Internet misrepresentation of price

chj17

Over the years I have come accross occurences when browsing the internet for items that on one page one price is quoted, but when yhe item is picked, another price is shown. The most recent occurred today when I Googled for a specific camera. One of the sponsored links from Jessops.com quoted 'buy the Fuji Finepix S200 EXR at £249 Christmas Gift Deals - Order now!`. However on linking to the wedsite, it brings up a different camera from the same manufacturer; the camera I actually searched for was £349.
Would the seller be required to honour the price shown on the sponsored link?

Proc

No. The site T&Cs will probably say something like contract isn't formed until item is delivered to you. Basically, right up to the point where you recieve the item they can cancel the deal and refund any payments made.

kernowayr

Scenario you describe looks difficult to prove I would say.

Do also remember that prices advertised are what's known as "invitations to treat" only. In other words a trader can refuse to sell any item he changes his mind about selling about, at what ever price, doesn't have to sell you the display item if that's his last one and can accept payment or terms in any way he chooses. The onus is on you as a customer to conclude the deal on those terms, or not as the case may be.

I feel you would have little room for redress with the scenario described above unless the trader sent you the cheaper camera rather than the one you ordered and paid for.

zzzLazyDaisy

Jessops have done this sort of thing previously.

Some time ago they had an discount offer in big writing on the home page of the site for £50 off cameras if you spent more than a certain amount. I had been wanting an SLR camera, but it was expensive, so found the one I wanted, inserted the code which was accepted, but when I went to pay the price went back to the original.

Phoned CS, they said the code wasn't valid for SLR cameras. There was nothing on the home page about this, so I complained and CS said their tech people were looking into it. A week later nothing had been done about it.

chj17

This type of practice merely drives me away from dealing with this company. I would expect such practice from the shadier elements on the web, but not from large outfits like Jessops!
There should be some legislation to outlaw such practices.

Bowling_4_Gold

Just on a side note, that particular camera was DEFINATELY £249.99 in-store on Saturday - I am also looking at that particular model!

chj17

Out of interest, I've just googled again to check that my initial report was correct. The sponsored link still refers to the S200 EXR at £249; it still however takes you to the F200EXR at £249; the S200 remains at £349.

BFG_2

Could report them to Trading Standards...

They would then assemble the full might of the government's consumer protection team, swing rapidly into action and do, errrrr.........SFA.

vicshippers

It looks like the company they have running their Adwords campaign (or the team that are doing it in house) aren't keeping up to date with the website content as opposed to intentionally misleading customers.

It's not one for trading standards - but might be worth highlighting to their customer services team so that they have the chance to get it corrected.

ses6jwg

No wonder Jessops is basically 1 foot in the companies graveyard with practices like this.