Distance selling rights when buying from overseas on credit card

[Deleted User]

A question about buying from overseas, both in and outside the EU. Say you buy an item worth over £100 from China on credit card. There is a problem with it and you need to return it. Return postage is rather expensive.

You paid for it on a credit card, so legally the card provider is considered liable for any problems. UK distance selling regulations say that the seller has to pay return postage. Can you get the credit card company to pay?

visidigi

DELETED USER wrote:

A question about buying from overseas, both in and outside the EU. Say you buy an item worth over £100 from China on credit card. There is a problem with it and you need to return it. Return postage is rather expensive.

You paid for it on a credit card, so legally the card provider is considered liable for any problems. UK distance selling regulations say that the seller has to pay return postage. Can you get the credit card company to pay?

DSR's only apply when buying from a UK based business.

If the item you buy does go faulty you would need to return them to the place you bought them from, you would be liable for return postage.

Credit Card company will not pay for postage/item just because the return would be prohibitively expensive - they would expect you to make every effort to resolve a problem with a product before claiming under S75, I can't see them paying you out because postage is expensive...

Agricolae

DSRs don't have any relevance where S75 is concerned.

If there is a fault with the item you can claim against the CC provider if you jump through the S75 hoops (e.g. debtor-creditor-supplier, £100.01-£30,000).

You really have three options in case of a fault (under SOGA, which implies terms into the contract):

1. Repair
2. Replace
3. Refund (rescission of contract)

Option 3 is more likely to be favoured by the CC company if you can prove a fault. This is to avoid all the faffing around with postage and so on, which the CC company will want to avoid getting involved with.

But this is a hypothetical situation, and what is best will change depending on the actual circumstances.

And to answer your actual question, the CC provider would not pay for you to send an item back to China. Remember under S75 the CC provider effectively stands in the shoes of the supplier, so if anything they will pay you to have repairs done in this country, not ship it off to China. But as I said, option 3 is more likely.

mo786uk

The DSR apply throughout the EU. They stem from EU law but each EU country will implement the law slightly differently. As far as I know the UK implemented exactly what the EU law originally said so it should be similar to us.

Where the goods are faulty the DSR are not really the applicable law - the Sale of Goods Act is. If the item is faulty then you should not be out of pocket and the supplier should bear the cost of return - so in theory you could pursue the CC company

The more important question is whether the SOGA applies at all - does UK law of Chinese law apply if you buy something from China?

esuhl

mo786uk wrote: »

The more important question is whether the SOGA applies at all - does UK law of Chinese law apply if you buy something from China?

No - Chinese law applies to the sale. And they know you won't come to China to fight a court case(!)...

But the credit agreement with your card company would be ruled by UK law. I can't see anything in Section 75 that would change that... although the last bit says that the creditor can "have the supplier made a party to the proceedings"... I don't know how that works if the supplier is Chinese... :-/

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1974/39/section/75

bris

Even a valid S75 claim would see that you have to return the item to China.

vaio

maybe but SoG requires no cost to buyer so any transport costs would be added to the claim.

Frankly I can't see a CC company/Chinese seller paying to ship it back

visidigi

bris wrote: »

Even a valid S75 claim would see that you have to return the item to China.

unless its counterfeit...

Agricolae

Nobody is going to ask them to send it back to China.

visidigi

Agricolae wrote: »

Nobody is going to ask them to send it back to China.

I think you'l; find in most cases S75 requires the returning of the product to the seller.

The only reason why they wouldn't return a counterfeit item is its illegal to knowingly ship such items out of the country.

wealdroam

visidigi wrote: »

I think you'l; find in most cases S75 requires the returning of the product to the seller.

As S75 of the CCA makes the creditor "jointly and severally liable", does that mean that the goods could be returned to the creditor instead of to the seller?

I'm sure all the credit card companies would like that to happen.