Buying a voucher from a hard sell on the street - can I get my money back

whoneedssleepanyway

I succumbed to a hard sell on the street today to buy a voucher for a makeover and photo-shoot. I resisted as first but then she dropped the price and made it sound good and I was in a bit of a rush and agreed to buy it.

I have googled the company and it seems that I will be subjected to a very hard sell to buy additional photos at high prices, also the deal she told me I was getting suddenly doesn't seem so amazing as you can buy vouchers for a similar price online for the same experience, and she lied saying you can never get these deals through groupon etc which i have seen they have done in the past.

Am I entitled to ask for a refund under the 7 day cooling off period under the Cancellation of Contracts Made in a Consumers Home or Place of Work etc Regulations 2008.

The voucher cost £40 so was over the £35 limit referred to in this act.

agrinnall

Unless you work on the streets (ooh-er missus!) then I don't think you can claim that it's your home or place of work. I doubt if you'll get your money back, it's probably best to write it off and not go if you are susceptible to sales pressure (which they know you may well be as you've already bought from them once).

Katpin

This happened to me once (and never again after!!!) was a hairdressing voucher and after getting home and looking at it properly it wasn't as good as I thought - when I read the back it said no cancellations, however I phoned up that day to cancel, Didn't get through to the manager so I called back a few days later.

I had to put up a hell of a fight but eventually the manager talked himself into refunding me as he said unless I'd contacted them within 24 hours I couldn't have my money back. Luckily I had phoned them and could provide my phone bill as proof.

My advice, read the back for any T&C's, phone up (if there's a number) and request your money back.. see what they say and be prepared to argue the point politely if needed.

whoneedssleepanyway

Thanks both.

Aggrinnall when I looked at regulations it looked like it covered scenarios where trader selling on an excursion away from main premises not just at your home or work.

Katpin it says non refundable as a promotional offer but will ring and try wanted to see first if these doorstep selling rules would cover it.

Jinks

Sorry this isn't a direct answer to your question, but just a couple of suggestions since it looks like you may not be legally entitled to a refund. Firstly, you could just try asking them nicely - even if they aren't legally required to refund you and they hard sell, if you don't ask you'll never know. Some companies consider their reputation and customer satisfaction very important.

If that doesn't work, perhaps you could recover some of the money by selling the voucher to someone else a bit cheaper than you purchased it for? If you don't know anyone who might want it you could sell it on eBay or similar (I'm assuming it's just a voucher/ticket type thing and not some special personalised booking with your name on it - in which case you could say you can't go and request to pass the voucher on).

You might get £20-30 for it that way, which would at least be something.

mo786uk

you have no right to cancel. the law only applies to excursions organised by the trader

they apply when a trader takes you somewhere to sell you something - not to street sales

marleyboy

My general rule of thumb is - If the product on sale is sooo fantastic it will sell itself, there is no need for someone to stop me on the street to make a purchase.

Only those desperate to sell, would stand out in the street and beg people to buy. To date I have not come across a Tesco\Asda\Morrisons rep, approach me in the street to offer me a BOGOF deal.

Money-Saving-King

marleyboy wrote: »

My general rule of thumb is - If the product on sale is sooo fantastic it will sell itself, there is no need for someone to stop me on the street to make a purchase.

Only those desperate to sell, would stand out in the street and beg people to buy. To date I have not come across a Tesco\Asda\Morrisons rep, approach me in the street to offer me a BOGOF deal.

I personally disagree with this even though I make every attempted to avoid being sold anything on the street.

Sales people are there for selling things people perhaps haven't thought of but to some people could be really appealing. Buy one packet of bacon and get another packet of bacon free isn't really quite the same thing!

pinkshoes

By buying on the street, you've already shown you're a push-over, so I'd just go to the event, have a laugh, get the free photo or whatever the voucher was for, then say NO to anything else. Take a friend who will help you say no!

whoneedssleepanyway

Thanks for the further replies.

mo786uk - I saw that it applies to "excursions" but it also said that it applied solicited and unsolicited so would for example cover a sale at an exhibition or something similar so wondered if this extended to selling on the street which is an unsolicited approach.

I am so cross with myself as I am normally so strong at resisting these things and am always quoting my mum "if something looks too good to be true it probably is" so don't really know what came over me.

Am torn between writing this off and going along, will see what my friend thinks. Thanks.

InsideInsurance

whoneedssleepanyway wrote: »

you can buy vouchers for a similar price online for the same experience, and she lied saying you can never get these deals through groupon etc which i have seen they have done in the past.

So you've seen them in the past then why did you mention GroupOn etc given your prior knowledge?

If they sell online for the same sort of price then it sounds like you've paid the going rate and seemingly you liked the idea.

At the end of the day they can do as hard a sell as they want at the end and you can simply walk away with what you have already paid for. An ex was given a similar sounding voucher from a "competition" she won (cost a few quid to ring the hotline) and she got her few small prints from it and walked away happy (and slightly drunk from the free wine). They tried to sell her more prints, the complete CD etc for silly money but she just said no and too more wine whilst they walked through the options.