Belt Auction

Should I contact an attorney, or just drop it?

I won an auction for a book off of ebay several weeks ago. The book was an international textbook, but I was told that it was in English. I now know that the book shipped out of Malaysia. DHL took care of the shipping of the item. The DHL driver tried to drop the package off once at my house, but i was at school so he left a little ticket that i needed to sign if I wanted them to leave the package. I signed it and stuck it to me door. Waited one day, 2 days, 3 days. Well, now it had been about a week and still nothing. Today i called up DHL and was informed that my package had been delivered. DHL said they called the phone number that was on the box, the thing that is strange about that is that i never left a phone number when i ordered this item. I know this because i received an email from the ebay seller saying that if i did not receive my package that i would need to contact DHL myself because they would not have my number. Anyways, they called this number and at first the person said she had never heard of a Maggie M. Then this person called DHL back saying that they had someone in their house with that name, this person then got DHL to deliver my package to their address. Apparently DHL runs on the honor system because they just trusted for whatever reason that this person was me. I received a tracking code with my order and i would think that someone would have to give them this code in order to make any changes, but i guess not. Anyways, the package was delivered on January 15th and someone, either coincidentally with the same name as me, or forging my name, signed for me. I asked DHL to email me the signature and it is not even readable, just squiggles. After a long while on the phone with the DHL rep in charge of my area they said that they had their man go back out to the house and put some sort of notification on the door because no one was their. The DHL driver said he talked to a neighbor and the neighbor said there was someone in that house with the same exact first and last name as me. Eventually i got the address and phone number from the person that had received my package. The address was in another town, about 45 minutes away from me. After looking at the phone number i knew immediately that something was not right because of the area code. I live in Indiana and i know the area codes around here. So i Google the area code, turns out it is a Pennsylvania number which i thought was really strange, but i figured maybe it was a cell and they had moved from penn to Indiana or something. I called this number and left a message explaining the situation, got no call back and tried them again. This time someone did pick up, this woman said she was from Pennsylvannia, but had never heard of me, and had never told DHL to change the shipping address of my package. She did however tell me that she had talked to the person that i talked to who was in charge of my local DHL. At this point the thing that really gets me is if this person on the other end of the phone number did not change my shipping address then who did? Someone had to have called them or done something, it's just a whole bunch of strange things. I'm also not sure why this person did not contact DHL after the opened the package, it's a college textbook that would be of no use to them unless this person attends the same college as I do. So right now what i know is that someone who may or may not have the same name as me somehow got DHL to change the shipping address on my package, then they signed for it with my name. Should i file a police report to get this situation in writing and get proof of what's going on? So far DHL has been very cooperative with me. Would it be worth it to contact a lawyer? Wouldn't this be fraud and mail tampering? Thankyou very very much to anyone who took the time to read and answer about my problem. thanks!

Public Comments

1. Could it be that the person you bought it from has a contact in your area, gave that contact the tracking number, and had them change the delivery address? Kinda like a scam thing? Just a thought..
2. DHL is a pretty reputable company. Edit your description above in business format and send it to their Executive Services offices. They'll likely reimburse you financially.
3. Contacting an attorney is not even your option.... An attorney will charge you somewhere around $150 dollars an hour to see you, and if he has to write a letter, it's another $100 dollars. Then, if he has to do additional work, it's more money. Soon, you'll be spending over $1000 dollars. To me, it sound as if seller simply put the wrong address. The recipient, knowing it wasn't his, kept the package. Several things you can do: 1) file a formal complaint with DHL for non delivery or mis-delivery 2) file a complaint with eBay (but it may not do any good) 3) file a complaint with the seller for non delivery 4) file a stop payment order with credit card (if used) It is not mail fraud because US postal service was never involved. Wire fraud may be, as it used electronic communication. (Internet)