Can I insist they honour an order?

cw18

Apologies if this is on the wrong board, but couldn't see anywhere else it seemed to "fit"

I placed an on-line order with a company on Wednesday evening - all the items were in a sale.

They're now contacting people who placed orders in a 36 hours(ish) window, and saying (in the email version of the contact, when they can't reach people by phone) "We experienced some technical problems with the stock and price records on our website and had to shut the site down temporarily for maintenance. Any customers who placed orders during this time will be contacted by our Customer Service team to issue a full refund."

The site was down from early Thursday morning until very early hours this morning, but is now back up, with a sale still running. The items I ordered are still on the site, but none of them are in the sale any more.

I received an email confirming the order (Wednesday evening) and the payment was taken from my bank account yesterday. As of yet I've had no contact about them cancelling the order, but I know of a few people in exactly the same position who have had phone calls (and one who's had the email) -- and the fact they state they'll be issuing refunds implies everyone got charged.

But can I push for them to honour the order (or force them to)? Their terms and conditions state

Our Acceptance of Orders
We will sell to you and you will purchase from us items subject to the Terms and Conditions of Business set out below. The contract in respect to the products supplied by us to you comes into existence in accordance with these terms and conditions. For avoidance of doubt, receipt of an order via our Site does not constitute acceptance. We will e-mail you prior to delivery to advise you of our acceptance of your order. That acceptance will be deemed complete and to have been effectively communicated to you at the time that we send the e-mail to you (whether or not you receive that e-mail). Only our communication of our acceptance of your order to you will engage us, in accordance with these terms and conditions of business.

I've highlighted the bit that seems to matter, which is where my query lies. I've ordered from them several times in the past (including an order in December), but I've only ever had the one email from them about each order -- which is the one I got on Wednesday night. The email is titled 'order confirmation order number' and starts 'Order Confirmation from company name' - and then goes on to detail what I ordered, and at what price.

simpywimpy

I must admit this is getting a more regular occurence in my experience.

I have twice had my debenhams order cancelled as out of stock
My two Orange phone orders were confirmed then out of stock
My current order for the B&Q dishwasher is looking very unlikely to appear

Not only is it the disappointment of not getting what you orderered, but while you wait a couple of weeks or more for them to tell you, you also miss out on alternative offers that you could have taken up had you known!

cw18

But in this case the items aren't out of stock - they're just refusing to honour the prices that were showing on their site on Tuesday/Wednesday !!!

Applepie_2

This is similar to something that happened to me wth an M&S (and an M&M) order. Email confirming receipt of your order request isn't deemed acceptance of an order until the order is despatched (in t&Cs). It was a pain during the sales as you didn't know if things would turn up or not - which meant you had to keep your fingers crossed. Reading your extract, I believe up until they send you the delivery email the company can contact you cancelling your request, even changing the prices, etc, I don't think there's anything you can do unfortunately. It means that if there's a run on products/they have made a mistake, it won't work out costly for them. I agree with Simpywimpy it's happening more often and companies cover themselves with a 'get out' in their terms and conditions.

cw18

But they don't send a delivery email -- there's no other contact at all until the order arrives

vaio

I’d have thought that if they are offering a refund then the contract exists and could be enforced.

I really can’t see any other justification for taking your money other than acceptance of your order.

If they now claim not to have accepted your order why did they take the money?

I think there is a get out if the buyer knew the item was wrongly priced (£300 TV for £20) rather than just well priced like in a sale (£300 TV for £200)

dmg24

How big is the price difference?

It is likely that either the contract will contain an errors and omissions clause, and/ or the retailer will argue that there was a unilateral mistake. If either of these applies, all the retailer needs to do is put you back to your original position, which is what they are doing in offering a refund.

Applepie_2

cw18 wrote: »

But they don't send a delivery email -- there's no other contact at all until the order arrives

From your email...'We will e-mail you prior to delivery to advise you of our acceptance of your order.'

You don't appear to have received a delivery email, hence, no acceptance of the order.

Only commenting on the information provided.

cw18

That's why that clause is confusing me -- they've never sent a later email (not to me, nor anyone else I know who uses them or has used them in over 2 years), so I would have thought it fair to assume the one I received is the one they mean If not, then surely they're breaching their terms every time by not sending it out.....

(I know the clause says 'whether or not you receive that e-mail', but I think it fair to assume that if every email they sent out bounced they'd realise they had a problem with their system -- and I can't see every ISP just failing to deliver and not bouncing it!)

cw18

dmg24 wrote: »

How big is the price difference?

Most of them had been reduced from £5-£10 down to 75p/£1.50. They currently have some items in the sale at the same kind of reduction.

Labasheedy

I just don't understand the stock control on some of these online sites.

Marks and Spencer..our flagship retailer apparently..
I ordered quite a bit in their sale and days after the dispatch date coming and going, I emailed them to query my order, to be told the items are now ALL out of stock

Call me simplistic, but for example surely they start off with 50 items and every time someone places an order, you deduct it by one and despatch.
I found with Marks and Spencer that items I had ordered (the last of their stock according to website at the time), actually reappeared on their website a couple of days later, while my order went unfullfilled.

This process doesn't make any sense to me. A lot of these companies must have a very loose control over their stock levels, but they need to startr getting up to par or their competitors..Play.com..Amazon etc, will streak ahead.
Didn't I read Amazon figures up 18% in last quarter...sharp practice always brings the buyer back.
I won't place another online sale order with M&S,because when I place an order I expect to get it, not having to be left for a week wondering if they can pull my order together and not actually relist it on their site.