Christmas Club

Lip_Stick

Hi, just after some info for a friend.

A local newsagent offers a Christmas club, where you pick items from a catalogue, pay 20% deposit then pay the rest when you can, up to so many days before Christmas.

Now my friend ordered a doll (as well as other things) but has since changed her mind about the doll as she has seen it at half the price elsewhere. The guy is refusing to refund the deposit. Would this be covered under DSR with her only viewing from a catalogue? She has a little booklet which states the deposit and that orders can't be cancelled. The owner refuses to refund as he says he can't send the item back.

Any help is appreciated.

tinkerbell28

No DSR won't apply as the contracts was formed and completed in store.

Lip_Stick

Ok, thanks for the quick response. Wasn't sure if it applied with her not actually seeing the item in person. I'll let her know.

McKneff

The items is possibly not ordered yet. Could she ask the shop keeper if she could spend the 'deposit' on something else.

tinkerbell28

McKneff wrote: »

The items is possibly not ordered yet. Could she ask the shop keeper if she could spend the 'deposit' on something else.

I'm presuming the last sentence of the op.....he refuses to refund as he can't send the item back.

Would suggest it's ordered.

browneyedbazzi

How exactly are payments made? Is it 20% up front then the balance all in one go (or a couple of set payments), or do you make payments as you go along until you've paid the total?

If the retailer isn't quite careful about how he operates this scheme he may fall foul of consumer credit licensing rules....if he should have a consumer credit licence but doesn't it may be possible to persuade him to give the money back!

McKneff

tinkerbell28 wrote: »

I'm presuming the last sentence of the op.....he refuses to refund as he can't send the item back.

Would suggest it's ordered.

Well that would be silly, the shop keeper might be saddled with the whole cost if the customer walks away quite happy to forego the deposit..


Cant imagine it has been delivered yet though.

wealdroam

browneyedbazzi wrote: »

How exactly are payments made? Is it 20% up front then the balance all in one go (or a couple of set payments), or do you make payments as you go along until you've paid the total?

If the retailer isn't quite careful about how he operates this scheme he may fall foul of consumer credit licensing rules....if he should have a consumer credit licence but doesn't it may be possible to persuade him to give the money back!

I agree.

But if the total is paid to the shopkeeper before the goods are handed over, then there is no credit involved... is there?

Lip_Stick

browneyedbazzi wrote: »

How exactly are payments made? Is it 20% up front then the balance all in one go (or a couple of set payments), or do you make payments as you go along until you've paid the total?

If the retailer isn't quite careful about how he operates this scheme he may fall foul of consumer credit licensing rules....if he should have a consumer credit licence but doesn't it may be possible to persuade him to give the money back!

Thanks for the info all.

I think it's the 20% up front then paying what you can when you can, i.e. not set payments. May see me friend today so will check. Will also ask whether she knows if the guy has the item in stock.

Also, she has already taken a couple of items away and when she got home she realised the box had been opened and it was in a bit of a mess. Now she realises she should have checked so can't do anything about that, but in future is she ok to request an exchange purely because of the way it is boxed?

~Beanie~

I used to work in a Newsagent that did this. The customer paid a deposit when they placed their order and then paid the rest off as and when, a fiver here and a fiver there type thing. The goods were never handed over until the total balance had been paid.

The goods usually were ordered by the Newsagent before the customer had paid for them though, they were kept upstairs until they had been paod for.

My boss was often left with loads of stuff that customers didn't collect or pay for which he then sold in his shop, usually at a large discount on the catalogue price and was therefore often left out of pocket.

Lip_Stick

Spoke to my friend this morning. To clarify, the story goes...

She ordered 4 items, paid a deposit then started paying bits and bobs towards it. A couple of weeks later she ordered the doll, but didn't pay the deposit. A couple of weeks after that she'd paid for the original 4 items and went in to collect them. She must have mentioned that she didn't want the doll at this point as the manager then refused to hand over any of the goods she had paid for until she paid for the doll.

After an argument the manager allowed her to take the goods she had paid for by paying the 20% deposit for the doll. She gets her items home, unpacks and finds the packaging in a right state, obviously been opened etc., also they are goods that she has seen in the shop since last Christmas.

He did mention, as Beanie said, that many customers over order and he gets saddled with the bill if they decide they don't want the items, but it's not like he doesn't display stock in the shop itself so could sell it on.

Would like to know more on the credit angle I guess, just for my own curiousity as I realise she's not got much of a chance getting her deposit back.

ETA - forgot to ask if he actually had the doll at the shop btw.