'Should we order EVERYTHING online?' blog discussion

naomz

hi can u's please advise me i bought perfume on my debit card off a seller on EBAY on the 9th of dec,for a christmas present for somebody,
i kept messaging the girl i bought it off as it hadnt arrived and still hasnt.I contact ebay who only gave me options to pick n they opened a CASE as they call it, the seller had told them that she'd already been intouch with me n gave me the trackin number..(which she didnt)
so then she agreed to give me a refund so they closed the CASE but shes only agreein to refund me my 47.99 when i send her back the perfume..but i still havent recieved it...plz advise me somebody as this shouldnt b right. xo:mad:

jno

I wonder what MSE Martin thinks of stores like HMV and the high street generally dying as a result of austere individuals shopping on-line looking for the cheapest deal. The original article mentions nothing about the disadvantages and potential changes in society of us all buying EVERYTHING online ...

e.g.
death of the High Street = loss of jobs = nowhere to go = socially we all become to tied to a PC to buy anything and don't go out as much

Ok, we all like a bargain, but at what cost? No mention of this in the article.

Nenen

The other HUGE problem buying online that Martin failed to mention is that online companies often have T&Cs that state that, in the event of an item being mispriced they can refuse to sell it to you even after they have taken the money from your account (search for the thread on the bargain Virgin balloon experience offered by the Additions/Very/Littlewood group for just one example of this - there are lots of others too).

The companies concerned say they will refund your money in these circumstances but they often take several days to do this and, as we all know, money being refunded also takes several days from the time of refund to the point of being back in your account. This many people have money taken from their account for goods that are never even despatched and then wait anything from 5-14 days+ for the money to be back in their account.

There are numerous threads debating the legality of the above practice as many people state that in a shop the contract is complete when the vendor accepts payment but this does not appear to be the case online. Imagine what would happen if you bought a bargain in a shop and were in the car park loading it into your car when an assistant came and told you that selling it to you at that price had been a mistake and you had to bring it back now and have your card refunded in a few days time. This is regulalry happening for internet shopping.

I really hope that Martin will look into the legality of this and make this his next big campaign, i.e. make it illegal for internet companies to rescind on transactions once money has been taken from the purchaser's account and/or make it a condition of internet sales that money can only be deducted from the account once the goods have been dispatched. How about it Martin?