subject: Is It Possible To Refuse A Cod Shipment? [print this page] Because COD shipping fell out of favor for several years, there now exists some fairly serious misconceptions about just what is possible with COD shipments. Trucking services are now starting to be willing to ship COD more and more again, so it's important for shippers and customers to familiarize themselves with this method of shipping all over again. First of all, COD stands for Collect on Delivery.
This means that when someone ships something to their customer, they don't require that the customer pay for the order before it is shipped. Instead, they will have their courier or trucker collect from the client a method of payment at the point of delivery. That way, the client has the reassurance of seeing or holding the goods before they actually give any money away in exchange for those goods.
There is obviously some inherent risk in shipping COD, both for the shipper, and for the consumer. It is protecting the consumer that a law exists which allows customers to refuse anything which is sent to them COD. If they want to receive the goods, they have to pay for it. If they decide though that they no longer want the product, they are under no legal obligation to pay for it.
So although you can refuse anything that is sent to you COD in theory, there are a number of reasons that you should think about doing so for a bit before you actually refuse the order. First, a company is under no obligation to offer you COD shipping. If they do so, they are offering it as a service to you. If you refuse a shipment with no grounds for that refusal, you are unlikely to be extended that service again.
Next, you have to realize that your relationship with a company, especially in the case of business to business transactions, is based on trust. If you buy other products from a company you don't want to build any bad blood between your organizations by refusing products needlessly. When a company extends you the trust of shipping COD, you return it by paying for the products as you've promised.
However, the exception to this is if you're shipped damaged goods, or those which were misrepresented to you at the point of sale. When either of these situations occurs, it is perfectly appropriate for you to exercise your right of refusal on that COD order.
