Zanussi Integrated dishwasher - £94 delivered @ B&Q Possible misprice

TBeckett100

i was reading an interesting article from Pincent Masons on terms and conditions of websites. Have a play with B&Q website (not the next day delivery part) and see what you think. full article here

B&Q may have an issue with the Terms and Conditions in force at the time of selling the Dishwashers and Argonaut water butts. Here is why.
According to this article http://www.out-law.com/page-426 from law from Pincent Masons - it states
An important part of the sales process is to make sure that the contract which is formed with the consumer is both legally correct and also affords the retailer the maximum protection. There are various ways in which the contracting process can be structured to be legally correct, and it is important to balance absolute best practice and a more commercial approach which is still legally correct. Equally, it is remarkably easy to structure the process in a way which is legally incorrect, and which exposes the company to more risk than is necessary.
There are three stages to the contracting process which it is important to make sure are in place:

• developing and correctly incorporating the terms and conditions;
• actively applying the terms and conditions; and
• concluding the contract.

Once your terms and conditions of sale are drafted we recommend that they appear on two different pages. One page forms an integral part of the e-commerce process; the other exists as a point of reference, to reassure the customer. We will call these The Active Ts&Cs Page and The Inactive Ts&Cs Page. If you have any unusual, or especially onerous terms and conditions, or terms which you are especially keen to make sure are enforceable, we would recommend that, in addition to the approach below you include details of these terms as a part of the main text on web page.
The inactive Ts&Cs page

The Inactive Ts&Cs Page will contain a full copy of the terms and conditions, and should be accessible from a link available in the navigation section of every page of the site. At the very least it should be accessible as a link from the homepage. Providing The Inactive Ts&Cs Page is not necessarily required by UK law, but it is good practice. It can reinforce a customer's good impression of your site, and it helps fulfil your obligations under the e-commerce regulations to make the terms available to the buyer "in a way that allows him to store and reproduce them".
This is a good place to include more than just the terms and conditions of sale: you can also include the web site's copyright notice and disclaimer, together with links to other pages that may be of interest, such as the privacy policy. If you update your terms and conditions then you should use this page to display a copy of all previous versions, giving the dates during which they were in force.
Although having 'inactive' T&Cs is not obligatory, it is good practice. We know that throughout the sales process B&Q do not appear to refer to any Terms and Conditions and at the bottom of the screen dueing the website visit and order, there is no link. In fact, they are rather difficult to find.
The active Ts&Cs page

The Active Ts&Cs Page will contain only the terms and conditions of sale, and appear during the e-commerce process. What sets it apart from The Inactive Ts&Cs Page is that you don't just rely on the customer finding it. Instead, you make every effort to maximise the chances that the customer sees and reads The Active Ts&Cs Page during the transaction. From a contract law point of view you can only rely on your terms and conditions if you can show that they have been properly incorporated into the contract. This is why simply having an Inactive Ts&Cs Page will not be enough – you should not rely on the fact that the customer can find the terms themselves, you must direct the customer towards them.
The Active Ts&Cs Page should be a page of its own that can be saved or printed by the customer, rather than a pop-up or scrolling window. And make sure the page can be printed without losing words off the end of the page.
We can demonstrate throughout the screen prints at the bottom of this article that the T&Cs do not have any feature in the order process.
It is my interpretation that B&Q have made the T&Cs as an 'optional page'. You will note that only after you place your order with B&Q, which they themselves regard as a legally binding contract, do they refer you to them. As an optional page...
The active Ts&Cs page as an optional page

By making The Active Ts&Cs Page an optional page you will reduce the number of pages the customer goes through, particularly since the display of the compulsory data protection notice may be required at this point in a customer's visit. However, this approach may not be appropriate for all contract models, and if you have any particular concerns about incorporating your terms and conditions we would recommend that you make The Active Ts&Cs Page compulsory.
To make the page optional, you should include a link on the form on which the customer enters his credit card details. At the foot of this we recommend the following structure: a clear link to the terms and conditions; a warning urging the customer to read and understand the terms and conditions; a check box to indicate that the customer accepts the terms and conditions, which the customer must tick to be able to proceed; and a choice of buttons to proceed or cancel the order.
You will see that at this stage you are not asked to read the terms and conditions, there is no such link and there is no tick box. In addition, for B&Q to create a situation where they can back out, they should have adopted the following:
Concluding the contract

Your terms and conditions of sale must tell customers how and when the contract is formed. This is where the e-commerce regulations can be used to the seller's advantage. It is possible to sell on-line and take payment by credit card without actually binding the seller into contract at this stage. The solution is to provide that the customer is making an offer on the site and that the contract will be formed only if the customer's order is accepted and that taking payment from the customer's credit card does not indicate acceptance.
On-line merchant accounts provide for making refunds to a customer's credit card. Therefore, the terms should explain that, while the customer's card may be debited before the contract is formed, if the customer's order is ultimately rejected, a refund will be made immediately. Your on-line merchant account may also let you postpone the point at which the card is charged. Therefore, you may be able to synchronise the acceptance of the order and card charging – avoiding the need for refunding a card in the event that an order is rejected.
It is wise to also include a term like the following:

"By completing and submitting the electronic order form you are making an offer to purchase goods which, if accepted by us, will result in a binding contract."

The words, "if accepted by us," are very important. They help to make it clear to the consumer that you are not automatically accepting his offer at this stage. Because of the importance of this statement we would recommend that you go further than just including it in the terms and conditions. Especially where you use an optional Active Ts&Cs Page you should include this statement on the page where the customer submits their payment details – ideally it should be included just above the "Accept" button.
Once the customer's card details are validated provide him with an acknowledgement page and send an acknowledgement email. This should not confirm a contract; it should instead confirm that the order has been received and that the order is being "processed". It is helpful to give the customer an order number at this stage so that he can chase-up any problems. It is good practice, though not legally required, to ask the customer to click a button on a confirmation page to indicate that he has read the confirmation, and also to take them out of the secure web page – e.g. a "Continue" button, linking to the homepage of the site.
Once you receive the order and check that you can fulfil it you should dispatch the goods or provide the services. At this point it would be a good idea to send the customer an email advising them that their order has been accepted, and their goods have been sent. If however you discover an error with the proposed contract, for instance, a typo or technical error mislabelled an item costing £200 at £2 and your customer has ordered 500 of them, you could politely – and legally – refuse the order.

sanfly

As there has been 2 different prices being used for the dishwasher from different suppliers £375.60 and £349.99 am i right in thinking that the higher price originally used by TBeckett100 rules when going to court, depending on when you first contacted B&Q....re highlighted section below, originally posted by Taxiphil.

Quote:
Sale of Goods Act 1979 c. 54
Part VI ACTIONS FOR BREACH OF THE CONTRACT
Buyer's remedies

51.— Damages for non-delivery.

(1) Where the seller wrongfully neglects or refuses to deliver the goods to the buyer, the buyer may maintain an action against the seller for damages for non-delivery.

(2) The measure of damages is the estimated loss directly and naturally resulting, in the ordinary course of events, from the seller's breach of contract.

(3) Where there is an available market for the goods in question the measure of damages is prima facie to be ascertained by the difference between the contract price and the market or current price of the goods at the time or times when they ought to have been delivered or (if no time was fixed) at the time of the refusal to deliver.

TBeckett100

you can use either, my site is updated with the cheaper one. you may score brownie points in court if you demonstrate you used a cheaper one, but I know at the time of claiming the original one was the cheapest.

sanfly

Have today asked for Judgement, as B&Q have not filed an admission or defence to my claim.[FONT=Arial,Bold]
[/FONT]

Lynsey

sanfly wrote: »

Have today asked for Judgement, as B&Q have not filed an admission or defence to my claim.

Probably a "system error"

Well done.

Lynsey

N20Y1D

My claim states it was acknowledged on the 8th July, does this count as the date it was served?

TBeckett100

no, it would have been served 5 days after it was issued.

N20Y1D

TBeckett100 wrote: »

no, it would have been served 5 days after it was issued.

Was issued on the 1st so still a few days for me then...

TBeckett100

hint: they tend to wait until the 11th hour before filing. Moneyclaim is a day out of date so wont be updated till tomorrow.

TBeckett100

look at the rainwater thread for an update on what trading standards say!