Distance Selling Regulations

j0nathon2

Hi,

I am confused about BroadbandBuyer's insistence their interpretation of the Distance Selling Regulations are correct and would just like a second opinion.

Their T&C says the following:

"9.4 Once you have notified the Supplier that you are canceling the
contract, the Supplier will refund or re-credit you within 20 days
from receipt of the returned goods for any sum that has been paid by
you or debited from your credit card for the goods. "

I do believe this is not compatible with the DSR, which says they must refund within 30 days of receiving the cancellation. Yes, while there is an obligation on the customer to return the goods in the correct condition, their recourse is through charging the customer, not withholding the refund? I don't intend to withhold any return, but with the weather tends to delay things, and I have known companies to deliberately claim non receipt (even with evidence of signature) of goods simply to delay refunds.

Also, BroadbandBuyer's return policy states "unopened" which again I believe is not correct, I have the right to inspect the product?

When I asked BroadbandBuyer about these, they told me that's its not unreasonable they enforce the above rules, as that's the only way they know the goods have (1) arrived and (2) in good condition in order that they should be refunded.

The only reason I looked into this is because six years ago I bought a faulty product off this company and returned as faulty, it took weeks for them to refund my outgoing carriage and they never refunded my return carriage, despite repeated emails, incl. one forwarded from their local trading standards. I know you'd say, well why consider buying from them again, but they are the only UK supplier of a particular product, but I have decided I think not to risk another argument if that product should be wrong/faulty.

bris

It's 30 days they need to refund you in not 20. In practice you are not getting a refund if you don't send it back in good condition. Yes you can sue for breach of DSR but they can counter sue for failing to take reasonable care of the goods, a court would then decide the outcome.

The DSR is law, but retailers are simply going to ignore the part about not getting the goods back first before refunding. The fact is though you should vote with your feet and buy elsewhere, you now know what they are going to do so don't be surprised when you have a problem with them.

j0nathon2

Yeah, I am not going to buy, it looks like Amazon now have it listed with an Estimated date (and free delivery!), so the product is coming to other retailers and I can wait. (I bought another router from Amazon, and when the charger broke, they even sent out a replacement router before I returned the old one!)

I understand the 30 days, my assumption they say 20 days is because with typical delivery times, that would equal a total of 30 days.

The "Unopened" thing concerns me more than the 30 days really, as long as you get proof of delivery, they have no real claim on that front.

But when I had the problem six years ago, the product I received was in a box with no seal and no wrapping, and the content within the box equally had no wrapping and a broken manufacturer seal. I reported this the minute I opened it, as I didn't want to be accused of anything bad if it went wrong (which it did), and their response was "this is normal for this manufacturer and the warranty seals are too thin and get torn on the accompanying user guide". They seem to ignore the DSR right to inspect the product, so I wonder how many people fall foul of this simply because they have received an "open" product (for whatever reason it lacks a seal).