'illegal' to buy 3 or more phones

RupertRoker

kaya wrote: »

More likely because the police know that criminals and drug dealers use payg phones for business , contract phones are easy to listen too, tap and track, cheap payg phones are expendable and can be thrown away every few days making tapping criminal activity almost impossible(known in the trade as "basher phones"), it's not illegal, neither is selling paracetamol but there is an agreement not to sell more than two packs at a time to anyone in case they swallow the lot and kill themselves, I would guess the same applies to phones

thanks for the post. I don't wonder whether that sort of thing might be one of the pressures motivating the refusal to sell more than 2 phones.

RupertRoker

Quentin wrote: »

They don't have to trade with you, nor give you any reason at all! But you tell us you have a law degree so should already know that!

Thanks for your post. There is (obviously!) an extent to which what you're saying is correct, and as a normal legal principle companies are free to do business, or not do business with whoever they want.

However there are exceptions to this general rule. If you have a look at the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (sorry, did want to paste a link but I'm a new forum user so no such luck, if you Google for it and click the first result then schedule 1 and you'll find what I'm on about) you'll see schedule 1 of the regulations prohibits (amongst other things)

"5. Making an invitation to purchase products at a specified price without disclosing the existence of any reasonable grounds the trader may have for believing that he will not be able to offer for supply, or to procure another trader to supply, those products or equivalent products at that price for a period that is, and in quantities that are, reasonable having regard to the product, the scale of advertising of the product and the price offered (bait advertising)."

and

"6. Making an invitation to purchase products at a specified price and then—

(a)refusing to show the advertised item to consumers,
(b)refusing to take orders for it or deliver it within a reasonable time, or
(c)demonstrating a defective sample of it,
with the intention of promoting a different product (bait and switch)."

I'd say that an argument can at least be made that promoting adverts for products and £2.95 and then refusing to supply these products is breaching one or more of the sections.

RupertRoker

mazza111 wrote: »

Yes, they told me it was store policy because they were selling them cheaper than other places, it stops other dealers coming in and buying their stock. They told me the limit was 2 per year. But still showed up the phone I had bought 2 years earlier. Weird eh?

these companies love keeping their records for ages. CPW still have the records of a hands free kit I purchased in about 2008 (seems a bit OTT really)

grumbler

RupertRoker wrote: »

The phones I wanted to buy would all have been quite heavily used. I felt it was very odd that my money wasn't good enough for CFW

I am pretty sure you can buy more than 2 if you pay cash and make a bigger top up. This could be a problem for a reseller, but not for a real heavy user.

RupertRoker

grumbler wrote: »

I am pretty sure you can buy more than 2 if you pay cash and make a bigger top up. This could be a problem for a reseller, but not for a real heavy user.

You're right, but they still said that the max per customer was 2 phones even when paying cash, just means having to go to a few different stores or something like that.

At 5p a minute (which is the payg rate for land line calls on Lebara) £20 of credit at a time is a lot to be buying though.

You are right though, and I think this is going to have to be my way forward (which is a bit of a pain).

Quentin

RupertRoker wrote: »

I'd say that an argument can at least be made that promoting adverts for products and £2.95 and then refusing to supply these products is breaching one or more of the sections.

You can buy them from them.

Just not more than 2 (or whatever they say).

So what's the problem?

RupertRoker

Quentin wrote: »

You can buy them from them.

Just not more than 2 (or whatever they say).

So what's the problem?

Maybe I'm just being a pedant on this point, or maybe I'm reading the regulations wrong, but s5 of schedule 1 reads "... and in quantities that are, reasonable having regard to the product, the scale of advertising of the product and the price offered (bait advertising)."

I'd suggest that a phone for £2.95 is the sort of offer that people (and voluntary organisations in particular) are going to want to buy in quantities greater than 2.

An earlier comment referred to the possibility of buying phones at a higher cost without network subsidy etc. I think this would be covered by s6 of the regulations and that the refusal to sell the (cheaper) products conflicts with

"refusing to take orders for it or deliver it within a reasonable time..."

As I say, I could be wrong on my readings of this.

Quentin

You see supermarkets selling biscuits/beans etc at knock down prices and restricting how many you buy! Any problems with that?

What have "voluntary organisations" to do with anything? CPW is a business!!

You would get round their rules by asking your volunteers to go and buy their own!

RupertRoker

Quentin wrote: »

You see supermarkets selling biscuits/beans etc at knock down prices and restricting how many you buy! Any problems with that?

There is a big difference here, firstly it's that supermarkets will state on their adverts what the limits are (e.g. my local Tesco had a very good price in Pringles a while ago but said very clearly on the price sticker it was limited). However if Tesco put a price sticker on their tubes of pringles at 50p with no other information and then refused to sell more than one tube to a customer then yes, I would have a problem with that, and so I think would Trading Standards.

The phones aren't on special offer, it's just a price. None of the advertising material I've seen states that it's limited to a certain number per customer. Also, if I try and buy more than my quota of tubes of pringles from Tesco the person on the till won't try and tell me that there is a law against it, or tell me that I'm trying to commit fraud.

As regards voluntary organisations, the point I was trying to make is that voluntary organisations are an example of the sort of group of people that may want to buy a number of cheap phones. Were it not for the fact that the volunteers I'm getting these phones for are a 45 minute drive or an hour and a bits bus ride from their nearest CPW branch I would say that sending them in was a simple solution (aside from the extra paper work this produces to make multiple expenses claims).

grumbler

RupertRoker wrote: »

...I'd suggest that a phone for £2.95 is the sort of offer that people (and voluntary organisations in particular) are going to want to buy in quantities greater than 2.

...especially people. Could I have a dozen, please? LOL.