Tesco, overcharging, and copious amounts of bovine faeces?

lil_miss_sunshine

Hi, does anyone if this works with online orders through Tesco? I've been overcharged on every order i've had with tesco..

x

Schamansky

robpw2 wrote: »

I can see it on bbc news now

"shopper sues tesco for £1.80 "

what remedy are you actual after ..?

See above, post 27.

You forgot the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, International Court of Justice in The Hague, and a good-old school ordeal (stone in boiling water, or me and that manager with a large claymore each, and stuff like that.) And if all that fails, I have a T-800 in the shed to send shopping.

tbw

robpw2 wrote: »

but its not a legal right , its a tesco policy for good will when you have been overcharged so tesco have the option to change or ammend this policy if required ..

I understand why you would be upset , i agree there may be a training issue

I didn't say I would be upset (at least, I don't think I did!) - I'd just be cross that tesco were trying to wriggle out of their obligation to me as a customer who had been overcharged !

I don't know about the legal rights of Tesco and their various policies. What I am pretty sure of is that, if they have a national policy and they put it up CLEARLY on the wall of all their stores so that customers can be re-assured that the WON'T be overcharged, then they certainly have a moral obligation to put their money where their mouth is! Also, I suspect that it would constitute some sort of offence in the eyes of Trading Standards (not that I think Trading Standards would be interested in helping out on this one, they don't seem to do much for their money these days).

Fair play to the OP for having the gumption to stand up for the often hard done by customer !

taxiphil

Yep, Coupon-mad is spot on about the contractual situation - they coughed up when I served papers over their failure to honour an R&R on an Xbox 360.

robpw2 wrote: »

but its not a legal right , its a tesco policy for good will when you have been overcharged so tesco have the option to change or ammend this policy if required ..

Hmmm, not quite.

Failing to honour the DTD sign is also a blatant offence under the new Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations which came into force last year as an implementation of the EU Unfair Commercial Practices Directive. (These regulations replaced the Trade Descriptions Act, under which it was already an offence not to honour the DTD sign).

On top of which, the act of overcharging in the first place (displaying misleading price indications) is a criminal offence under the Consumer Protection Act 1987.

Schamansky

Excellent stuff, taxiphil.

Quick look at the law...is this the way to go? Bolded parts?

Misleading actions

5.—(1) A commercial practice is a misleading action if it satisfies the conditions in either paragraph (2) or paragraph (3).
(2) A commercial practice satisfies the conditions of this paragraph—
(a) if it contains false information and is therefore untruthful in relation to any of the matters in paragraph (4) or if it or its overall presentation in any way deceives or is likely to deceive the average consumer in relation to any of the matters in that paragraph, even if the information is factually correct; and
(b) it causes or is likely to cause the average consumer to take a transactional decision he would not have taken otherwise.
(3) A commercial practice satisfies the conditions of this paragraph if—
(a) it concerns any marketing of a product (including comparative advertising) which creates confusion with any products, trade marks, trade names or other distinguishing marks of a competitor; or
(b) it concerns any failure by a trader to comply with a commitment contained in a code of conduct which the trader has undertaken to comply with, if—
(i) the trader indicates in a commercial practice that he is bound by that code of conduct, and
(ii) the commitment is firm and capable of being verified and is not aspirational,
and it causes or is likely to cause the average consumer to take a transactional decision he would not have taken otherwise, taking account of its factual context and of all its features and circumstances.

creased-leach

Good for you. :T The more people who take them on, the better.

taxiphil

Schamansky wrote: »

Excellent stuff, taxiphil.

Quick look at the law...is this the way to go? Bolded parts?

Yes, and I'd say the following was highly pertinent:

5.—(1) A commercial practice is a misleading action if it satisfies the conditions in either paragraph (2) or paragraph (3).
(2) A commercial practice satisfies the conditions of this paragraph—
(a) if it contains false information and is therefore untruthful in relation to any of the matters in paragraph (4) or if it or its overall presentation in any way deceives or is likely to deceive the average consumer in relation to any of the matters in that paragraph, even if the information is factually correct; and


(4) The matters referred to in paragraph (2)(a) are—
(a) the existence or nature of the product;
(b) the main characteristics of the product (as defined in paragraph 5);
(c) the extent of the trader’s commitments;
(d) the motives for the commercial practice;
(e) the nature of the sales process;
(f) any statement or symbol relating to direct or indirect sponsorship or approval of the trader or the product;
(g) the price or the manner in which the price is calculated;
(h) the existence of a specific price advantage;
(i) the need for a service, part, replacement or repair;
(j) the nature, attributes and rights of the trader (as defined in paragraph 6);
(k) the consumer’s rights or the risks he may face.

(note the emboldened parts)

Note, also, that "commercial practice" is defined earlier on in the regulations as:

any act, omission, course of conduct, representation or commercial communication by a trader, which is directly connected with the promotion, sale or supply of a product to or from consumers, whether occurring before, during or after a commercial transaction (if any) in relation to a product;

So, in other words their verbal statements to you (i.e. their bull**** about DTD not applying) are a "commercial practice" for the purposes of the breaches in reg 5 above.

I'd get all this into a letter and fire it off to your local Trading Standards - they sometimes need a rather 'insistent' approach, and by thrusting the relevant parts of the CPUTRs right under their nose it makes it harder for them to fob you off or fail to act on it.

Schamansky

You're the man, taxiphil!! :T

Fire_Fox

Great thread - good luck and post back the result!

Schamansky

Dug myself through EU directive 2005/29 EC, which is the basis for the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations, as almost literally implemented into UK law in 2008.

Coming to the conclusion that I haven't got a case under the above regulations, because the condition for the CPUTR to bite for all sorts of cases is that

"(any commercial practice) causes or is likely to cause the average consumer to take a transactional decision he would not have taken otherwise, taking account of its factual context and of all its features and circumstances"

Which doesn't bite here, as I see it. Nobody buys anything at Tesco because of the DTD policy. It would be quite hard to convince a judge that you only buy your groceries at Tesco because of their DTD policy, and you wouldn't shop there were it not for this specific policy promise.

In plain terms, I bought the salad bags because they were dirt cheap, not because Tesco's DTD policy suckered me into buying them.

Result: >>!!!!!!<<

Contract law is the way (communicated policies being part of contract, etc.)

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In taxiphil's case, things were different in so far as it was the special price promise on the Xbox deal that caused the consumer taxiphil to buy the product bundle. He would not have bought it otherwise.