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Section 75
Comments
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You need to look closely at the t & c's on your original order, what happens next depends on what they say. If you think they are questionable, why haven't you questioned them before now ? To be honest, if the retailer is offering to provide you with another shower, i think any section 75 claim would fail. It is down to you as the buyer to establish what the breach of contract or misrepresentation is, and to contact your card issuer to let them know that you may be taking action against them or the seller, without proof of breach of contract they won't be able to help. The seller can't be blamed for you buying a shower which doesn't fit.
The misrepresentation / breach of contract is that the company is reneging on the promise that, should we find that a shower would not fit, that we could use our deposit to purchase something else, e.g. taps.
The salesman wrote, 'Customer can change to other products at trade show price' and 'Customer can buy any products at trade show price,' which, following our discussions with him, we took to mean that we could change our order at a later date, when we knew how much space was available, to get something suitable to our needs and not lose our deposit.
As the company said that they would not issue a refund of a deposit under any circumstances, something that we wanted to avoid by being able to use the deposit towards something else, if necessary.
However, I have since learnt that the term used to refuse refunds of deposits would be classed as an unfair term and condition. Had we been able to cancel the order and receive our deposit back, then that is the action we would have taken.0 -
Was the salesman authorised by the company to make such promises? If not then your action should be against the salesman and not the companyThis is a system account and does not represent a real person. To contact the Forum Team email forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com0
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Just as an aside, who signed the order and whose name is on the credit card, it might just make a difference.make the most of it, we are only here for the weekend.
and we will never, ever return.0 -
Sounds like a lot of fuss over £100.00.
Could probably negotiate that anytime.0 -
Was the salesman authorised by the company to make such promises? If not then your action should be against the salesman and not the company
The salesman worked for the comany and as such was acting as their agent. Surely, whether he was authorised or not would be the company's issue, rather than ours.0 -
The misrepresentation / breach of contract is that the company is reneging on the promise that, should we find that a shower would not fit, that we could use our deposit to purchase something else, e.g. taps.
A simple breach of contract rather than a misrepresentation (in the legal sense), IMHO. Misrepresentation is usually a false statement of fact made to induce a contract.(Eg in this case if they told you they were suppliers to the Queen and it turned out they weren't.)However, I have since learnt that the term used to refuse refunds of deposits would be classed as an unfair term and condition.
It can be, but not necessarily. It really would depend on the term itself and, possibly, the position of the parties. Generally courts don't like blanket terms that give one party sweeping powers against a smaller, consumer party.Was the salesman authorised by the company to make such promises? If not then your action should be against the salesman and not the company
Agree with the comments so far. No question the company has liability for the actions of its staff in a situation like this. Companies often write into contracts that variations have to be agreed by a director (blah blah blah) but these rarely stick. Meet a sales bloke at an exhibition - reasonable that he can bind his company. But if a Wembley stadium cleaner knocked on your door and said they could sell the place for a fiver - well.. different story.It's not over £100, it's over the company trying to make us pay for a shower costing £900.
For this reason, bear in mind that your "damages" for this breach of contract are probably in excess of the deposit you have paid.
Eg
1) exhibition price of special taps - £600
2) you say "give me the taps", so that's £600 less the £100 I gave you - that's £500
3) they say - "too late, mate. go away"
4) you shop around - the cheapest you can find those taps are £750
5) you buy the taps - £750. That's £250 on top of the £500 extra you should have paid
6) your claim, sir, is £250.
Better to negotiate if you can.. but that should be the starting point. Your fall back position is they breached a fundamental condition so you can have your £100 back (regardless of whether you buy anything from anywhere else).
NB terms and conditions relating to non-return of a deposit are irrelevant where there is a breach of a condition which gives you the right to rescind the contract. In these circumstances you have the right to be restored to the position you were in before the deal was agreed.0 -
Quite frankly, I now just want the whole mess to go away, as I am not in the best of health and this is just adding to my problems.
We were previously quite happy to stick with what we had agreed with the salesman in so much as that, if we were unable to go ahead with the shower, we could order other products, as per the agreement that we thought we had.
However, now that they appear to be going back on that agreement, we just want the contract cancelled. Quite frankly, we don't even care about the deposit!
If it came to it, we'd be willing to take that as a hit and to learn from the experience that we shouldn't trust a company to keep its end of a deal.
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