In April of 2006, right before i left the urban jungle of Fort Greene (brooklyn) for this strange foggy city by the bay, i found a cell phone in a taxi cab. it was late on a friday night, and i picked up an odd looking candybar styled caller from the floor right before i stumbled out into the night. i later found out it was a Vertu (nokia’s ‘luxury’ line) and valued around $3000.
I did a little digging on the phone and found the original owner through an email address in the sim card. I emailed him and discovered that he was in Ireland, recently having returned from a business trip that apparently included lots of partying and forgetting of $3000 cell phones in cabs.
I was moving the next week, and he offered to have a courier come and get the phone from me so it could be whisked across the atlantic to its rightful owner. the DHL guy came in the same day as my movers, took the phone, and that was that. The greatful owner got it a few days later and sent me some cash for my trouble. All was well and i felt good about doing a stranger a favor.
Last tuesday, I got a call from a collections agency. Apparently the guy from Ireland (we’ll call him Sully) never paid DHL for the package to be delivered. I was informed that because of this, DHL transferred the charge to me and sold the debt to a collections agency. The agency had tracked me down (hard to do since i’ve had the same phone number for 9 years now) and was requesting that i pay them $100. I haughtily told them the situation and stated matter-of-factly that there would be no way that i was paying this, and what could i do to resolve this situation that didn’t involve my credit card? the collection agency told me to call DHL and sort it out with them.
So I call DHL. I gave them the account number and explained my story. the Customer service woman expressed her regret at the situation, but told me that since it had already gone to collections, there was nothing that they could do anymore, they had written off the debt and it was no longer their problem. She told me that if i had addressed this earlier, something could have been done. Which I would have been happy to do, if i had any idea this was happening, but since i never got any piece of mail or phone call or email, how was i supposed to know? DHL apologized but advised me to call back the collections agency and pay the balance, then find Sully and ask for the money. They assured me that there was nothing they could do to solve this for me.
My hands being somewhat tied, i called back the collections agency and asked what would happen if i decided not to pay. They told me that DHL would then have the option to take legal action against me, and put a bad mark on my credit. which is funny, because DHL seemed to be saying that they had washed their hands of the issue. The collections woman also told me that more interest on this debt could be accrued if it wasn’t paid now.
So… i sucked it up and gave them my credit card. I will NEVER use DHL again (not that i did a lot before) and i highly recommend in the future that if you ever have someone schedule a package pickup for you, you give them a fake name and address so if they decide to default payment, you’re not liable for the charges.
And Sully’s email bounced back, of course. I don’t understand why someone would give me reward money and then stiff me for the shipping. but the next time i find that guy’s phone in a cab, i’m keeping it.
