subject: If A Shipment Is Sent Cod, Can I Refuse It? [print this page] COD shipping may be a shipping method that has started to slide out of fashion, but it hasn't disappeared altogether just yet. You can still find a fulfillment company that is willing to ship products out to customers on a COD basis. What this means, is that they will ship the product without having first received payment for it.
COD means collect on delivery. This means that no money is paid up front, and the item in question will be paid for after the delivery is made. This is the opposite from the way that normal deliveries are made, when you pay for it first, and then they ship your purchase to you.
COD deliveries are most commonly paid for using either a certified check or a money order. Almost no companies that deliver on a COD basis will accept cash. However, it may be possible to find a few that will accept credit or even debit cards as a valid payment method. If you ever do order something COD though, be sure to check out what payment methods they accept before you request shipping, otherwise you could find yourself unable to pay when your shipment arrives.
There is a law in place that applies to all COD shipments. This law gives you the right to refuse anything that is delivered to on a COD basis. This was a required law in order to make this sort of shipping viable, otherwise, any company could simply ship anything that they wanted to any person, and have some kind of a claim on that person to pay that bill.
Refusing a COD shipment isn't something that should be done lightly however. It is the abuse of this right which has led greatly to the decline of this convenient shipping option. It is a great cost to the company if something that they ship COD is refused. Therefore, if you do this once, there is a good chance that the privilege will not be extended to you a second time.
COD shipping should only give you the opportunity to refuse a package if the original item that your purchased was misrepresented by the seller somehow. If your item arrives and you discover something that is widely different or inferior to what you were promised, then you should certainly refuse the shipment. That is the protection for consumers provided in the COD shipping model.
