Refund of original postage costs - is it refunded or not?

gilmarro

Hi :-)
I bought two internal doors online, they were unsuitable (too heavy) and, after a lot of wrangling with the company, were returned. The company tried to fob me off with various stories to avoid an immediate refund.

I finally, this morning, contacted Amazon Pay and only because of this, was issued a refund tonight. The total cost of the order was around £277 but they have only refunded £235 and stated that they have withheld the original shipping because the goods weren't faulty.

Is this correct? We have an online business and always return original postage paid (even although it leaves us out of pocket every time) because we were under the impression that this was consumer law.
Do I fight this or let it go? I don't want to challenge them until I'm 100% certain.

Thanks everyone

sheramber

We have an online business

Is this a business purchase?

unholyangel

Just to check you were ordering/acting as a consumer and not as your online business?

If it falls within the scope of the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation & Additional Charges) Regulations and they were returned within the relevant period (depends on if they provided certain information to you and when you notified them of your intent to cancel) then they should refund the delivery costs you paid. Unless you opted for a premium service (like next day delivery), in which case they should refund whatever the standard deliver charge is.

The liability for return costs depends on quite a few details.

gilmarro

Thank you for the replies. and sorry, I should have clarified that it was a personal, household purchase and not for the business.

Because of the size and weight of the doors, it was a palleted freight delivery with no option to upgrade. I contacted them within a few days and the returns authorisation they issued, on January 4th, stipulated that they should be returned within 30 days - they were back and signed for on January 29th.

unholyangel

gilmarro wrote: »

Thank you for the replies. and sorry, I should have clarified that it was a personal, household purchase and not for the business.

Because of the size and weight of the doors, it was a palleted freight delivery with no option to upgrade. I contacted them within a few days and the returns authorisation they issued, on January 4th, stipulated that they should be returned within 30 days - they were back and signed for on January 29th.

You'll need to check whether the 30 days relates to a returns policy or not.

If they provided the necessary information, your rights would be 14 days starting the day after delivery to cancel and then 14 days from cancelling to return the goods. The 30 day period wasn't given until they issued the returns authorisation so didn't form part of the contract you agreed. If they didn't provide that information then your rights would be up to 1 year and 14 days to cancel and then 14 days from cancelling to return.

Who paid for the return? Did they tell you that you would be liable for the return charge and (because its a bulky item that cant be returned by normal post) how much that return would cost?

Have a look at this link (its to the information they should provide but have a look at the legislation in general).