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Something can be legal and unethical. Something can be illegal and ethical.

In this situation, keeping the iPhone without alerting AT&T to the situation is unethical. The ethical thing to do is to make a quick call to AT&T. That's all.

AT&T hasn't broken any law yet.

They haven't done anything unethical/immoral- they simply made an honest mistake with the OP's shipment.


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Legally, under US law, if they screwed up on their end, THEY CANNOT REQUIRE YOU TO SEND YOU THE PRODUCT BACK nor can they CHARGE YOU FOR ANY PRODUCT THEY SEND, provided it was a genuine mistake on their end and you had no knowledge of the mistake until delivery.

If they charged your card twice, you have to send it back to get the money back, if you paid once and they accidentally sent two, the second is LEGALLY yours.

Consult your local US Postal Office for more precise terms and conditions. I'm not a lawyer, but I've dealt with this situation before.

just because it may be legal for him to keep the extra phone it doesn't necessarily justify doing so.....
 
No offense to anyone, but there's a lot of stupidity in this thread. I'm just going to make 3 points:

1. OP seriously needs check his account to see if 2 lines are set up. Since he was charged for both phones, this is extremely likely, whether due to AT&T error or the OP screwing up his order (see it all the time). If that's the case, he's definitely going to be caught, because if the second line is never activated and the device isn't returned, he'll be charged for the equipment. He doesn't need to call AT&T do do this, just go to att.com/mywireless

2. If he somehow managed to be shipped two phones with only a single line (very unlikely), he'll still probably be caught, because all shipment info is recorded on the account.

3. Even if (big if) the phone was shipped accidentally and even if (bigger if) OP is actually legally entitled to keep it, when AT&T catches the error they'll still charge him full price, and the charge will appear on his monthly bill. At that point OP has 4 options - return the phone (if he still has it), pay the charge, don't pay and let the account be canceled (with credit rating hits and so on), or sue AT&T to have the charge removed. Is OP willing to go through one of the latter two options to get a "free" phone?
 
Legally, under US law, if they screwed up on their end, THEY CANNOT REQUIRE YOU TO SEND YOU THE PRODUCT BACK nor can they CHARGE YOU FOR ANY PRODUCT THEY SEND, provided it was a genuine mistake on their end and you had no knowledge of the mistake until delivery.

If they charged your card twice, you have to send it back to get the money back, if you paid once and they accidentally sent two, the second is LEGALLY yours.

Consult your local US Postal Office for more precise terms and conditions. I'm not a lawyer, but I've dealt with this situation before.

This is my understanding...so I would not send it back.
 
No offense to anyone, but there's a lot of stupidity in this thread. I'm just going to make 3 points:

1. OP seriously needs check his account to see if 2 lines are set up. Since he was charged for both phones, this is extremely likely, whether due to AT&T error or the OP screwing up his order (see it all the time). If that's the case, he's definitely going to be caught, because if the second line is never activated and the device isn't returned, he'll be charged for the equipment. He doesn't need to call AT&T do do this, just go to att.com/mywireless

2. If he somehow managed to be shipped two phones with only a single line (very unlikely), he'll still probably be caught, because all shipment info is recorded on the account.

3. Even if (big if) the phone was shipped accidentally and even if (bigger if) OP is actually legally entitled to keep it, when AT&T catches the error they'll still charge him full price, and the charge will appear on his monthly bill. At that point OP has 4 options - return the phone (if he still has it), pay the charge, don't pay and let the account be canceled (with credit rating hits and so on), or sue AT&T to have the charge removed. Is OP willing to go through one of the latter two options to get a "free" phone?

If the receipt shows 2 phones, then ATT may catch up.

I would hang onto the 2nd phone for a couple of months, not use it for calls, and then sell it.
 
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