Charged more for interest free credit

Toonbart

Hi all,

Yesterday I visited a metal detecting website to buy a detector. All detectors have 2 prices.

Eg

Our price £519
Sale price £450

I decided I would like one on their interest free credit option and was told a credit form would be emailed to me.

This arrived with the price of £519 entered.

On contacting them I was told that IFC is not on the sale price.

1. I thought it was illegal to charge a higher price for IFC.

2. This pricing structure applies all year round.

Is this legal?

Thanks for any help.

wealdroam

What website?

Toonbart

joanallen.co.uk/ Makro-Metal-Detectors-s/310.htm

arcon5

This sounds dodgy as hell... don't know whether you'd complain to the ASA or OFT though

zoob

Where on there website does it say that this model is available on interest free credit?

zoob

Sorry just looked at the details on this detector, and it does state that it's not available on finance or trade in offers.

cookie365

This is the store:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Biggin+Hill,+Westerham,+Greater+London+TN16+3BB/@51.308575,0.038506,3a,75y,175.73h,81.82t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sB1uVbPEY4-blLdqStzd5pQ!2e0!4m2!3m1!1s0x47df5506fac9d7b1:0x5303f9945f3a3edd

It doesn't look like the sort of place that carries £100ks of stock.

System

They don't appear to be advertising the item you want on 0% finance. In fact at the bottom of http://www.joanallen.co.uk/Makro-Racer-Metal-Detector-p/20428.htm

Please note that all offers on this machine are excluding Finance and Part Exchange.

They are not compelled to accept your order, you can't force them to sell something to you at a certain price under terms you want. You can only ask.

Interest free credit isn't free credit. Someone always pays. In this case the retailer will have to cough up a percentage of the loan to the 3rd party lender, which is why the retailer will be happy to take a lower price for a "cash" payment.

However, the advertising of credit has some quite complicated rules, requiring certain information to be shown, in a certain format, pretty much anywhere you mention finance. This website doesn't appear to comply, which is strange because the lenders providing the finance are usually quite strict about auditing retailers and making sure they follow these rules.

It's not the OFT anymore, its the FCA. You could complain, the end result might be someone sending them a letter saying "fix your website please".

Toonbart

zoob wrote: »

Sorry just looked at the details on this detector, and it does state that it's not available on finance or trade in offers.

They are quite happy for me to have it on IFC as long as I pay the higher price

Toonbart

mutzi wrote: »

They don't appear to be advertising the item you want on 0% finance. In fact at the bottom of



They are not compelled to accept your order, you can't force them to sell something to you at a certain price under terms you want. You can only ask.

Interest free credit isn't free credit. Someone always pays. In this case the retailer will have to cough up a percentage of the loan to the 3rd party lender, which is why the retailer will be happy to take a lower price for a "cash" payment.

However, the advertising of credit has some quite complicated rules, requiring certain information to be shown, in a certain format, pretty much anywhere you mention finance. This website doesn't appear to comply, which is strange because the lenders providing the finance are usually quite strict about auditing retailers and making sure they follow these rules.

It's not the OFT anymore, its the FCA. You could complain, the end result might be someone sending them a letter saying "fix your website please".

Cheers for the reply.

Basically they have two prices for the item and say if I pay the higher price I can have IFC.

My understanding from a few years ago was that if a retailer offered an item on IFC and then said or you can have £50 off if you pay cash, it was actually illegal for them to then refuse you IFC on the cash price.

custardy

Toonbart wrote: »

They are quite happy for me to have it on IFC as long as I pay the higher price

yup,so you pay retail price. not the offer price