Subtle legal issue on online terms

JamesJamesJames

• I ordered a TV, broadband and landline bundle from a leading British provider, today, online with the help of a liveperson chat advisor.
  
• I have not paid any money yet.
  
• I said I wanted to pay the line rental upfront for the whole year as per an offer which I had noticed in the Terms and Conditions. The advisor ignored the question and I assumed he/she would provide that option later.
  
• After I had placed the order (which has yet to be confirmed) I asked again and was told the offer had expired a few days ago. When I expressed my disappointment that the advisor had not alerted me when I first mentioned my desire to pay upfront, I was given a 'bland' response , neither apologising nor directly acknowledging any fault.
  
• The offer has indeed expired, according to the Terms and Conditions (on 26 September). What I would find useful to know is whether the company has contravened any laws by including expired offers as part of their comprehensive Terms and Conditions (even though they do give the expiry date underneath the relevant subsection on the web page). In other words, can a company display partially out of date terms and conditions if it gives expiry dates in the relevant places (and is there a limit on how far into the past the expiry date can be)?
  
• I am not looking for a particular solution or remedy, just a piece of knowledge that may be useful to me if I decide to take the matter further. As it is I still have the option of cancelling the order with no obligation.

forgotmyname

If the terms and conditions state an offer is only valid before a set time then its there for you to read it and take appropriate action.

Signup before the 2nd of October for free phone and BB for life.. You cannot complain if you phone up on the 3rd and expect the same offer.

Clearly states a time limited offer.

JamesJamesJames

I understand that perfectly. I decided to go ahead with the order anyway. So is there any time limit for them to remove out-of-date parts of the terms and conditions? If you look at their motivation for keeping expired terms on the current terms on conditions pages, you have to wonder why they'd do it if it didn't help increase sales.

cookie365

So what do the terms and conditions actually say?

JamesJamesJames

The relevant section details an offer to accept up front payment of a year's line rental for a significantly reduced price, instead of paying the line rental monthly by direct debit; underneath that section it reads, "Offer expires 26 September 2013".

wealdroam

Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts legislation might help.

Maybe see what the OFT's website has to say about this.

System

JamesJamesJames wrote: »

underneath that section it reads, "Offer expires 26 September 2013".

They put that on the page so that they don't have to rush at 1 second past midnight on the 27th to get the website changed. They made it clear that it expires on a set date so it means they can leave that page until they have a scheduled update of the site, however far away that may be.

It's not very professional to leave out of date info on the web but it was clear that it was time limited and what the cut-off was.