https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/13/23165663/sonos-extra-speakers-shipped-charged-customers
For some reason the Verge thought this was news so what the hell I'll post it here.
Posted Jun 13, 2022, 8:05 PM UTC
It's a big deal because it is a crime to do that. You can't give someone a gift and then charge them. If you accidentally ship something to someone, it is legally a gift. I hope anyone who gets charged does a chargeback, which will cost Sonos dearly per transaction.
I think I was one of the customers who pre-ordered a Ray and didnt get one cause of the overshipping to others :( My order status is still "Preparing to Ship" since June 2. #WishIHadThatProblem lol
Edit: words
Under most circumstances Unsolicited products are not required to be returned. Furthermore companies which charge people for unsolicited products can be fined over $1000 per day for failure to return monies collected for unsolicited products. Improper fulfilment of an order (sending more product than ordered) constitutes unsolicited product. Consumers are under no obligation to return unsolicited goods. These laws were set in place to prevent fraudulent sales by disreputable companies. From the looks of it Sonos made a mistake and then tried to get the customers to pay for it. YMMV
Wow why not offer a little discount off the original order?
It is news because they charged people thousands of dollars on credit cards for unordered products and are not promising refunds for weeks.
Damn, for them being a fairly recent rising company, you would think they would treat their customers to at the very least a coupon code for the hassle alone. Some of us have barely time for ourselves during the week and this would really upset me..
stuff like this really makes me go to their competitors for future purchases
This is against the law in australia.
Referred to as unsolicited goods. You can’t send additional goods to a customer that they didn’t order and then bill them for it.
The company needs to come collect the goods at no cost or nuisance to you. If you get sent in solicited goods and they don’t realise for 4 months the goods then become yours.
The company needs to come collect the goods at no cost or nuisance to you.
Sonos are shipping labels to everyone affected, giving them a phone number or email address to contact to advise on the best day for collection and are paying for the courier to pick it up directly from the house. They also appear to be issuing a refund before they’ve received the goods back.
I’m no expert on Australian law, but that doesn’t sound too unreasonable to me.
I didn’t say they were being unreasonable. I was just stating what the law is.
I submitted an order on 6/5 and it’s been preparing to ship for a week. I did get 3 emails with the exact same order info and I see 3 instances of the order when checking my account.
Here's something I wonder. Let's say someone did decide to treat theses as unsolicited goods and kept them. Could Sonos block those serial numbers which would essentially brick them? Seems to me like they could as I know of no law that would force a company to provide service to a customer in such a situation.
Judging by how disorganized they are, they haven’t communicated very well or sent refunds yet, they probably won’t be able to figure that out
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there's nothing too unreasonable here, but they should really do a customer goodwill gesture like a future discount code.
Just saying "we screwed up, send our stuff back" is kind of lame.
Legally they also can't ship you things and charge you for it. They're out of luck if someone does a chargeback.
I think that they are refunding the cost and sending out the return labels. If the recipient refuses to return them, Sonos can't charge them. But Sonos has shown with the first iteration of the "upgrade" program that they can remotely and permanently brick units, so they may brick whatever is not returned and not paid for. Sonos is also legally allowed to refuse further business with the recipients who refuse to return the times, which would also allow Sonos to ban the recipient from having a Sonos accounts... That has happened with other services and devices that have an always online component, such as Google Fi and google accounts. The online component of the account can be disabled, and whatever fully local functions continue to work.
They can't ban a person individually from using the product (including the online portion) if that person has completely followed the law to a T. They can certainly try but legally they are not allowed to. But yes they can just brick them product.
Unfortunately they can... There is nothing in the law that requires any IoT company to do business with anyone regardless of if anyone broke the law or not.
Google is notorious for shutting down google accounts when there is some hardware payment / trade in / purchase dispute with Google Fi, even if the buyer followed the law.
Though I doubt Sonos would disable anyone's account over this, they are legally allowed to do so.
I’m one of those affected. I have no problem sending it back but when I called they told me I wouldn’t receive a refund until I sent it back. I’m definitely going to get dinged interest if it’s receipt plus 10 days for a refund. Pretty annoying tbh
https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/
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