I’ve mistakenly got 144 bottles of free wine over two years – I don’t want it to end

In our Money Secrets series, we ask people to confess their furtive money-related secrets which they are hiding from loved ones or that people do not know the full extent about.

Today, we speak to Megan, whose name we have changed to protect her identity. She reveals how she has been receiving six bottles of wine to her home address every month for over two years from a wine subscription company – but she has never ordered it or paid a penny for it.

When a box of wine was first delivered to my home address just over two years ago, I initially thought the deliveryman was going to ask me to take it in for a neighbour.

But when I looked at the address label, it was definitely my address, and although it didn’t state a full name, it simply said Ms and then had a variation of my surname, even though it wasn’t the correct spelling. So I thought it must be for me after all.

Opening the box, I found six bottles of good quality wine – a mixture of whites and reds. I looked for paperwork to see where it had come from, but all I found was a piece of paper welcoming me to my wine subscription. But I knew I definitely hadn’t signed up for one.

My next thought was that someone must have sent it to me as a present, but I couldn’t think what for. It was that in-between period where it was a couple of months after Christmas, but still three months until my birthday. And I am single and live on my own, so I knew it wouldn’t be from a boyfriend or meant for someone else in the household, as there is just me.

I asked my sister when I spoke to her if she had sent the box of wine and I mentioned it to a couple of friends, but they said it wasn’t from them. They just told me to enjoy the wine, no matter who had ordered it for me and they were sure I would find out sooner or later who had gifted it to me.

So that’s what I did, I drank the wine, and it was very nice too. It was a lot nicer than the cheap bottles I was used to picking up at the off-licence or during my supermarket shop. These were quality wines and I realised what a difference there was between a cheap bottle of plonk and a higher-end one.

Once the wine had been drunk and no one had come forward telling me they had bought it for me, I had almost forgotten all about it – until another box turned up the following month.

This time, I was a lot more alarmed. I started thinking maybe I was a victim of some sort of scam. So I checked through all my bank statements and credit card transactions to make sure there wasn’t some sort of sneaky payment coming out each month. But there was nothing, and I realised it couldn’t be a scam, as what would a fraudster get out of sending me free wine without charging me a penny for it?

The following month, another box of wine bottles turned up, and then the month after, along came another. What started as a pleasant surprise began worrying me as I didn’t want to get into trouble or be landed with a shock bill.

I looked up the company where the wine was coming from and I found they did various monthly subscriptions, so for whatever reason, they must have thought that my home address was signed up for this six-bottle-month wine subscription.

One friend said maybe I should call the company up to find out who was sending me the wine – or who was paying for it. This probably would have been the right thing to do, and I actually dialled the customer services number, but then I hung up before actually speaking to someone, as I realised that once I reported it, it was highly likely that my wine deliveries would abruptly come to an end.

I told myself there was no way the wine company would be sending out these wines if someone, somewhere, wasn’t paying for them. And they were being sent to my home, and I was accepting them in good faith, as they were being sent to someone with my surname, even though it isn’t spelt correctly. So surely they can’t try and claw back any money retrospectively?

I haven’t had any other interactions with the wine company. They clearly don’t have my email address or telephone number, as I have never received any emails or texts from them.

All there is every month is a letter or leaflet in the box telling me about that month’s selection of wines and how I can change what I receive and ask for just white or just red or a specific wine that I like, instead of getting a mixed box.

I was tempted once after enjoying a particularly lovely bottle of white wine to ask if I could have six of those the following month – but I knew that as soon as I made any contact with the wine company, I risked my monthly free wine supply coming to an end.

It has now been over two years and my monthly box of wine is still arriving and I am a lot more relaxed about it. The longer it goes on, the more I think it will carry on being a never-ending supply. I just have to make sure I never tell the wine company that I don’t think it is intended for me.

I do feel a bit guilty sometimes, as I am getting six bottles of wine every month – so 72 bottles a year – and it is costing me absolutely nothing. But I am sure the company itself isn’t losing out, as they wouldn’t keep sending it if they weren’t getting paid. And whoever is paying for it mistakenly obviously has so much money that they haven’t even noticed or questioned it after two years.

The only drawback is that I have turned into a bit of a wine snob as my wine palate has become a lot more refined. A bottle of wine which costs a fiver is no longer good enough for me – it has to be the good stuff.

I now always have a good supply of wine at home – and as long as my mysterious wine fairy keeps on paying for it to be delivered to my home, hopefully it will keep on arriving each month.

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