13 year old buying mobile without permission

Synnova

My 13 year old has a Nationwide Flexone account with debit card and used it this week to order a £200 mobilef rom oneplus without our permission. When we found out only 5 minutes later he cancelled the order, however oneplus said the order was already processed and would be sent. the phone arrived and now we have to pay for a courier registered return.Hopefully we are in our rights re distance selling for a full refund? Do we have any case for getting the postage back? There was no proof of age asked for. I know the law says under 18 can't use credit cards but surely there should be some limit placed for debit cards too. I',m contacting Nationwide to see if it is possible to put a limit on the amount that can be spent.

Tony5101

A full refund for the item, provided it's in the same condition as it was when received..yes. Postage..no.
There doesn't need to be any proof of age. Your son wasn't purchasing anything that is age restricted.
If the debit card is in your sons name, then legally he has done nothing wrong. Equally..neither has the company done anything wrong by accepting and fulfilling the purchase.
Why should the company be out of pocket because of the delinquent actions of your son?
Maybe you should consider taking the debit card off him?

grumbler

Synnova wrote: »

... I',m contacting Nationwide to see if it is possible to put a limit on the amount that can be spent.

Don't waste your and their time. You can easily set a limit on the amount he has in the account, can you not? This is the only way.

Kim_13

The FlexOne must be in the son's name since it is only available to 11-17 year olds (though the benefits of the account can be retained until he reaches the age of 23.) Legally he has done nothing wrong if he has not purchased a pay monthly contract (since he would have to have claimed to be 18 to do so.) He is entitled to spend all of the money in his FlexOne if he wishes. Some companies may prevent under 18's from purchasing a pay as you go phone, but they don't have to as there is nothing illegal about it. I had to give my mum the cash to purchase a £80 PAYG phone for me when I was 17, as the O2 website wouldn't sell to U18's.

Nationwide can issue a FlexOne cash card instead of a Visa Debit, which prevents spending online or in shops. He would have to draw out the cash in order to spend it. See here: http://www.nationwide.co.uk/products/current-accounts/flexone/choose-your-card#tab:sectionChoosingyourcard

macman

Under 18's can legally take out a monthly contract, but , since its terms can't be enforced on minors, phone cos. won't sell them to under 18's, because they'd never get paid. No such issue with simply buying a SIM-free handset, which is what your son did.

d123

If it's onePlus in China you have no distance selling rights. Where was it ordered from?

jbainbridge

Not a bad choice of phone ... credit where it's due!

corf999

Why does he have an account with debit card if you wont allow him to use it?

Cloudane

To be fair at least he researched a good phone and saved up for it, which is a positive sign. Aside from seemingly ignoring or not realising he needs your permission, he seems to be showing signs of sense! There are far worse things he could be doing.
If he's anything like me he probably dived on it at the sight of the massive offers they're doing at the moment and the fact they've scrapped the invite system, for fear of missing out. I don't know what to call it... "bargain adrenaline"? I made the same mistake (in the end I remembered I don't want to deal with non-Nexus devices again, however good value they are) and I'm 20 years older, but did manage to cancel it on time.

Oneplus customer services have some mixed reviews but I can't see it being a problem (minus return cost - when I was looking into it myself, they instruct you to refuse delivery if it's already processed, that way it would've returned to sender at no cost to you)

System

When my daughter was 15 she ordered and paid for using her own bank card some action figures . It was her money so it wasn't a problem but when the company failed to deliver Trading standards in the town where the business was based became involved.
The guy from trading standards went into the shop but the refund had to be in the form of a cheque as under 16 according to him can not buy online !
He was very surprised when he found out it was an under 18 yr olds acc with a full debit card.

The morale of the story is don't ever buy from Retro action figures [The Who shop] Blackpool.