Comet gift vouchers/cards

LittleMax

Azari wrote: »

You're making exactly the same mistake that JBH and a lot of other people here are making.

You are conflating a civil matter with a criminal one.

There is no doubt that Comet would be able to reclaim the TV in a civil case.

What is not cut and dried is whether anyone would be able to secure a conviction in a criminal case if the defendant could convince a jury that he did not have mens rea. Or, prior to that, whether the CPS believe there would be a reasonable chance of conviction given that they would need to prove mens rea.

Admit it would be difficult to prove intent, as you are offering a payment.

Azari

olias wrote: »

If I had paid Comet £50 for a voucher, the terms and conditions of which were that it could be exchanged for goods up to the value of £50, and I did just that, then where is the dishonesty?

You would not stand any chance of actually keeping the TV.

But, as you have shown above, if you could demonstrate reasonable grounds for believing that you were acting honestly it would not be a straight forward matter to obtain a conviction for theft.

A lot of people get confused between the apparently contradictory concepts of "ignorance of the law is no excuse" and "mens rea". And I think that is what is confusing a lot of people here.

System

The element of mens rea does exists here, as in the scenario discussed the buyer knows that they aren't allowed to use the voucher as a form of payment for the item. This is why they are just putting it on the counter and walking out.

If they didn't realise that they were not allowed to use gift cards as payment then mens reas would not be present.

LittleMax

Although it would be difficult to prove intent, the case may fall down on the reasonable man test. A reasonable person would have queued at the checkout offered the voucher and the assistant would have explained to them that they were not accepted. There has been wide publicity and therefore the defendant acted in this way because he knew that if he queued up and offered his voucher in the usual way it would be declined.

Posted at the same time as Goater ... great minds!

Azari

Jeff_Bridges_hair wrote: »

Ill edit it down because you are now boring me.

People who insist on trying to make a point when they clearly don't fully understand what they are talking about frequently get 'bored' when the gaps in their knowledge become clear.

Have you formed a contract by placing any form of payment on a counter?

No.

But I never said you would.

Your error is assuming that you need to go through a strict protocol of invitation to treat >> offer >> acceptance in order to escape prosecution for theft.

That is so obviously not the case that I'm amazed you are even trying to make the case. (To back up my POV we have several centuries of needing to go through court proceedings before someone is actually found guilty of a crime.)

As you go on about it so much are you legally qualified to give the statement you made or is it indeed 'your opinion'?

There is a very significant difference between my opinion and yours:

I am saying that the law is not as clear as you think it is and that there are obstacles to someone being convicted of theft in the cases mentioned above.

You, on the other hand, are dogmatically stating that you have a knowledge of the law so complete and precise and that you can act as prosecutor, judge and jury and make a statement that someone would have committed a certain offence when highly qualified legal experts accept the necessity to actually follow due process and determine if an offence has been committed.

ThumbRemote

olias wrote: »

Ooh, this is fun - glad I started the thread.

To those who say that it would be theft, where is the dishonesty? Dishonesty needs to be proved in order to complete the offence of theft.

If I had paid Comet £50 for a voucher, the terms and conditions of which were that it could be exchanged for goods up to the value of £50, and I did just that, then where is the dishonesty?

In this specific instance, the issue is that Comet no longer exist. Comet have essentially gone under already. What is left is controlled by the administrators, a different organisation.

So you paid Comet for the voucher but would be taking goods off the administrators.

aveylee

Contracts require 5 things;
1) Offer (Will you accept this voucher for that TV?)
2) Acceptance (Yes I will / No I won't)
3) Consideration (On both sides. For one side it is the TV, on the other it is the voucher)
4) Intention, and 5) Capacity.
The problem in this example is that there has been no acceptance by the retailer so no contract is formed. Another problem is that it is arguable that a voucher that is no longer 'valid', is probably not consideration as it has no worth.
Without a contract taking the TV from the premises is theft under theTheft Act 1968 (e.g. dishonestly, appropriating, property, from another, with the intention, to permanently deprive them of it).
Dishonest - You know or a should have known that they hadn't accepted your offer of the voucher (e.g. the Mens Rea element).
Appropriating - (Taking the TV off the premises physically - e.g the actus reus of the offence).
Property - (The TV)
From another - (Someone else must own the property - although technically it is possible to steal your own property as you can steal property from the possessor not the just the owner)
Intending to do it permanently - (i.e. you weren't just making a point and intended to walk straight back in with the TV).

So in this context: No contract was formed as there was no acceptance (and possibly no consideration) and you would very likely have committed Theft.

olias

LittleMax wrote: »

Although it would be difficult to prove intent, the case may fall down on the reasonable man test. A reasonable person would have queued at the checkout offered the voucher and the assistant would have explained to them that they were not accepted. There has been wide publicity and therefore the defendant acted in this way because he knew that if he queued up and offered his voucher in the usual way it would be declined.

Posted at the same time as Goater ... great minds!

Yes, it has been widely publicised that gift cards are not being accepted, but does anyone actually know whether the administartors have any legal right to refuse them when they have already been paid for?

Also, re the 'man in the street' test. I would think that any member of the public approached in the street would say that they believed if you had paid for the gift card in good faith, then you had every right to expect to be able to redeem it against goods - particularly if the stores in question were still open and trading as in the case of Comet.

Olias

Azari

goater78 wrote: »

The element of mens rea does exists here, as in the scenario discussed the buyer knows that they aren't allowed to use the voucher as a form of payment for the item. This is why they are just putting it on the counter and walking out.

If they didn't realise that they were not allowed to use gift cards as payment then mens reas would not be present.

LittleMax wrote: »

Although it would be difficult to prove intent, the case may fall down on the reasonable man test. A reasonable person would have queued at the checkout offered the voucher and the assistant would have explained to them that they were not accepted. There has been wide publicity and therefore the defendant acted in this way because he knew that if he queued up and offered his voucher in the usual way it would be declined.

Posted at the same time as Goater ... great minds!

Where the difficulty in securing a conviction would come in is demonstrating beyond reasonable doubt that the accused believed that Comet were acting lawfully in refusing to accept the voucher.

If he could convince a jury that he believed that he his voucher was a legitimate payment and that Comet had no legitimate grounds for refusing it) it's hard to see how they could convict - even though his assumption was not correct in civil law.

Gordon_Hose

If the customer thought their voucher was legal payment they wouldn't throw it on the counter and walk out with goods.

They'd hand it to a cashier and wait for a receipt.