Needs advice regarding an order I placed with Evans

miss.steph83

Can anyone advise what my consumer rights are please...

I placed an order for 2 pairs of boots (size 6 & 8) on the Evans website on 30.9.2009 at 8am, as they were listed as £8 I thought they were a good bargain. I received a confirmation of my order not long after.

It had occured to me that the surprisingly cheap price may have been an error, but as far as I was aware good have to be sold at the advertised price?

At 1.25pm I received an email advising me the boots were out of stock. As this seemed a little suspicious I contacted the Evans Customer Service line at approximately 2.30pm on 30.9.2009. The gentleman I spoke to changed the reasoning twice.

Firstly he told me the boots were out of stock. After asking whether the order cancellation had anything to do with the price he changed his story to:

Yes, it's because of the price. I advised that, as far as I was aware, goods had to be sold at the price advertised. He informed me that they can cancel any orders before they are dispatched. Following this I advised that I would be contacting Trading Standards and ended the call.

At 2.45pm I received a call from the same gentleman who advised that the boots were indeed out of stock and the price had been reduced to £15 previously before being dropped to £8 the previous week.

There was nothing on the product page stating that the price had been reduced nor that it was part of any online offer (I have a printed copy of the page), infact they were listed in the 'New In' section of the website so I can only assume that the advisor was lying to me.

I called into the Evans store in the Arndale, Manchester last night to have a look at the boots. There were 3 pairs on display, 1 of which was a size 6 as I ordered. The price was given as £80.

Is it not wrong for a company to withdraw orders in these circumstances?

Optimist

They do not have to sell to you at that price.

There is usually something in the terms and conditions that cover

bingo_bango

As Optomist says, they don't have to sell to you at any particular price.

When you order the goods, you are making an offer to the company. For a contract to exist, the company must accept that offer. If they don't (as they haven't in your case) then there is no contract and you have no legal position to force the issue.

The fact that you saw them in a store in Arndale means nothing. The online and physical stores are treated as two separate businesses.

As I've just posted in another thread however....

There is a separate issue whereby they are offering goods that are unavailable for sale. This likely constitutes an offence under S.9 of The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 ( a misleading action in S.5(4)(a) )and should be reported to your local authority Trading Standards dept.

pir

Websites like this have T&C which pretty much state that can change the price, cancel your order, correct pricing mistakes etc. so they can get out of situations like this. Annoying but little you can do about it apart from stop using evans in protest which wouldn't be good if you like the stuff they sell.

pinkshoes

The order is not complete until the boots are delivered.

They made a mistake, then cancelled the order.

Annoying, but it was a mistake...