Website has automatic reordering/rebilling setup to charge card for pet food purchase !!!

Little_miss_smiles

I purchased my pet food online a couple of weeks ago and received the order no problem.
Then I received an email Wednesday morning 0706 hrs saying "your repeat order has been placed".  I logged into the account and saw that the items have this little check box which is automatically checked for delivery the following week, you have to manually uncheck it !!
I unchecked everything, and looked at the company T&C's and in there it clearly stated that orders can be cancelled upto the day before dispatch.  I emailed the company immediately Wednesday morning 0716 hrs  At 1204 hrs Thursday I received an email saying they could not cancel my order as it had already been dispatched.  I received an email at 1733 hrs saying it has been dispatched and at 2239 hrs saying it is with the courier.
To return the item, they want to charge me the courier costs
How do i stand 

Aylesbury_Duck

Devious practice but rather than go to a lot of trouble unwinding it, won't you be able to use the pet food anyway?  Probably easier than going through a load of hassle to sort it out.  And don't use them again.

RobM99

I'm with Aylsebury on this, it's not as if you ordered something you'll never use (well, not personally! =^..^=)  .  One of those "Oh, Drat!" things. 

soolin

There are currently a couple of pet shop websites that are offering a free delivery (just pay p and p) on your first order being talked about on various freebie sites. Loads of people are signing up , for the freebie and not realising it is a recurring service, might it be the case here? 

DoaM

Almost certainly. The recurring order thing was probably there on the website when creating the order but the OP didn't expect to see it so didn't read the page properly.

Sandtree

DoaM said:

Almost certainly. The recurring order thing was probably there on the website when creating the order but the OP didn't expect to see it so didn't read the page properly.

I suspect the OP's complaint was that the default option was to reorder rather than denying that they read every word on the page.

Back in my B2C days of insurance out "important information and assumptions" page was about 1 A4 page of terms on a 12pt font. The average time spent on that page, including both load time and time for the response to get back to our server was 6 seconds (and FTC wasn't a thing then). Vast majority click through without reading but for marketing rights etc its now been made illegal for the default option to be "yes" whereas for other things companies can still leverage the fact people click without reading.

DoaM

I'm not saying they didn't use inertia selling, and that the moral thing would have been to make that a selectable option rather than vice versa, just that consumer's also need to take some level of responsibility for their own actions.

Sandtree

DoaM said:

I'm not saying they didn't use inertia selling, and that the moral thing would have been to make that a selectable option rather than vice versa, just that consumer's also need to take some level of responsibility for their own actions.

Well, "selectable" and "preselected" are two separate things... one says you can only order from us if its on repeat the other says you can choose if its repeated or not but we will default to repeat.

That aside, I fully agree that consumers should take more responsibility but our current direction of travel is more towards nanny state protecting consumers from themselves (more than from evil businesses)

unholyangel

What was the website? 

Part of the information they need to supply before you are bound by the contract is:

(h)in the case of a contract of indeterminate duration or a contract containing a subscription, the total costs per billing period or (where such contracts are charged at a fixed rate) the total monthly costs;
(j)the arrangements for payment, delivery, performance, and the time by which the trader undertakes to deliver the goods or to perform the services;
(l)where a right to cancel exists, the conditions, time limit and procedures for exercising that right in accordance with regulations 27 to 38;
(m)where applicable, that the consumer will have to bear the cost of returning the goods in case of cancellation and, for distance contracts, if the goods, by their nature, cannot normally be returned by post, the cost of returning the goods;
(s)the duration of the contract, where applicable, or, if the contract is of indeterminate duration or is to be extended automatically, the conditions for terminating the contract;

There's other info that needs to be given also, but those are the most relevant (imo) to the OP's issue. 

Little_miss_smiles

Thanks everyone for your comments, I could just keep the pet food your right, 
in case anyone is wondering the site is www.pet-supermarket.co.uk 
I just hate the fact that i within their terms cancelled the order.
I will close the account with them and leave some feedback on their site 

donnac2558

I used to order from them, food and a supplement for an elderly cat.    They never automatically sent out orders but I did get emails telling me it was time to re-order.   You had to tick to sign up for automatic re-orders back then they might have changed it to opted out now?   I do remember they kept sending me emails to rate them and I got p*ssed off and told them to stop as my cat had died which was true.   

Otherwise, their service was good