Iomega 1TB External HDD £19.95

hesjane

Sara_k wrote: »

Hey everyone, Just to let you know where you stand with the Iomega issue. As a lawer, I have been very interested in researching this case in great detail.
I can advise all those who have been affected that you do not have a leagal leg to stand on.
I have looked into Apples T&C's in great detail and have realized they are fully leagally covered in this situation.

What does this mean?
This means that Apple have the right to cancel the order and in the event that customers have been charged (if order was placed with a debit card) their money will be refunded to them.
There is no point in trying to argue this to anyone as you would be wasting you time and breath!

No offense....but I will take this post with a pinch of salt. I have ordered one of these items....and fully do not expect to receive it - but if I don't try then I will never benefit from this kind of error and in the past I have done well with gamecubes, cameras and the like. However surely if Sara_k is a lawer she would know how to spell both lawyer and legal (not leagal as she types).

That said....I don't expect to receive this item, but am just irritated that Apple changed my order to Dymo labels or whatever and cancelled rather than admitting a pricing error.

Good luck to anyone who might be lucky enough for one of these drives to slip through the Apple net:beer:

Graham_Devon

Stormrider wrote: »

That can't be right... that means any company could get away with anything by doing the same thing!

Loophole basically. Kinda wraps up the mystery as to why we sat here waiting for so long for an e-mail or something and why they took so long to do something about it.

Until the distance selling laws change, nothing we can do. Considering the sales of goods act is 1979.....

Apple have done this before. Camera worth £899 sold as £89.99. That time buyers recieved confirmation I believe, BUT apple sneakily changed their T&C's to cover their !!!!!! and THEN sent the cancellation e-mail telling the customer to view the (new) T&C's.

Again, a loophole covered them. They used it too!

Ghirl

ianonline wrote: »

What do you mean by "cropped up"? - are you saying you were browsing the Apple site and saw this without actually seeing it posted elsewhere as a mis-price?

Someone had to have noticed it on the Apple site to be able to post on forums about it.

Chroma

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Right, Apple have won.

Word back from the lawyer....

They won when they changed the orders, hence the change!!! Very cunning!!

Because we did not have confirmation and they did not send this, under the distance selling act even though they have taken payment, even though they have broken their own T&C's, without confirmation, either by e-mail or phone / post, the customer is screwed.

The change of description means that if something did happen, they would lose £1 worth of labels to each customer and not a £199.95 hard drive.

The reason for this is because the law has not been changed and it is very vague. So if a customer was canny enough to find a loophole in the distance selling regulations which states that they have accepted the order (via confirmation) by taking the money, or by having the order still showing (hence change of order), they would have been required by law to fulfill the orders.

So any loophole which is now found, all they owe us is a pack of labels.

VERY canny Apple, and gotta admit, very good!!! Disgusting, but very good! The one and only thing that could be used as evidence is the records of our orders for confirmation. They are labels. They can not be screenshots or saved pages. Only the actual orders on screen or on headed paper from the company.

So take it to court, all you will be entitled to, is labels.

Least we know why the change!! Apple has royally screwed us!

Can you provide a little more information on exactly what vague law this falls under?

I mean ive been speaking to a wealth of people concerning this and all of them have screencaps/printouts/saved pages.
I can see there being a point if its just one person then there would be a chance of things being doctored, however theres been a slew of people involved so i doubt its that easy to forge a coverup.

And besides there would be some kind of records on their servers to show timestamps of changes made to actual code, edits in transactions.

Then theres bank statements, the labels totaled something like £6.50 with shipping so why is there a £25 payment towards Apple for a £6.50 transaction?

This sounds a sketchy defense at best, although it does sound interesting and i would like more information on exactly what laws and sections cover this.

splodger_2

It sounds like fraudulent/sharp practice to me.

Graham_Devon

Under the distance selling act, of which internet e-commerce falls under:

Acceptance

With the online business process being automated there may be confusion as to when an offer is accepted. The basic rule is that for acceptance to be effective it must be communicated. However, as the law currently stands it is not clear when an online acceptance is communicated. For example, if the seller processes the customer's order through the website, but acceptance is made by email, is it communicated when the seller presses the 'send' button, when it leaves the seller's email system, when it leaves the seller's ISP's mail server, when it hits the buyer's ISP's mail server, when it enters the buyer's email system or when the buyer reads it (or indeed any stage in between)? There are a number of initiatives which are intended to address this position – see our guide on EU and UK Regulations – but the safest course is to state, in the terms and conditions themselves, when acceptance will be deemed to have taken place.

---

So, we never got an 'acceptance' of the order, which would have been a confirmation. If we did, they would be required to send the hard drives, we could take it to court and win.

With the above, as it is very vague, if one of us did actually find some way of proving that they had confirmed the order, whichever way that was, it would be based on the order details.

The order details have been changed to the labels. Their T&C's state that they can, under a misprice suggest an alternative product. In a roundabout way, they have done this. The labels are the alternate product under their T&C's.

Now, we should have been told of this change, but ther T&C's also cover this eventuality that we were not told of the change. I.e. 'Apple reserve the right, blah blah' to which we, as customers acknowledged and accepted when we ordered.

This sales does not wholely fall under the sales of goods act, which if this was in a shop, there would be no way of apple getting around it.

As for the pulling of money from our accounts, one user on here is still saying they haven't, I believe and many other do they have. This is a totally seperate issue and falls under the 'customer not present' charging system, for which they are covered. They will call it a mistake to have taken this money, and under the distance selling act, have a total of 30 days to refund this money. Only after those 30 days should they not have refunded can we claim for the refund and subsequent losses, by going down a fraud route.

The option of ringing your bank or credit card providers and stating fraud is there, but they still have 30 days from the transaction date to return the money, afterwhich the bank will try and recover it under the fraud regulations.

Any form of evidence, which can be doctored in any way does not stand up in the eyes of the law. So screenshots, saved pages, they mean diddly squat. We need order pages still in the system, or letter headed paper from the company with signature and company reg details etc which takes us back to confirmation and we go full circle again.

Apple have won through the most devious methods and loopholes avaliable to them basically. They are covered for the change of order, will refund in the time period allowed, are covered under a basic vagueness of the regulations etc.

Sara_k

Stormrider wrote: »

That can't be right... that means any company could get away with anything by doing the same thing!

Yeah it sure does look like they have won. Its hard to win with huge companies such as Apple as they do have a an extremely good legal team.

ianonline

Ghirl wrote: »

Someone had to have noticed it on the Apple site to be able to post on forums about it.

Very true, but it's fairly obvious that the person who first spotted it knew EXACTLY what a 1TB drive was (ie twice the size of a 500GB drive) and they knew roughly how much it should cost (ie more than the 500GB version) and that the price quoted was clearly wrong, which was why it has been posted on forums as a MIS-PRICE (and not merely a "good offer").

On the other hand, Chroma had not seen this posted anywhere as a mis-price, but just happened to be browsing the Apple Store website and saw a 1TB drive being advertised for £19.95 plus delivery. Not really knowing what a 1TB drive was, and not knowing whether it was a good deal or not, Chroma decided to order one because they thought it must be a slightly over-priced 1GB drive. Not knowing it to be a mis-price (or even just a "good offer") then I'm assuming it wasn't Chroma who first posted the "offer" on various forums but has subsequently stumbled upon this thread on MSE which relates to the exact same drive which they have tried to order from Apple. Clearly Chroma must be astounded by all the hullaballoo which has ensued from their innocent purchase. :rolleyes:

Ian :cool:

Graham_Devon

Remember folks, were dealing with a company here who sells music that they dont tell you clearly can only be used on one device!! Who also come over all saintly when it comes to copied music on the internet and MP3 sites who charge less, but apple themselves screw the artists from proper royalties, and take a large chunk in profit for themselves just because they hold the biggest customer base.

They are not the most ethical company out there at all.

Stormrider

The labels would NOT count as an alternative product, since they are completely different. Also, you could say that taking the money is effectively communicating their order, and changing the order without telling us and then charging for that extra product is NOT a way to suggest an alternative product.

I still may phone up about this later and kick up my own fuss, I'm still convinced that they are legally obliged to send me the product that I ordered and paid for.