When is a Sale legal or moral?

RHT

Good evening, Not sure if this is the right forum, (it's about buying, but could be a Cake Shop Discussion). I’m just courting opinion on this. Any thoughts from buyers or sellers would be appreciated. Before I start my mini rant, I know sometimes things “can be too good to be true”, but also would put forward that a “sale is an opportunity to grab a bargain.”


I noticed a sale item last night that was a true bargain, the seller had listed the RRP and the Sale price, and the saving (95%), accordingly I can assume someone had done their homework. I purchased 4 of the items (1 for me 1 for each of the riding partners). PayPal took my money, and an automated shop response confirming order received and accepted. Received an e-mail this morning advising the order had been cancelled, and a little later confirmation from PayPal my money had been refunded. Contacted the seller to be advised, (a) they had made a mistake, (b) they would not honour the deal, (c) they were legally entitled to withdraw or cancel any sale, (d) I had no course of redress as they had refunded the money, and (e) they did not have the item in stock to sell anyway!

As I said, just wondered if this act is either legal or for that matter, moral? But at least they now have my e-mail details and are bombarding me with offers for items that could possiblynot be for sale :-)

marcusjb

Legal yes

Moral - well that's down to the individual.

They didn't have it in stock anyway, but they could have said 'sorry, and here's a 10% off voucher for next time'

hopper1

Was it P X by any chance?...

redvee

If they sold something at a price then they have to honour the deal. They entered into a contract with the purchaser, yourself, when you hit the BIN button regardless of wetehr it was in stock or not. Make a claim with Ebay.

nochekmate

Soundls like a similar experience with Edinburgh Cycles and their SRAM Red shifters for £85 which never materialised.

tailwindhome

There's two sides to the moral debate don't forget

tmg

For a contract to be struck there needs to be three things, an offer, an acceptance and some consideration.

You made the offer to buy at the stated price and provided consideration by sending the funds, the seller rejected this, therefore no contract was formed.

Seems to have been a fair bit of this going on over Christmas/New Year, three examples come to mind just from reading this forum where crazy deals were on websites, people placed orders just to find out they wouldn't be fulfilled.

If it looks to good to be true then it normally is

marcusjb

redvee wrote:

If they sold something at a price then they have to honour the deal. They entered into a contract with the purchaser, yourself, when you hit the BIN button regardless of wetehr it was in stock or not. Make a claim with Ebay.

If you take something to a till (let's pretend it's a real shop) and it comes up as £10 instead of £100, let's say - at this point they don't have to accept your offer to buy the goods. There is no legal obligation for them to sell you the goods at the priced marked. At this point, the advertised price is simply an offer to tender for trade.

However, if they take your money, the the contract has happenned, they can not then turn around and ask for the extra £90.

Now in the slightly grey and murky world of online shops (I'm not sure this was an eBay transaction), then in theory, yes, the contract has occurred - you've gone ot the till and paid. How enforcable that is, I am not sure (it's an automated process not subject to verification by a member of staff to oversee their side of the contract).

Goes to show how careful you have to be if you run an online shop.

As the saying goes, if it's too good to be true, then it probably is!

If you think they've done you wrong, then I guess Trading Standards is the road to go down?

fallingoff

There's always the excuse that they sold out prior to you ordering,using an automated system this could occur.
Doubt if there's anything illegal about it,there's plenty more bigger scams to worry about and at least you got your money back....

Rockhopper

Is this the forks on Chain Reaction that were up for £89.95 instead of £899?

jonmack

Chances are in there T&C's there's a get out clause for incorrectly priced items.

tri-sexual

legally the shop has done nothing wrong.
tmg is correct, some other posts are not.

this incorrect pricing happens alot online as well as regular bricks and motar shops and the seller has the right to refuse your offer

its frustrating especially if you think that they have "cheated" you out of a fantastic deal and they should honour it not matter what. but shops cannot operate like this, imagine someone wrongly advertised a £250,000 rolls royce for £250.000 they are committing financial suicide to honour the advertised price.

i do sometimes feel that some of the less reputable retailers/ or criminals (especially online) will advertise products that simply do not exist at unrealistic prices to entice punters who will pay for/ give credit details/ hand over valuable information so buyer beware. if its too good to be true, it generally is.

tri-sexual

BTW what was the offer? and from which shop?

Valy

tri-sexual wrote:

BTW what was the offer? and from which shop?

+1

RHT

The shop was TREDZ, (I would note for the record I've not got a problem with them, their shop staff are helpful, they've always offered good service, if they can they will price match and I will use them again). In this instance the product was a TOPEAK Alien -Multi Tool, advertised with a RRP of around £35 reduced to £2, (showing a saving of 95%)! The price was clearly an error, but then again they may have over stocked etc and it was in a Sale so I thought it was worth a go! I just wondered if I had any course of redress, but as always there was a balanced and considered response from the forum members.

And at the end of the day no one got hurt! And as you say, if its too good to be true, it generally is.

jc-bike-person

There is a difference with buying on-line
'Distance selling regulations'
It means (from a customer point of view) you can return an item bought on line with no quibble - even if you don't like it (up to 14 days I think)
Whereas if you buy something in a real shop and you don’t like it, legally the real shop does not have to accept the return unless it is faulty (although most will)
(Note: you can only return it if you ‘buy-it-now’ at a fixed price. EBay auctions don’t count)
This is were my knowledge ends
But there is probably something also to protect the vendor, which means that Tredz are probably Ok in stopping your transaction - even after you paid for it

rolf_f

RHT wrote:

As I said, just wondered if this act is either legal or for that matter, moral? But at least they now have my e-mail details and are bombarding me with offers for items that could possiblynot be for sale :-)

Interesting approach to the morality angle; alternatively, is it moral to want to profit from someone elses honest mistake (if that is what it was)?

term1te

I bought a washing machine in Comet once. The model up from the one I was after was a couple of hundred quid less than the one I was originally after. So I went to buy it, got the appropriate paper work from Saturday boy, but at the till it came up almost twice the price. I pointed this out, and fair dos to them, the guy came to look at the price label, said it was a mistake but that they would honour that price. No money had changed hands at that point, so I guess they didn't have to do that.

I've tried to buy stuff online advertised at a very good price, only to be told it is now unavailable from their suppliers, but they can get the almost identical model for a much higher price. One online retailer kept my money for a month, with the there's a delay with our suppliers line, before offering me a much more expensive one as a replacement, if I only gave them more money. I got my money back, eventually, and won't do business with them again.