Placed two separate orders with two separate retailers. One of the orders included a Gabriel Glas standard. Today, a Gabriel Glas gold arrived. The other order included a Rivers-Marie Sonoma Coast Pinot. Today, a RM Occidental Pinot arrived.
Although I didn’t receive what I intended or paid for, it seems like I got a nicer glass and a nicer bottle of wine, by mistake. Even though the Occidental sells for almost double the Sonoma, I’m still a little irked because I want to try the Sonoma!!
What do you do in these situations? Just enjoy the mistake or speak up?
I’ve experienced this a few times, both on the “upside“ and “downside“ of the error.
If it particularly aggrieved you, certainly contact the retailer.
Another possibility is that they were out of the specific item you ordered, and intentionally substituted a comparable or more expensive item as compensation for their error.
Being a winemaker/owner I would value greatly to hear from the consumer on any experience that is any less than perfect. I always follow my shipments and would want to know where the problem occured as to not repeat the same mistake. The customer would be sent the correct wines they ordered and as a courtesy for their trouble would get to keep the wine in hand. Just my opinion.
Just as an update, I informed both retailers of the mistakes. I’m sure both were innocent mistakes but let them know either way and leaving ball in their court on how to proceed
In my experiences, the people that wouldn’t speak up are also the same ones that would post an inflammatory thread on here about how said company was trying to get one over on them by shipping a lesser wine, if the error was reversed.
At a minimum you owe it to the company to let them know so they can understand that an error happened, and hopefully fix it in the future.
The retailer re: the wine is shipping the correct wine with a return label. I’ll be happy to do that because I want my first taste of Rivers Marie to be the Sonoma.
Haven’t heard back about the glass yet, but if they offer to do the same, I’ll probably just pay the extra to keep the gold. It is fun to hold
I agree with your decision to speak up. I’ve had situations where they just swap-shipped the wines (at their expense of course), others where they offered me a discount I couldn’t resist on the “wrong” bottles, so I kept those at the discounted price along with the “right” bottles being shipped at their expense.
You absolutely should speak up. This has happened to me a couple of times with orders from LastBottleWines. When I brought it to their attention, each time without pause they have gone above and beyond in correcting the mistake.
Got a call from the second retailer. The gentleman informed me that I should keep the GGG and apologized for their mistake. He genuinely seemed grateful for me bringing it to his attention. I told him he earned a repeat customer
I once got a mislabeled one-off bottle from Winebid. It wasn’t a shipping mistake, they had just mistakenly listed the wine as the wrong vintage, by one. It was a white Burgundy of some sort, $25++. I think the correct vintage might have been a small step down from the actual one, but it wasn’t a huge difference, like getting an 02 Brunello instead of the 01.
I called, expecting them to see if I just wanted to keep it, or maybe take a $5 or $10 credit for the mistake, and I would have said yes. But they just said they’d send me a label and I should return it. I didn’t really want to ask for anything, so I just did it. Seemed a little silly and wasteful on their part, I guess mine too.
