Acceptance of order price mismatch and cancelled order

underthesea

Trading standards first step before further action

OlliesDad

underthesea wrote: »

Imagine you pay for your shopping online and they don't deliver and refund.

That is quite a common thing to happen.. even worse is that with some supermarkets, if they attempt redelivery the next day, they will charge the card again and refund the original payment which can take days.

I don't see how they can be liable for a punitive sum above the losses that have been incurred.

tinkerbell28

Small claims for a fiver.......:rotfl: Inb4 op gets costs awarded against him.

Agricolae

I don't mean to sound rude, but this really isn't worth squabbling over.

The question is where does the offer and acceptance take place in this sequence of events.

The price on the website is an invitation to treat, like a sign in a shop.

You made the offer by placing the order and putting down payment (showing the money, as it were) via an automated payment service.

The business considered your offer, and decided not to accept it. It then returned your money.

vaio

can you think of any other circumstance where you hand over money "put down payment" before the seller has agreed to sell? Tesco shop? buying a car? anything

And that's before you consider that the method of payment was given at the offer stage, the actual payment was collected by the seller sometime later.

As above, if there was no binding contract what basis/right did the seller have for collecting the money?

wealdroam

vaio wrote: »

yep, buyer & seller can agree when payment and delivery take place but surely any such agreement is part of a contract?

No of course it's not.

That is part of agreeing the terms of the contract.

Parties haggle for days/week/months or more over the terms of a contract that will be in place when the terms are agreed.

vaio wrote: »

...if they actually take the money then there must be a contract in place

Wrong again I'm afraid.

underthesea

wealdroam, when do you consider a contract in in place? From reading around consumer law, the contract is in place when the seller not confirms the order but accepts it.

wealdroam

underthesea wrote: »

wealdroam, when do you consider a contract in in place? From reading around consumer law, the contract is in place when the seller not confirms the order but accepts it.

A contract is in place when both the buyer and seller are committed to the sale.

Section 28 of the Sale of Goods Act, as quoted in post #22, sums it up quite neatly in my opinion.

From that it is clear that a contract is in place when the two parties agree that it is in place.
This is just one of the reasons why one should always read the T&Cs to ensure you understand what you are agreeing to.

stevemLS

Ectophile wrote: »

There is a legal term "de minimis", which refers to something too trifling for the court to waste time over.

You're thinking of de minimis non curat lex - the law does not concern itself with trifles - even where there has been a technical breach, if it is of negligible value it may not be sufficient to provide a cause of action.

Courts have a wide discretion on the award of costs and can even make wasted costs orders where it believes a party has acted unreasonably or disproportionately in bringing or defending actions.

There is little more certain to irritate a judge than to make them feel as though their time was being wasted.

underthesea

so basically consumers are screwed and can't do anything as the law doesn't care and companies allowed to break the law and do whatever they want.