I think the story is fiction. I don't think commodities are sent wherever your office is. Isn't the location of delivery set as a part of the futures contract?

Thedailywtf stories are generally some mix of fiction and fact. They take a presumably first-hand account from an insider and change a bunch of details to anonymize it and enhance it for dramatic effect.

I'd guess, for this particular story, that at least the misparsing of XML for a futures contract actually happened, and maybe that some producer consequently had to ask about the feasibility of delivering to a corporate office that happened to be in former docklands. It's entirely possible that the commodity involved was not coal, and it's extremely unlikely that a guy showed up one day at the front desk with a clipboard and barges outside.

In response to skepticism in the comments, the article's author gives an example of a futures contract on eggs where delivery was accidentally taken: https://web.archive.org/web/20090925022603/http://www.minyan...

Yes (e.g., if you buy CL futures, delivery is in Oklahoma).

QL coal doesn't trade anymore (all the active coal futures I can find now are cash-settled) but delivery seems to have historically been at the discretion of the parties, so the story is at least plausible.

Everything I’ve read seems to say it’s very, very difficult to accidentally take delivery, but it’s not quite impossible.

In related news, there is a Planet Money Podcast (episode called the Eddie Murphy Rule) where they interview the trader who took possession of a bunch of cattle by mistake IIRC.

If you're a normal retail trader, your broker will probably intervene before then.