Quick questions on Consumer Rights

theonlywayisup

Kim14A said:

DoaM said:

How did you pay? Raise a chargeback claim against your card provider for non-delivery of goods. First send a cancellation notice to H&B via the method described in their T&Cs.

i actually paid via paypal, so i'll look into that!  Thank you!

You need to open a dispute for Item Not Received (INR).  Escalate it as soon as you can.  If the seller is unable to provided tracking showing the delivery then you will be refunded.  Do not close the case as you will be unable to reopen it. 

shaun_from_Africa

I had exactly the same problem with H&B and I also paid for the goods via paypal.
I ordered online on the 15th March with a delivery of 16th March. This didn't arrive so due to the lockdown, I gave it a couple of weeks then on the 2nd April, emailed them but heard nothing back.
I finally had to open a Paypal dispute on the 11th April and had a refund on the 16th.

From the date I ordered to the date I received my refund, the items I ordered were always showing as being in stock and H&B were still taking online orders with a promised delivery time of 4-5 days.

Kim14A

shaun_from_Africa said:

I had exactly the same problem with H&B and I also paid for the goods via paypal.
I ordered online on the 15th March with a delivery of 16th March. This didn't arrive so due to the lockdown, I gave it a couple of weeks then on the 2nd April, emailed them but heard nothing back.
I finally had to open a Paypal dispute on the 11th April and had a refund on the 16th.

From the date I ordered to the date I received my refund, the items I ordered were always showing as being in stock and H&B were still taking online orders with a promised delivery time of 4-5 days.

Thank you!  i've now opened a case, so fingers crossed!

theonlywayisup

Kim14A said:

shaun_from_Africa said:

I had exactly the same problem with H&B and I also paid for the goods via paypal.
I ordered online on the 15th March with a delivery of 16th March. This didn't arrive so due to the lockdown, I gave it a couple of weeks then on the 2nd April, emailed them but heard nothing back.
I finally had to open a Paypal dispute on the 11th April and had a refund on the 16th.

From the date I ordered to the date I received my refund, the items I ordered were always showing as being in stock and H&B were still taking online orders with a promised delivery time of 4-5 days.

Thank you!  i've now opened a case, so fingers crossed!

You can relax your fingers.  Just don't close the case.  Please do report back when you get your refund. 

LornaList

HOLLAND and BARRETT
Kim14A I ordered online with H & B 28th May and my order is still in the warehouse after contacting them numerous times and each time being told my order will be with me the next day I have asked for a refund, looking on review sites like Trustpilot it looks like a lot of other people are having the same issue and one person has even said they are about to go into administration, the long and short of it is even with Covid 19 they are just not dealing with customers correctly, I've not had this issue with other companies. Hopefully I will get a refund at some point this year!

jbindebt

Uber eats/KFC- What is the correct process to try to get your money back when both they and the restaurant refuse to accept liability and are blaming each other? I'm currently trying to get a chargeback to see if that works.

JoeSaponic

Last week I bought an iPhone 7 online from John Lewis I have to return owing to an unforeseen change of circumstances. 

JL say I can’t return it if the seal on the box had been broken. I’d lifted the seals to look inside. I never touched the machine (still in its bubble wrap) and certainly never attempted to switch it on. Then I simply returned the item to its box and packaging and prepared to send it back.

Irrelevant, say JL. Their technology policy - employed widely throughout the retail sector they say - is that returns have to be in re-sellable condition and that it fails that test even if it’s just the seals on the box that have been lifted.

Not sure where this leaves people on the 14 day ‘for any reason’ return provision JL say comes second to company policy (I knew there were exemptions on returns for software, but not iPhones).

Nor can I return it even if it’s faulty they say. Instead I must contact their technology customer support centre and they will ‘diagnose problems remotely and offer a solution’.

All I got was a suggestion to take it into a JL shop, where an employee can see the item’s condition and use his or her judgement as to its acceptability.

I’m housebound and disabled. I can’t go to a store. Nor, it seems, am I allowed even to nominate someone to go on my behalf (ID problems, inevitably).

Could someone please advise me of my legal position?

Aylesbury_Duck

JoeSaponic said:

Last week I bought an iPhone 7 online from John Lewis I have to return owing to an unforeseen change of circumstances. 

JL say I can’t return it if the seal on the box had been broken. I’d lifted the seals to look inside. I never touched the machine (still in its bubble wrap) and certainly never attempted to switch it on. Then I simply returned the item to its box and packaging and prepared to send it back.

Irrelevant, say JL. Their technology policy - employed widely throughout the retail sector they say - is that returns have to be in re-sellable condition and that it fails that test even if it’s just the seals on the box that have been lifted.

Not sure where this leaves people on the 14 day ‘for any reason’ return provision JL say comes second to company policy (I knew there were exemptions on returns for software, but not iPhones).

Nor can I return it even if it’s faulty they say. Instead I must contact their technology customer support centre and they will ‘diagnose problems remotely and offer a solution’.

All I got was a suggestion to take it into a JL shop, where an employee can see the item’s condition and use his or her judgement as to its acceptability.

I’m housebound and disabled. I can’t go to a store. Nor, it seems, am I allowed even to nominate someone to go on my behalf (ID problems, inevitably).

Could someone please advise me of my legal position?

I think they're being unreasonable and I think they're wrong.  They should take it back but they might be permitted to make a deduction to reflect the fact the packaging is no longer sealed, i.e. they can no longer sell it as new.  After all, you wouldn't be happy if you paid full price for an iPhone and the seal wasn't intact.

JoeSaponic

Aylesbury_Duck said:

I think they're being unreasonable and I think they're wrong.  They should take it back but they might be permitted to make a deduction to reflect the fact the packaging is no longer sealed, i.e. they can no longer sell it as new.  After all, you wouldn't be happy if you paid full price for an iPhone and the seal wasn't intact.

I agree, yet the man I spoke to at JL Customer Services assured me the warehouse would simply reject it out of hand if I sent it back without permission (the JL website offers several options, all free, including 48 hour tracked delivery with Royal Mail). His analogy was to that of a sealed CD or DVD, which I know are exempted under consumer law once opened, but this was an expensive item of technology. How are you to determine it's arrived in one piece if you can't look inside the box for heaven's sake? That was when I took a closer look at JL's conditions and their list of what would NOT be acceptable. I was within the 14 day 'any reason' provision and had 35 days from receipt anyway according to company policy so I was in the clear on that point. The only thing on the list even remotely germane to what I'd been told was: "Products that have been opened or unsealed (other than where necessary to inspect)". Suspecting the bracketed words to be the important ones in this case I phoned Citizens Advice and was told that iPhones were definitely NOT exempted under rules designed for software and CD/DVDs. There's an implicit recognition of this on the JL website itself in fact, since it talks of 're-sellable' returns needing to be 'unregistered' and 'free of any personal data' (suggesting criteria which go beyond mere mechanical faults). It's possible I've been innocently misled in all this but the agent's ultra-confident telephone manner has me wondering now whether JL staff aren't trained to discourage returns of any sort in the first instance by telling outright porkies they can later disclaim responsibility for as an 'error'. Anyway I posted it this morning so we'll see what happens. Fingers crossed. Thanks for your time and help AD.

DoaM

Point them to the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013. Section 34(9) covers Mr. Duck's point. Fundamentally they cannot refuse you the right to return the goods - period. They can reduce the amount of refund (up to 100%) if your handling of the goods has diminished their value. Their T&Cs do not trump the law, and to attempt to mislead a consumer as to their legal rights is a criminal act.