I received the package that I have ordered, but my money was already refunded so I haven't paid for them but receive them. What should I do next? I ordered from the UK and it was shipped to Slovenia - both EU countries.

Contact the company and let them know you have received the product even though the cancellation was made.

Ask them if they want you to ship it back (this implies that they pay for shipping since it was their error).

You can also offer them to pay 200EUR per the original order to keep the merchandise.

Odds are that they will say "This was our mistake, please keep it as a token of our appreciation and as a Christmas present."

You can choose to not say anything and just keep the item but it's morally wrong even though the company will probably not seek restitution.

I doubt its worth the company's time to try to get anything from you forcibly(through legal means or otherwise) after they messed up as described here.

That being said, you did end up with items you 're not entitled to by their mistake.
I still think the honorable thing to do would be to contact them to let them know as a gesture of good will and work an outcome that satisfies you both.

There are a few different angles to this.

Firstly, morally and legally you certainly should inform the company of the situation and offer to pay the 200EUR you ordered the two items at.

The question then is what happens if they instead demand the return of the items. Here things become more of a grey area.

On the legal side, companies who want to rescind mistaken prices they advertised will generally claim that a contract to buy the item at the low price hasn't yet been formed, either because of the exact sequence of legal events or because the price was an obvious mistake. A discount of 300EUR to 100EUR, particularly in a commercial environment where discounting is commonplace, doesn't seem that extreme to me, though you yourself described it as "unbelieveable". Overall you may well have some room to argue that a valid contract was formed and you are entitled to keep the items but pay the 200EUR.

On the practical side, you have possession in your favour, along with the fact that at a minimum the company will lose out on two sets of international shipping costs if they do get the items returned. If they do want to pursue you legally they'd have to do it in the Slovenian courts. So if you do feel you have a valid case to keep them, you can probably just stand your ground.

You did nothing wrong. The seller made two gross mistakes: Offering a product for €100 instead of €300, and shipping the product after refunding your money.

If you have a bad conscience about benefitting from their double error, you can contact them and offer to pay the €200, or allow them to pick up the product. The result will be equally likely that they say "yes, please pay €200" or that they will say "our mistake, keep the product".

For financial reasons, they will not try to get the product back, because that will most likely produce so much work, it's not worth it. Why would they say "keep the product"? Because that hides the fact that someone made a big mistake (and that someone might not want their boss to know), and quite likely the company has no process in place to handle such an unusual request.

If you have no bad conscience, you can keep the product - it is most unlikely that they will do anything about it, and most unlikely if they do something that they can get more than your €200 which you were willing to pay anyway.

TLDR: when they canceled your order, it's only fair to assume you bought other tools because you needed to finish your project. They can't expect you to buy the units now. They should know you have them. Give them only a perfunctory call to notify them that you did receive them. Don't press them to do anything - if they care, let them tell you.

They should know. Don't expect them to want it back

Any competent company has internal controls i.e. "Paperwork". They know shipping recorded the ship, and they got billed for shipping a package of X grams to you. They know inventory is light the 2 drills, and the serial numbers are no longer in the warehouse. It's in the system. But companies recognize, especially in the busy season, errors happen and it's better to eat the errors than slow everything down with better error-checking.

you have committed no deception. It's a mistake, it's their mistake, and it places no active duty on you. I advise telling them (what they already know) only because you have morals. Companies do not, they have bottom lines.

Not every return is worth the company's time. It's routine for Amazon, for instance, to just say "keep it" because the residual value to Amazon is not worth the cost of shipping. And they're not even the manufacturer! Manufacturers have vastly more margin, becuase the bulk of their costs are fixed and the cost of +2 items is negligible.

The strange economics of small Chinese-made stuff

They have to compare, in aggregate:

• the residual value (after the costs of getting it back through the returns system, inspecting/certifying it as good, etc.) and it will be post-consumer, so they cannot sell it as new product and is certainly not worth €100


• the costs of dealing with you (#1, the human cost of outreaching to you), as well as the cost of shipping since this is their fault.


• 
  versus the cost of simply telling the Chinese manufacturer to throw 2 more into the next container, forgetting about yours and moving on.

These days, 90% of the product cost is in marketing, design and setting up the Chinese factory relationship in the first place. All fixed costs -- once that is in place, the incremental cost of making one more is very small. Don't be shocked if this thing costs $8 to make.

This crazy economics changes everything in returns. What's the company going to do with a returned one? They can't sell it as new. They can sell it as "refurbished" but that means paying QA to refurbish, only to get less money for it. Refurbishing isn't worth it because it would be more expensive than just manufacturing another one. So they would smash them, but that too costs staff/money! So don't even bother with the shipping: have the consumer toss the bad one out. (Or do as he pleases). The post-consumer tool has no residual value.

So from the company's perspective, the easiest way to get 2 more products to sell is to increment their next order by 2 - spend €16 and get definitely new, good, first tier sellable product they can get a full €200 for.

In this example, chasing you (and everyone else in this situation) for this product would be bad business, a waste of resources and a self-destructive total net lose for the company.

Don‘t interfere with their economic choice

You need to contact them, because that's "right". But here's the thing: recognize that it may be bad business for them to want the items back. So don't insist or press them for a return, let them drop the matter.

Ever do a nice thing for a person, and you really don't mind but they're awkwardly forcing some sort of recompense upon you that is not called for and that makes you uncomfortable? That. Don't do that to them. Their morals are their morals, and are not yours.

Once you've told them, give it a week and then go ahead and use them. I would not sell, give away, wear out or destroy them for at least a year. Just in case.