Amazon Cancellation Of Orders

JasonLVC

Alykatz,

Then the Wilko's Manager obviously doesn't know his consumer law.

In a shop, the price is an invitiation to treat (ie, they show a price to tempt you to buy said product). If the price was incorrect then they can simply withdraw their offer and not sell it to you.

No money has changed hands, no contract has been formed. This is the same as if you were bartering the price on a car. Dealer wants £21k, you refuse and counter offer £18k, he refuses that and offers £20k - you both accept and only then is the contract formed.

In store, most staff will just scan the price and let you have it - but they don't have to. You could complains about deliberate mis-pricing to trading standards and if it happens enough they'd investigate further but for a few quid neither the shop nor the standards folk can be bothered to pursue.

So theoretically, an online store can offer a price (that may be genuinely wrong), you make the purchase and then they can withdraw - the difference is online, the contract has to happen first (ie, the exchange of funds) BEFORE the error is identified and contract law states that once a price has been agreed and money exchanged then the contract is set.

If the online retailer then states it is out of stock, that is not your problem. They will have to source alternative stocks or pay you additional monies to ensure the contract is carried out - that is, if the Xbox was showing as £10 instead of £100, they'd have to compensate you to the value of £90 so that you could then buy the Xbox elsewhere at the correct price - but this would have to be achieved through the small claims court unless the retailer relents - which they may/may not depending upon values at stake.

Basically, we have (ancient) contarct law conflicting with the (modern) ways of doing business (online) hence the confusion and grey area.

pin

alykatz wrote:

personally, i think misprices should be honoured online as they are in the high street. i went in wilkcos this time last year to buy some new school bags for my girls,anyhow i saw two i liked at half price [£2.50] so i took them to the till and they scanned through at 5p each. my first thought was their not going to accept this, but they called over the manager who said that if it scanned at that price they had to sell it at that price end of story.
i couldnt belive my luck, kept the receipt on the wall for ages

Legally they did no have to do that. They could have, and quite reasonably and legally, turned round and said no, not accepting at 5p. However the manager, out of goodwill, accepted that price.

alykatz

thanks to the last two posts , i didnt know that,just presumed manager would know what he was talking about.