Ebuyer - Sale of Goods Act - buyers beware!

neilmcl

CoolHotCold wrote: »

Neilmcl, I would say that unless the OP says what the original price paid was you cannot say if it was disproportionate.

What if the RAM was £20? replacement RAM would cost £24, which is a 20% increase, and you have to add on postal charges back and forth.

You're making the fatal mistake of taking the RRP into account. We're talking about about cost to the retailer, loss of any potential profit doesn't come into it. The very simple question is does it cost to supply a replacement stick of RAM disproportionate to the cost of returning a partial refund. I'd say in this instance the margins are so small that it probably wouldn't be considered disproportionate in this instance, and not knowing exactly the conversation the OP had with TS and the solicitor I'd imagine this would be the interpretaion they made, again in this particular case. It would probably be very different if we were talking about a £500 TV, for example.

However the facts remain, whether the OP wants to believe them or not, one of the remedys that a retailer can use, whether its within 6 months or 6 years, is to offer a partial refund based on the use that the buyer has had from the item.

I'm going to leave it at that.

malc_b

neilmcl wrote: »

Well, as already mentioned, in general terms the information you received from the TS and your solicitor is incorrect, or at the very least only specific to this particular instance. Generally the retailer are well within their rights to offer a partial refund after the "reasonable period" as passed to take into account any usage the buyer has had from the item, so long as this remedy isn't disproportionate to any other remedy.

We are talking about this specific case, Ebuyer's T&Cs and similar cases where it appear Ebuyer is breaking consumer law.

Yes, a retailer can offer a reduced refund but Ebuyer forced a refund. Has anyone seen similar behaviour from any other retailer? I've never had a faulty item where the retailer or manufacturer did not to repair, or a replacement. Ebuyer's behaviour is in my experience exceptional (exceptionally bad that is).

This post was to warn people of that. We can argue over whether Ebuyer was legally correct but only a court can decide that. Is Ebuyer ripping off customers compared to other companies? I would say certainly and hence they will not be getting my custom.

vaio

I'd also question the interpretation of "disproportionate" some have advanced.

To my mind I'd say it's a half way house to "impossible" rather than just marginally more expensive as some have suggested (even reduced to including p&p:rotfl:)

So in this case, "impossible" means the retailer can't get one, "disproportionate" means they retailer can get one but it will cost a ridiculous amount compared to the original (say because it needs to be manufactured as a one off)

Allowing retailers to avoid fulfilling the contract because it now costs the price of a stamp more than expected is ridiculous and defeats the whole point of years of well developed contract case law to say nothing of the consumer legislation

Having said that, I still can't see why you haven't gone for enforcement.

If we contract to say supply & install 20 lights for a client then if we can't get the cheap lights we thought we could get or installation takes longer than we thought then we still need to complete our side of the contract and if we don't then our client could get someone else to complete the job and recover the additional costs from us.

In your case this means that if your retailer can't (or won't) fulfil their side you could source the replacement parts elsewhere and recover any additional costs from the retailer

somethingcorporate

malc_b wrote: »

We are talking about this specific case, Ebuyer's T&Cs and similar cases where it appear Ebuyer is breaking consumer law.

Yes, a retailer can offer a reduced refund but Ebuyer forced a refund. Has anyone seen similar behaviour from any other retailer? I've never had a faulty item where the retailer or manufacturer did not to repair, or a replacement. Ebuyer's behaviour is in my experience exceptional (exceptionally bad that is).

This post was to warn people of that. We can argue over whether Ebuyer was legally correct but only a court can decide that. Is Ebuyer ripping off customers compared to other companies? I would say certainly and hence they will not be getting my custom.

It's completely irrelevant what other companies do. As long as what ebuyer are doing is within the law it's a completely pointless comparison.

I cannot believe you emailed your MP over this, you must have a lot of free time.

malc_b

vaio wrote: »

Having said that, I still can't see why you haven't gone for enforcement.

Because after an argument Ebuyer sent me replacements. This post is just to warn others of Ebuyer's standard T&Cs which would have left me out of pocket.

somethingcorporate wrote: »

It's completely irrelevant what other companies do. As long as what ebuyer are doing is within the law it's a completely pointless comparison.

No. Leaving aside the legality is one company gives bad service compared to most others it should affect consumers' choice of where they buy from. It certainly affects mine. I'm just letting people know what the Ebuyer's service is like so they can make up their own mind.

somethingcorporate wrote: »

I cannot believe you emailed your MP over this, you must have a lot of free time.

Why? It takes no longer to email my MP than it does to post here. I pay his wages at the end of day so why shouldn't I let know about something as serious as a possible loophole in SoGA?

bris

You are seriously mistaken if you believe Ebuyer are the only ones who do this. This forum has dozens of threads where buyers have complained because they have been refunded rather than repaired or replaced. It is a fundamental part of SOGA just like your right to return it in the first place.
You were given poor advice at the outset and have now been corrected, you don't however want to listen but instead now decide to waste your MP's time, and all for £4, go you.

ThumbRemote

bris wrote: »

You are seriously mistaken if you believe Ebuyer are the only ones who do this. This forum has dozens of threads where buyers have complained because they have been refunded rather than repaired or replaced. It is a fundamental part of SOGA just like your right to return it in the first place.
You were given poor advice at the outset and have now been corrected, you don't however want to listen but instead now decide to waste your MP's time, and all for £4, go you.

It is not a fundamental part of the SoGA. The opinions here are just that, opinions. Just because your opinion is different to the advice the OP was given does not automatically mean that the OP was given poor advice, I would suggest it indicates you are incorrect.

The SoGa is quite clear that the remedy is selected by the consumer, however they cannot select a remedy that is disproportionate. In this case ebuyer have attempted to impose their own choice of remedy. Further to tht, they have tried to claim that 'disproportionate' means 'not the cheapest for them' which is in no sense the meaning of the word.

Zandoni

bris wrote: »

You are seriously mistaken if you believe Ebuyer are the only ones who do this. This forum has dozens of threads where buyers have complained because they have been refunded rather than repaired or replaced. It is a fundamental part of SOGA just like your right to return it in the first place.
You were given poor advice at the outset and have now been corrected, you don't however want to listen but instead now decide to waste your MP's time, and all for £4, go you.

Who else does it, I need to make a lost of companies to avoid.

somethingcorporate

ThumbRemote wrote: »

It is not a fundamental part of the SoGA. The opinions here are just that, opinions. Just because your opinion is different to the advice the OP was given does not automatically mean that the OP was given poor advice, I would suggest it indicates you are incorrect.

The SoGa is quite clear that the remedy is selected by the consumer, however they cannot select a remedy that is disproportionate. In this case ebuyer have attempted to impose their own choice of remedy. Further to tht, they have tried to claim that 'disproportionate' means 'not the cheapest for them' which is in no sense the meaning of the word.

Good post, but "disproportionate" would obviously be a comparison between the costs of remedies. I am sure a judge would see it this way.

It would be down to the company to prove the requested remedy was disproportionate if it ever got to court (not the OP).

I don't think they are in breach of SOGA, I think they are well within their rights but the OP (and you) thinks differently which I think is fine. It would be up to a court to decide based on the case and no-one on here can state categorically. I do think a £5 difference would get laughed out of a court room.

malc_b

somethingcorporate wrote: »

Good post, but "disproportionate" would obviously be a comparison between the costs of remedies. I am sure a judge would see it this way.

SoGA actually describes disproportionate as unreasonable, which I think is what most people would take it as.

somethingcorporate wrote: »

I do think a £5 difference would get laughed out of a court room.

I'd agree but in the opposite sense. SoGA already says that the retailer must pay for shipping both ways. So SoGA already puts on the retailer a burden of what, £5 each way. It's therefore in the same ballpark to shoulder a small price increase.

Also, you're looking at this the wrong way. For me it would have been about £10 out of pocket, maybe £15 in you include postage. But from Ebuyer's point of view it's worth a lot more. Let's say Ebuyer have 100k customers who buy 100 items over the years with a 1% failure rate. That 100k failures. Say half of those are after 6 months and Ebuyer's saving is typically £10 (remember it saves return postage which is around a £5). That's £500k extra profit for Ebuyer (0.5 * 100k * £10). So yes it might be small beer for one person but as a class it is a large rip off.