Oh my, that is a dilemna. I suspect that she ran into credit or money problems and now doesn't have the resources to pay you to ship the items to her. 5 Years, that is certainly a long time. So I would email her and ask one more time for her to send you the funds to ship and pack the items off to her. I would let her know that you are willing to purchase the items (with depreciation factored in of course) and if she doesn't answer within an allotted time, then let her know that you will either keep or dispose of the items as you see fit because you need the storage area and it has been five years.

I think you have been extremely patient and honorable after all this time but now you have to do what's best for you.

Deb

I am going to be interested in the responses here. We have a slight variation on this theme- selling some things on eBay that the buyers say they are going to pick up and then take years to do so. Yes, years!

We're thinking of charging storage fees at this point.

Here are my brief thoughts. For some reason she seems to have lost interest in keeping in touch with you on a personal level. You've gone out of your way to accommodate her wishes for several years. At this point I would contact her again and simply ask her what she wants you to do with the things you've been storing. You could even give her an estimate up front of the cost of packaging, insuring, mailing etc.

But make sure you give her a deadline to respond. I wouldn't offer to pay for them. It doesn't seem like she cares any longer. But I would tell her that if she doesn't want them you will dispose of them as you see fit. You can then keep them, sell them or give them away. I would contact her my email so that I had her response in writing just in case something comes up about her purchases at a later date.

Donate them to a charity.

Frankly I'm curious why after 5 years you still feel obligated to contact her? She is a grown woman, you have discussed this with her already:

But I kept asking her to let me know when she was ready to get things sent...She stopped responding to those questions.

IMO you have gone above and beyond in the kindness department.

Barb5--seriously? Years to pick up? Again, I don't understand why you are allowing this.

My comments to both of you are sincere and I speak as a merchant who has dealt with this exact problem time and again. You have a legal right to put a time frame on an uncollected item. It's one thing to be understanding if something unexpected prevents the person from claiming their property, and believe me, I go out of my way to make sure the customer has had every opportunity to collect, but at some point you must end the nonsense.

Find out if she still lives at the same address.

Call her and ask her point blank about the items and tell her you cannot keep them any longer.

If she says to go ahead and ship them to her, do it, even though you will be out the bucks, but it's better than waiting for her to pay you back.

If none of that works and she avoids your phone calls, AND you know she's at the same address, mail them to her NOW.

If she's not at the same address and won't speak to you, then you need to talk to an attorney and get their advice because you don't want to get rid of something that belongs to someone else. She could easily come back and sue you and say the items were valuable but you got rid of them without her permission.

I just don't want to see you get into any legal trouble over this.

The best scenario is to simply mail them to her and be done with it, whether she likes it or not. :)

If she still wants those items I would tell her that you need the money upfront to cover packaging, insurance and shipping. I would also get everything in writing. You might even consider listing all the items just to be clear.

If it was me, I would send a letter via snail mail that she signs for - if they have that where she is. I would also send an email. I also would put a time limit on it; saying if she wants any of it she has to pay in advance.

You've then made attempts to contact her. If you go one further & try to call on the phone, print out your bill showing the call. I don't feel you can do much more then that.

I would not box it up and send it out as it sounds like it would cost a small fortune to ship.

For whatever reason she's done with your relationship. It happens.

I give you credit for hanging on to it for so long.

I think Roselvr had a good idea to get a paper trail. I wouldn't even want the hassel to ship it to her and wouldn't of wanted all that stuff coming to my house. You're a very nice person Pesky! :) I would just remind her how long it's been and you need the extra space, if she doesn't respond I'd donate it or keep whatever you want. Sounds like she did run out of money OR maybe she had a spending problem? Some people get a real kick out of buying things and then maybe after the high wore off she decided she didn't really want the item and didn't want to pay even more to have it shipped?

Contact a lawyer? Send the stuff at Pesky's expense? I think not. I would not go to any personal expense for these items. It's exactly as Tryin' said, "You have a legal right to put a time frame on an uncollected item."

If you have copies of your old emails, then you wouldn't even need to contact her again. If you don't have the old emails, then it might be a good idea to email her and give her a time limit to contact you before getting rid of the items. You'll then have something to back you up.

I agree with donating the items to some type charity.

tina

Clear out the stuff -- and give it all to charity!

She just wants to forget the whole thing!

Jan

I would email her with the title line: URGENT, CALL ME ASAP

I think you need to speak to her and set a deadline, as others have said above get the money upfront for the shipping.
As the american shipper, you are basically being called the exporter and have to support your declaration of the value of the goods with invoices ; how canadian customs treats it you never know, they might collect taxes from her before they release the goods for shipment.

Which province in canada does she live in, taxes vary from one to another.
I have to ship some personal goods from Dallas to Montreal in december and I was looking at the usa postal service website below, you might want to have a look also.

Personally, in your situation , I would make one last attempt by phone, and if that would be unsuccessful, I would dispose of the items and erase this situation and person from my life.

I wonder if this would be a possibility: put the responsability entirely on her to arrange a pre-paid pickup initiated by her , from UPS or other.
this would be something to look into.

Here is a link that might be useful: usa postal service shipping to Canada

If I loved them myself, I wouldn't feel obligated to donate them to a charity. (Sorry, generous-minded people.) And I wouldn't consider myself obligated to pay her for them, either. I'd give her one more chance and a deadline (3-4 weeks, not longer), saying that if she doesn't give you what you need to get the items to her, you're considering them to be abandoned.

And after the deadline passed, I'd use them however I wanted. I think the only reason I'd donate them, give them away, or toss them would be if the story behind them somehow tainted them in my eyes. It doesn't sound like that's the case here, though.

Yup, that's what I said, contact a lawyer if all else fails. If not she could be held liable for getting rid of valuable items which don't belong to her. We're talking about $10,000 here, that's not chump change.

If the lady is still at the same address, I'd simply mail her the items, pay for the expense myself (but don't insure them), and be done with it, plus keep a copy of the receipt on the mailed items.

Simply writing a letter means nothing. She could say she never received it. This is one of those "she said he said" type of situation, which is why I think she needs to send them back at her own expense.

But if Pesky donates these items which are worth a pretty penny, then she very well could be held liable for them if the lady is nuts enough to ask for her things back.

Pesky, are the items nice enough to display in your home? If so, take them out of the boxes and use them if you don't want to go through the trouble of contacting her and shipping them.

BECAUSE...she may never pay you back for shipping, so I wouldn't bank on that at all. :)

There ought to be a statute of limitations on this, I'd think. Maybe do some online googling. I don't see why you'd be obligated to incur expense on her behalf. She doesn't seem to want the items. Too bad you have to waste your time on all this, too.

What more can you do than simply ask her if she still wants them or not? Send her a letter -- requesting signed delivery by her only -- and tell her you will be donating them to charity if you don't hear back from her. If she still doesn't let you know what to do with them, take a group picture, drop it off at a charity, get a receipt, and file your paper trail away.

I think you've waited and asked more than reasonably long enough, but check on the statute of limitations for something like this. Just to be extra precautious.

We're talking about $10,000 here, that's not chump change.

Pesky said that not everything was shipped to her house.

I'm also assuming the stuff doesn't have much value any more going from what Pesky said.

A lot of interesting points; none of us know this person, so how much Pesky needs to cover her own butt is something she needs to decide. I also wonder if the stuff would be considered abandoned by now; and if I wrote a certified return receipt letter, I would use the word abandoned; mention it a few times.

I was watching Dr Phil the other day and was surprised to hear them mention an internet rights attorney; I don't know how many there are but this sounds like a case for them. I wonder if there is a message board as well.

Read the original post Oakley - $10,000 worth was not sent to Pesky. It was also suggested she send a registered letter (which would show proof that it was received and by who). Also it was stated that Pesky has a legal right to put a time frame on an uncollected item. That's her legal right - she doesn't have to keep the items indefinately.

I simply do not see any reason that Pesky need incur any costs.

tina

Hon, I'd consider them abandoned storage. Find out how long a storage facility in your state must keep things for free and what the process is to dispose of the abandoned storage items.

Maybe drop by a local storage facility and talk to them. She sounds like a shopaholic who doesn't want to be burdened with her guilt by seeing the stuff she purchased. (Sister alert)

I would send her an e-mail saying that you just wanted her let her know that you donated the items to a local charity YESTERDAY and then wait to see what kind of response you receive from her.

If she doesn't respond, think of the items as yours. If she responds angrily that she wants her stuff, then you tell her that you will make arrangements to get them back and send to her.

I don't know why everyone keeps telling you to donate the things - you've said you love the items and they are glass and pottery things that you can use or display.

I'd send her an email and just tell her that you are tired of storing the items and would like to ship them to her. If she doesn't respond and provide the shipping costs (which she agreed to do awhile back, so that isn't an issue) then I'd just take the items out and use them.

If she contacts you in the future and wants the items, then you can either ship them to her then or argue about it with her if it gets to that point.

Sounds like to me she doesn't want the items. Consider it your storage fee for the last 5 years!

On the donating thing -- don't take them to the SA or Goodwill, where they'll be sold dirt cheap. Find an organization that will sell them on eBay, for instance, and may be able to get more what she paid for them (our local cat rescue does this). Hopefully you still have the receipts for each. It would be wasting a significant amount of good charity money to donate them to a place that gets little or nothing for their items. They sound too nice for SA, anyway.

Wow! Great advice everyone.

I think Sheeshare and Golddust are right...shopaholic. When we e'd regularly she confessed to always spending money. I'll bet she has forgotten about the items, she DID buy a lot.

It's gorgeous Italian (Deruta) and mexican dishware, pottery and glassware. Not totally fitting with my decorating, but I'd certainly use a lot of it.

So I will contact her one more time. I have a hunch that once I do, she won't reply. It'll cost her several hundred dollars just for shipping, not to mention the GST tax she'll have to pay. No way will I ship it first! Heck, just packing supplies alone will set me back over $100. And then there's the filling out of the customs paperwork...Holy Guacamole, I once sent her a small gift and I had to declare value and submit all kinds of paperwork. I can't imagine the hassle this would be to ship all of it now! I'm generous to a point. But I'm not THAT generous.

Forget it then. Just use what you can use and deal with the rest later. Bonus! You got over an over buying trend and she didn't. Use what you want and distribute the rest, as best you see fit, in her honor ($$$).

Think of it as saving her from her own clutter, which she has too much of already. It sounds to me like she doesn't want to deal with her issues, so she sent her issues on to you.

So get some heath, in the honor of mental health. Take what you want (as a gift or payment) then decide what happens to the rest. She trusted you to do this.

Mexican dinnerware? Oh heck, just send it to me!

;-D

And I'll be happy to take some of that pottery off your hands. ;)

It's gorgeous Italian (Deruta) and mexican dishware, pottery and glassware. Not totally fitting with my decorating, but I'd certainly use a lot of it.

In that case, the next time you head south you can bring it to me!

I would send a certified, signature required letter, a regular letter, and an e-mail (with a notice sent to you when she opens it), all stating that you have been storing these items for X years, and can no longer store them. Tell her that if she does not respond with 30 days of the receipt of any of these notices you will consider her having abandoned the items and they will be your property to compensate for the storage expense and effort.

Just don't forget to post back here and let us know what happened!!

LOL you guys beat me to it -- I was thinking I'd graciously help find a home for the Deruta :) (My DD likes Deruta too, so it would be "for the children" :))

But seriously, I'd go with Les's plan. Cover all the bases so she can't say you didn't contact her in one precise way. PITA, I know, but once you're into it you might as well get yourself out of it in as risk-free a way as possible.

Keep what you like and auction the rest on here. ;-)
I collect California pottery though.

Why do I get the feeling we are going to be seeing an epi of 'abandoned property' in the near future on Judge Judy? :)