📦 Sharing this story to hear what people in Norway think: Do consumers have any rights when the postal service makes a mistake?
An elderly refugee woman recently bought a perfume from KICKS.no. She prepaid, but decided to return the item – still sealed – and brought it the same day to Posten (Rema 1000 desk).
The item was a small box. She gave the correct return address to KICKS. The Posten worker accepted it, charged her 106 NOK, and gave her a receipt. But nobody told her that it would be treated as a “regular letter” – meaning no tracking.
Weeks later, KICKS refused to refund her, saying “there’s no tracking code.” Posten, on the other hand, says the item was sent but can’t prove delivery because it was registered as an untracked letter.
So she is now left with no perfume, no refund – and no one taking responsibility.
She acted in good faith, had a receipt, and trusted the postal worker would process it correctly. Is it fair to blame a customer in this case?
📎 We’re attaching the receipt. What do you think?
– Can KICKS legally refuse refund when return is documented?
– Shouldn’t Posten have warned her that the package was being sent without tracking?
– What options are there in such cases?
Looking forward to your thoughts.
https://i.redd.it/xib5pahn889f1.jpeg
Posted by Key-Ad-4259
19 Comments
I don’t know the case you are referring to, but shouldn’t she contact the seller (KICKS) for information of their return policy and not just mail it back?
Consumer protections in general are strong in Norway, but you are not protected from doing what you think is right without knowing and expecting others to fix it for you. Why is it relevant to the case that she’s an elderly refugee? You mention that you perceive this as a mistake by the postal service, but the way you put it makes it appear that the mistake was made by the consumer. Now she hopefully has leaned to follow return policies and won’t make similar mistakes again.
I dont think Kicks is asking for the tracking code from posten, but which order number the perfume initially was?
Generally in Norway, people think they are more protected by the government than they actually are.
For example, you have a legal notice sent to you by post with a strict response deadline. The law often says that the deadline starts when it is sent, with no allowance for Posten service time. However, Posten terms and conditions also say that they take no responsibility for delays. Only if there is payment for an express service will they refund the payment, but there is no compensation for any consequences.
Similarly, Altinn is in theory a great idea for faster communication and you get notified when messages come in. But you don’t get to choose the SMS/e-post – the sender does – and there is no allowance for failure of the notification mechanism because the designers of Norwegian systems do not know about handling errors/exceptions. So again, legally consequential messages don’t get through but the government says it is your problem.
In this case though, I don’t think it was Posten’s fault if she didn’t say she wanted tracking. It is their fault that they lost it, but they will take no responsibility as usual.
Did she include the return form / order number in the package?
If the store you are returning to requires the package to be sent with tracking, the costumer should be aware of that. It is written in their return policy and guide.
At the desk in posten it can be argued that the cashier should ask if you need tracking or not, but defaulting to the cheapest option aka a ‘letter’ is standard.
Thanks for your input. Just to clarify: she didn’t choose “letter” – she handed over the sealed box with the return address and trusted the Posten worker to handle it correctly.
She’s an elderly woman and a refugee. She acted in good faith, paid 104 NOK, and got a receipt. Is it fair to blame her for not knowing the exact difference between tracked and untracked when the parcel was obviously a box?
Kicks return policy does not say that tracking is required to get a refund, but it does say that kicks are not responsible for the item while in shipping to be returned. So it seems like you have no recourse until the item arrives.
Posten has to financially compensate you if the package is lost(postloven §§ 28 og 29).
So wait a few months for kicks to get the package and if they don’t, send a claim for compensation to posten. Keep the receipt. The max limit to send a claim to posten is 1 year from the date it was sent.
Why grounds does she stand on here? She didn’t check the return policy with Kicks when it comes to returns, and she didn’t ask Posten what kind of package she bought.
In Norway, you’re required to verify terms yourself and just not assume.
Pretty sure most of returns are free. You get a return label or a qr code that they scan in post and that’s it. Just some info for furure
You/she needs to go throught the return policy of the store she bought from.
I have ordered several times from online stores in Norway (Levi’s, Blivakker, Apotek etc). Every time I get the package delivered, the delivery includes a return form (most of the times with a barcode on it). Which means that if you decide to make a return, you need to use that form and/or barcode.
I havent ordered online from KICKS, but I am pretty sure they should have a return policy in place.
This is not so much about good will, but about the terms and conditions you need to follow when ordering from store X, Y, Z.
Each “nettbutikk” has their own return policy.
Quote from Kicks website:
>>Når du returnerer til e-handel, betales returen av kunden selv. Hvis du i stedet ønsker å sende varen tilbake til KICKS e-handel, oppfordrer vi deg til å kontakte kundeservice via telefon eller e-post før du returnerer den. Hvis du ønsker det, kan du også bruke standard uttaksskjema (se uttaksskjema). <<
The woman in your story didn’t do the standard procedure required by Kicks. Doesn’t matter if she returned the package same time and same place when she received it.
For Kicks as the seller, trying to trace where the package ended up is like trying to find needle in a haystack without the proper standard procedure.
The one should be responsible in this case is the woman as customer who’s not following the return policy.
(And being elderly person doesn’t give her any slack)
I don’t quite follow her thought process. She bought an item, but regretted (?) it. Instead of figuring out the return policy by the store, and contacting the store, she let a third party (posten) deal with it.
If she was able to buy the item online, she should(?) be able to check return policy.
This has nothing to do with the post office.
When receiving a package there is always a letter enclosed with instructions how to return an item.
If you enclosed some information about your order in the package you sent the store should be able to figure it out, it will just take longer, but if you just sent the item in an unmarked box with no information enclosed they have no way of knowing what order this is and how to refund you.
14 days “angrerett” is a thing, but you have to talk to the online shop first to arrange it. You can’t just return it on your own and expect things to be ok.
You’ll get a return slip that you have to print and label the package with quite often. Silly practice as not many got their own printer at home or access to one.
She followed what’s written on the KICKS website:
– She contacted customer service before returning
– She used the correct return address
– She returned the unopened item the same day
There was no prepaid return label, so she paid for shipping herself — as required. Posten charged her 106 NOK but sent it as an untracked letter, without informing her or offering options.
She did everything right, yet is now left with no money and no item — just because no one told her that she needed to explicitly ask for tracking.
This isn’t about blaming anyone — it’s about fairness for a customer who followed the rules but was failed by the system.
Regardless of who’s (most) at fault here, it was a poor decision by the Rema employee offering to send it as a letter. This “letter” is 0,366kg, meaning it’s in the category “letter between 350g – 1kg” which is unnecessary expensive. At 366g it would be cheaper to cut 16 grams off the cardboard box and send the piece you cut off in a separate letter (would’ve cost 58+25=83kr..).
A parcel (“Norgespakke liten”) up to 5kg, tracking included, would cost 73kr.
I work at a PiB and I will usually ask if the customer wants tracking or not. I would however never assume they need tracking just because it’s in a box. You can send a letter as a package, or a box as a letter – depending on what you need, the value of the content, and how much you’re willing to pay. She paid 106 kroner, which seems right for a larger «letter» that you send using PiB. If she had sent it with tracking from PiB she would’ve paid 177. The employee (who does not technically work for posten, they work for the grocery store) will not be informed on the return policies of all online stores, and we don’t know what’s inside the package – that’s none of our business. It’s up to the customer to tell the employee how they want to send their package. Most people will, in my experience, choose the cheapest option, even when sending returns.
I have sympathy for the customer in this instance, but I don’t think the worker did anything wrong. If Kicks haven’t received the return I can also understand why they won’t refund her. Maybe the package got lost along the way, and since it has no tracking there’s no way to find it. It might show up, I’ve experienced packages being lost for months and then suddenly appearing seemingly out of nowhere. Hopefully it will eventually be resolved.
Yes happened to me, lost 5000kr and never doing that again. They will deny you as they will claim that it’s your mistake for not asking for tracing. I simply do not understand, and I even asked for tracing when I was at my local coop to send the package.
Additionally, I see you or her only paid Porto and that means it will be an untraceable letter package. You should never do that as other poor immigrants will steal it instead of delivering the package.
I’m very sympathetic that we’re talking about an elderly woman here, but it’s not on the worker imo. The customer should ALWAYS specify that they want tracking. Sure, in a perfect world the employee could have asked to be 100% certain but these people are both overworked and underpaid – I had such a job a few years ago so trust me.
The customer should always provide ample information for the worker to process the letter or package in the manner that the customer wants – and yes the customer should OBVIOUSLY do the physical packing themselves. The workers sometimes do that if they have time, but that is purely a bonus and them being VERY nice.