AIBU? Mail order delivered to old address.

So, about a month ago I ordered a box of bits from a well-established mail order bike company who I have been using for 10+ years without issue.

I recently moved house so when I went to checkout I entered my new address, which then showed up highlighted on the order as the billing address. There was an option on the delivery page to “deliver to different address” which I didn’t select. I clicked through to the “review order” page, which again showed the correct address so I clicked confirm and paid. I didn’t look at the confirmation page but did check the confirmation email, which showed all the correct items but did not show an address.

Fast forward a couple of weeks and I haven’t received my stuff. I checked the tracking number and it shows as delivered. Perplexed, I logged back into the mail order company’s website and find that the delivery address has defaulted to my previous address, which is now a vacant property. The shipping method did not require a signature so I can only assume that the package was just left outside. Having had a bike and a car stolen from inside/outside that house, I feel confident the parcel will not still be waiting on the doorstep but I have no way to check.

I have gone through the website’s ordering process again, entering a new address and the same thing happens, it defaults delivery address to the last used address, ignoring the new one entered. This does show up on the “review” page, however the delivery address is listed below the (correct) billing address and, on my small screen, requires that you scroll down past the billing address to see it. On seeing the correct billing address I obviously hadn’t scrolled down far enough to notice the incorrect delivery address.

I’ve contacted the company and been told they “can accept no responsibility here”.

IMHO this is a fault with their ordering system and they should accept at least some responsibility. Who is right? Should I just suck it up?

Just showed this to my girlfriend who works in HQ support for a large retailer. Her response being that you should be refunded. Clearly there’s a glitch in their system which you reasonably can’t be liable for. She suggested going through the order process as described again to take screenshots as proof.

I’m going to say it’s your fault but would have been nice for the company to have helped you out. Presumably it’s not massively expensive or it would have been sent signed for?

After we moved I sent 4 big radiators to our previous flat in a similar incident. Luckily the new owner rejected the delivery.

Thanks for the input. 1-1 so far. Anyone else care to weigh in?

The order was about £80. It was a spend x amount and shipping is free deal, so the retailer chose the courier.

I’ve had an issue with a supplier we use at work. Their system constantly reset to our old address. Not a problem for us as we know the people well at are old address but no amount of resetting on the website would work. We had to call them in the end to get the issue sorted out. Remind the supplier that you have lost £80 and they have lost a 10 year loyal customer. Ask them if they think that’s a deal they want to take. And name them here, not to try to drive custom away but so others here don’t experience the same issue with the company.

Put a claim in on your credit card / PayPal. It is the retailers responsibility to show it has been delivered

Thanks avdave. I’ve made that point to the company and I’m waiting for a response. I didn’t want to name and, potentially, shame without giving them a good chance to resolve the issue first.

Woody, I did consider that option, and might still give it a go, but I think the retailer will refer to the courier’s tracking system which states the package was delivered. I have no reason to doubt that the package was delivered, it’s just a few hundred miles north of where it should have been!

I may be biased as I work in user experience so what happened here would be a complete howling fail in my line of work, but I’d want a replacement package sent out for that.

I’m pretty sure the company in question is adhering to the letter of the law if you had an opportunity (however obfuscated) to review the details before hitting the final button to commit to the transaction, but they’re totally failing to adhere to the letter of the more fundamental law “don’t be a dick”.

The correct customer service response is “we’re very sorry; you’ve alerted us to a flaw in our system which we’ll now fix, please confirm your new addrsss and we’ll send your order out again” and you find some additional stickers or a water bottle or something in it.

£80 is about an hour of a UX consultant’s time, so this is a very cheap way for them to have this problem identified and diagnosed for them before another customer gets caught out the same way and then their image gets tarnished not only by having the problem in the first place but by then telling their customers it’s tough and they can jog on.

Had a similar issue not long after I moved. But thankfully got it identified before delivery.

The Chrome browser auto-complete went a bit haywire and resulted in a hybrid address being created in the ‘deliver to’ field.

As it was vaguely familiar on the confirmation screen, I glanced at it and hit ‘Buy’.

A day or two later, the tracking notifications started getting a bit weird.

I was collecting something else from the local sorting centre, so asked the nice postie there to look up my package.

He spotted the address straight away (local street, different town) and said I’d have to wait for it to get to the Belfast non-delivery centre before I could get it redirected.

I got on to the retailer, explained the problem and they intervened, sent me a new one and got the original sent back to them.

Was all ok in 48hours.

So you should be golden.

Try again, reckon you were unlucky with the agent you spoke to.

What woody74 said, the bank/PayPal will side with you….

Was it PayPal? I once ordered something and it randomly put in an old address from its history.

Thanks folks.

Bez, this is pretty much my thinking on the issue. Add to that it won’t even cost them £80, as presumably they made a decent amount of profit on the sale.

Andrewreay, not an autocomplete issue. The address was an old saved one from my account with the retailer. The package has already been delivered, so no chance of recovery from the courier.

I also didn’t use PayPal, so it’s not a problem with them.

I’ll post an update when I’ve heard again from the company in question.

So, an update, as promised.

The company I ordered from is Merlin. They have again told me they cannot accept any fault and “we will only send orders to the address listed on the order”. IMO this misses the point somewhat, since the address I typed in when I placed the order is not the one they sent the order to.

I emailed them screenshots and have asked them for clarification as to whether they do not believe there is a problem with their system, or if they think it is the customer’s responsibility to pick up on the problem. They have not responded to that question.

I understand their point of view. I should have checked the confirmation screen more thoroughly. However, their ordering system has a clear fault and they’ve refused to acknowledge that.

In the pretty competitive world of online bike retailers, I’m surprised they have let a customer go so cheaply.

In the pretty competitive world of online bike retailers where margins have been squeezed to as close to zero as it’s possible to go, I’m surprised they won’t take another hit to keep me

I think, even as a “good customer” the amount of profit you’ve given them over all your orders is probably less than the 80 quid order they’ll have to ship twice*.

presumably they made a decent amount of profit on the sale

Really not sure that’s true.

*Obviously I’ve no idea what you’ve ordered, whether or not this is true or even whether that’s what their thinking is or if it’s just taking time now because it has to go beyond a standard refund drone’s SOP.

 I feel confident the parcel will not still be waiting on the doorstep but I have no way to check.

Could you not just have gone round to have a look or have you moved to the other end of the country? Do you know anyone who lives in the area??

I reckon I have been ordering kit from Merlin for about 20 years. Maybe more. Since the time of their double-page small print ads in MBUK, anyway.. In that time I’ve had multiple sets of wheels, brakes (canti’s, v-brakes and discs), forks, too many drivetrains to count and all manner of assorted odds and sods.

If they haven’t made a lot of profit from me over the years then I have no idea how they’re still in business!

I’m in the middle of a similar issue with a different company. It is a random postcode that has been applied to just the delivery address, no signs of it on anything apart from the shipping confirmation it’s correct in the shipping address on the account. They are saying it can’t be wrong as they they use a look up, but there isn’t even a matching house number for the post code they have on the despatch. I’ve got to wait 15 days until it is recorded as lost!?

How far away is the old address? You never know, it might still be there waiting.

Could you not just have gone round to have a look or have you moved to the other end of the country? Do you know anyone who lives in the area??

The house is 200 miles away. We previously had multiple parcels, a bike and a car stolen from the property. I didn’t think it was worth getting anyone to check the doorstep because it would be some kind of miracle if the parcel was still there 10 days after delivery.

might be in the wheelie bin?

Going to ask a wild question here….. but have you phoned them to go over what’s happened?

I know not relevant for this incident but eBay and Paypal both seem to have issues with old addresses. I’d changed every address I could find on eBay but it was still putting my old postcode as item location when I listed things for sale.

I’d changed every address I could find on eBay but it was still putting my old postcode as item location when I listed things for sale.

I had a very similar issue. Wasn’t an old postcode, just a typo, but it wasn’t listed anywhere in the address options. Just auto popped itself in at the end. I spent about ten mins on the phone while the ebay guy searched every database and eventually found it and deleted it. It wasn’t accessible to me to edit

Interesting – I moved house a few months since and have used the same retailer successfully both before and after the move. When entering new addresses on some websites it was occasionally a bit ‘tricky’, especially if the auto complete stepped in, got to click the right buttons etc. but no problems.

Is the OP sure the problem isn’t between the keyboard and chair ?

Is the OP sure the problem isn’t between the keyboard and chair ?

This was my first thought too. I’ve been through the system a couple of times since the pronlem and the same thing happens.