Legal advice needed

4fxtwin

Hi, first post here.

I recently came across a great deal on a well known and completely legitimate computing website. When i say great I mean the product was priced at less than 10% of the retail value and was obviously an error.

I decided to take advantage so hit the checkout. I have received acknowledgement and confirmation of the order. No money has so far been debited from my account.

The relevant terms and conditions of the sale are as follows (I have disguised the retailer):

************************************

2. Quotations/Orders and Changes

2.1 ****** quotations are valid only if in writing & for 10 days after the quotation date, unless otherwise stated in the quotation.

2.2 All Orders for Products &/or Services shall be regarded as an offer by Customer to purchase Products &/or Services under the terms of this Agreement and not
under any other terms stated on such Orders.

2.3 ****** accepts Customer’s offer to purchase under this Agreement & makes a binding Agreement by issuing an Order Confirmation or delivering the relevant
Products &/or Services. It is recommended that Customer review the Order Confirmation & notify *** within a reasonable period of time of any discrepancies that are
noticed.

2.4 *** reserves the right to make changes to ordered specifications but will identify any such changes in the Order Confirmation. ** guarantees that any such
changed Products or Services will offer at least equivalent functionality & performance. ***** will not make any significant variations to Products or Services without
Customer’s prior agreement &, except as provided for above, will manufacture & deliver Product or Services in accordance with the Order Confirmation.

3. Price and Payment

3.1 The Price that Customer has to pay will be shown on *****’s Order Confirmation and invoices. The cost of freight, insurance, import or export, duties or other
associated costs such as delivery, sales, value add, excise taxes shall be added unless already specified as included in the Price.

3.2 Customer must pay within 30 days of the date of invoice. **** may suspend delivery of Product &/or Service until full payment is received. If full payment is not
received *** will be entitled to charge interest on the amount outstanding at the rate of 8% per annum above the Bank of England base rate. If ***** must recover the
outstanding payment &/or Product, recovery costs are to be paid by Customer.

3.3 For Orders to be delivered in installments over a period of time, ** may adjust prices due to changes to exchange rates, duties, insurance, freight, handling &
purchase costs.

****************************************

Basically, am I within my rights to demand the product (or an equivalent alternative) be delivered for the original quoted price?

Thanks for any help.

mum2one

At a guess all items for sale are on "offer to sale", they do not have to sell to you, its like an invatation to look at their product.
I would be very surpised if they honour the deal, x

4fxtwin

But they say:

2.3 ****** accepts Customer’s offer to purchase under this Agreement & makes a binding Agreement by issuing an Order Confirmation or delivering the relevant
Products &/or Services.

and:

3.1 The Price that Customer has to pay will be shown on *****’s Order Confirmation and invoices.

Does this not mean that the order confirmation constitutes a binding agreement to deliver the product at the quoted price?

I really need hard legal advice here.

Amys

There is the get out of a mistake they will claim it is obvously a mistake.

jenniewb

Amys wrote: »

There is the get out of a mistake they will claim it is obvously a mistake.

Agreed- they will have people whose job it is to wrangle the ************ out of any such "deal" so unfortunately I would not get your hopes up.

That does not mean you should take any refusal to honor the deal lying down!;)

spaceman5

generally speaking when buying of the net, the contract is not binding until they send you an email confirming despatch, so chances are they will realise ther mistake, and email you saying it was priced wrongly and they have cancelled your order, thats how it works with amazon, play, tesco etc.

But you may strike lucky, as if you are the only one or there are only a few people who have ordered said product they may decide to honour the deal, its not like you have done what other people have done, come on here shouting that there is a product worth £200 selling for £2 and then you get every tom, !!!!!! and harry ordering 200 of them, alerting the company to there mistake:rolleyes:, anyway i hope you get your purchase, Dave

zenseeker

As others have already pointed out, if they notice the mistake at any point prior to dispatch, they can cancel the order, even if they have billed you they can wriggle out because they simply refund your card. The sale is not legally binding until the goods have left the warehouse.

Halloway

4fxtwin wrote: »

I really need hard legal advice here.

Go and see a solicitor then. :cool:

Look at it this way: if the supplier refuses to sell you the item what are you going to do about it? Take them to court? I doubt it. Practically, there is no way that you can force someone to sell you an item if they don't want to, regardless of how you might interpret the conditions on a website.

I'm calculating that as the price you saw was 10% of the normal price the listed price contained a misplaced decimal point. This is a not-uncommon error and the law of pricing and advertising makes allowance for such errors.

What the supplier cannot do is dispatch the item to you and then demand more money from you or charge the difference e.g. to your credit card.

You aren't going to win on this one. Forget it and move on.

4fxtwin

So the T&Cs are essentially worthless?

I don't want to appear pig-headed about this but they make the rules and should stick to them. There is no reason why the order could not have been checked before issuing the confirmation and entering a binding agreement. They do say that they are not responsible for pricing errors but also that the price and contract are fixed upon issuing said order confirmation. Nowhere do they mention ending the agreement due to a pricing error. Also:

1.5 Our Agreement is intended to comply with all of your statutory rights as a Consumer. However, in the event that any uncertainty arises your statutory rights as a Consumer will take priority over the Agreement.

There is no mention of their rights taking priority.

zenseeker

This topic has been well covered many many times...the company retains the right to cancel the sale at any time prior to dispatch, it's the same with all online purchases.

spaceman5

i am sure somewhere in there terms and conditions it will state, that until item is despatched they can refuse to sell you the item at the price you purchase, if it such an obvious mistake they may email you to let you know there has been a mistake, and to ask if you want to carry on with the purchase at correct price, or cancel order, or they may just cancel the order automatically, as this is what 90% if not all companys do that sell things on the net, like i say though at least you did nt post it on forums for people to go and abuse, so if you are the only one they may honour it out of goodwill, but legally you will not have a leg to stand on, Dave