A two or three dollar fee can ride into your online order already checked, right as the holiday ordering starts.
Your Daily Dad Joke
Did you hear about the guy who invented the knock-knock joke?
He won the “no-bell” prize.
The box you didn’t check
You’ve got the gift picked out. Card’s in, address is right, and the total is a couple of dollars more than you figured. Tax, probably. Or shipping. You hit Place Order and move on with your day.
Sometimes those couple of dollars are a line called “shipping protection” or “package protection.” And the little box next to it was checked before you ever got there.
That’s why I wanted to pass this along before the boxes start piling up on porches.
I mentioned this in August. Since then a court has weighed in, and I learned a couple of things you should know.
You may have seen that shoppers are suing Route, a company whose widget adds that protection line to checkout pages at a lot of online stores. In their complaint, they allege the box comes pre-checked, that shoppers take it for part of shipping, and that Route itself recommends stores leave it that way, saying 98% of its merchants do. In the shoppers’ own orders the fee was $2.95 in one and $1.55 in the other. Route hasn’t been found liable for anything. It’s a lawsuit, not a ruling.
But a ruling did come in a similar case. A federal judge in New York refused to throw out a suit against Thursday Boot over a $2.98 “Shipping Protection” fee the store added to orders automatically. The shoppers there also pointed out that the store’s shipping carrier already covered lost or damaged packages, up to $100. Nothing has been decided about who’s right. The judge just said the case can go forward.
So your first question might be: is this a scam?
Not by itself. It’s an optional product, and for a pricey package left on a busy porch, some people would rather have it. The problem is buying it without ever deciding to. A box somebody else checked isn’t your yes.
Some of this is already changing. AfterShip, which sells a competing protection product, told its stores that Shopify’s new rules require apps to show the cost and get a clear yes from the shopper before adding anything like this. That covers a lot of stores. It doesn’t cover every website you’ll buy from this season.
If a package never shows up and you didn’t buy the protection, you’re not out of luck. Start with the store. And if you paid with a credit card, an order that wasn’t delivered as agreed is a billing error you can dispute. The FTC says your letter has to reach the card company within 60 days after the first bill with the charge was sent to you. That process is for credit cards, not debit cards.
Here’s the one thing I’d do this holiday season. Before you hit Place Order, read every line in the order summary, and uncheck anything you didn’t choose. It takes about ten seconds.
I know. It’s two or three dollars. But it’s two or three dollars on every order between now and New Year’s, for something you never meant to buy.
Anyway, I wanted to make sure you heard about it before the holiday orders start.
When you spot that protection fee at checkout, do you usually keep it or uncheck it? Share it in the comments so we can all learn from it. I read every comment.
Nobody reads every line of every checkout page, and missing a pre-checked box doesn’t make anybody careless. Catching it once this season is enough. After that, your eyes will find it on their own.
— Steve
Also on the site since yesterday:
whether you can get your money back when Dollar General charged more than the shelf price
what Damon Day corrected about Walmart Spark’s Sapphire tier
A longer video from me: Costco or Amazon Prime: Is Either Worth It If Money’s Tight? I do the break-even math on both memberships with you, and show which one I’d cancel first if one has to go.
SEE A SCAM? SAY SOMETHING. If one has landed on you or someone you love, tell me at tips@getoutofdebt.org. The ones that can warn other people may show up here. Leave out account numbers and passwords.
If any of this was new to you, somebody you know hasn’t heard it either. It’s free at yourmoneyactually.com, and I don’t sell the list. The places I actually use for my own money, and what I get out of telling you, are on one page where they’ll always be.
This is what I’m telling friends like you over coffee. But remember, you do you.