You'd be amazed how often things like this happen. We've been in business over ten years and still find occasional unbilled orders. Normal auditing usually picks this up.

As for the double shipment, just call them. Sharper Image did this to me and just told me to keep the extra luggage locks instead of returning them. That's what we would do, too.

The reverse is true for me. I bought a part from Compaq and it was defective. After speaking with them, the agreed solution was to buy a new part and return the old. I got charged twice but never got credit for the return. After a while, they said that they mis-entered my credit card number and would correct it. So far, no credit. Need to call them again.

My opinion is that if you did nothing on your side to engineer the non-charge, you really don't have an obligation to try to correct it.

I can think of 3 instances where I recieved goods/service where I didn't end up paying for them: one was a debit card POS purchase (well before they offered MasterCard/Visa-branded debit cards) for a small amount, one was a Visa debit card purchase for a small amount, and one was a $250 hard drive charged to a regular Visa (I had received the wrong item, returned it for a replacement, and received credit for the return but never charged for the replacement).

But, if the merchant figures it out and charges you later on, you of course have an obligation to not dispute the charge and pay for it.

During the same period of time, I can think of three chargebacks I've had to initiate for incorrect merchant charges: a restaurant that charged me twice, a health club that continued to charge me monthly even after I cancelled in writing and got a written confirmation, and an item I mail-ordered but never received. Of course, I expected the merchant and/or the bank to make me whole for these mistakes that were discovered by me after the fact, and it's only fair that I do the same if the shoe is on the other foot.



I'm not so sure about this. In many states, the statute of limitations for civil claims such as this is 2 years. I think it's great that the merchant contacted you, but I'm not sure that they had do (perhaps they have more restrictive terms in their credit card merchant agreement). Had they not been able to charge the credit card, they most probably would have been able to bill and collect the amount directly (whether it would be worth their while is another matter).

This brings up an interesting point. I have no idea how this would work with a credit card account, as you never actually take possession of the non-deserved money, unless you actually pay your rightful charges in full and request a check for the credit balance. Absent that, the worst that could happen is that you have to pay back the money once the error is corrected.

But in the case of such an error being made to a checking account, if you knowingly withdraw the money that isn't yours, you can be put in jail, even if you had no hand in creating the error in the first place. The mere fact that you withdrew money from the bank that you knew wasn't yours constitues theft from the bank.

I'm not saying that I agree with this, but it's a fact. There are many documented cases of people taking out money that suddenly landed in their account due to a bank error, only to end up in jail.

I have no idea what would happen if someone were to make an honest effort to correct the mistake, get nowhere, eventually withdraw the money, then sometime later the bank figures out that it really was a mistake. I suppose that if you made a reasomable effort to resolve the issue, you could make a case that you attributed it to something that you were entitled to, even though for whatever reason you didn't know exactly why. After all, the bank should be experts at determining the validity of transactions, especially in the situation where you specifically bring to their attention a questionable deposit.

A few years ago, there was a case in the local news where someone had received a rebate check in the mail for something he had bought. There had been a data entry mistake made at the rebate company, and instead of the rebate being $2 or whatever, someone had keyed in his ZIP Code as the dollar amount. So, he ended up with a $98,xxx.00 check! He deposited it, withdrew the money when the deposit cleared, then disappeared. Shortly thereafter, the mistake was discovered by the rebate company, and the police were looking for him to lock him up for stealing $98,xxx from the bank. Even though he did nothing proactive to create this error, the fact that he knowingly deposited and took out money that didn't belong to him was a crime.

A well-known CA bank which shall remain nameless deposited an extra several hundred thou into our business account. Took quite a while till they removed the ill-gotten gains! Most banks have downsized so many people that errors like this are common. Ditto the credit card situations on this thread.