Item not received after 7 weeks - EU seller

jupiterthegreat999

I bought some items from Dior. The item has gone missing in the UPS depot before a delivery was even attempted.
I have waited 2 weeks for UPS investigation. It's been 7 weeks since the order was made. I was told to wait for up to 4 more weeks for investigation to finish before a replacement can be sent. They said there is nothing they can do to shorten the time it takes to investigate missing parcels. This is clearly unreasonable. I believe I have been more than reasonable and I want them to immediately replace the goods. 
I am writing them a letter before action. I doubt I would actually take them to court. It Would have been clear what to do if they are a British company but the item was sent from France.
- Is there a difference if they are an EU or British seller? i.e. I would be protected by different laws? How do I know if their online store is classified as a British or French seller? 
- Do I still go to small claims court in UK if I do sue them? (it is unlikely but if we get that far...)
Note: I do not want to call up my credit card company. The reason is that the item has gone up in price. The cost of a replacement is higher so I do not want a refund. My goal is to make them to deliver the item now rather than in April / May. A letter threatening to sue is usually the best way to get their management's attention.

68ComebackSpecial

jupiterthegreat999 said:

I bought some items from Dior. The item has gone missing in the UPS depot before a delivery was even attempted.
I have waited 2 weeks for UPS investigation. It's been 7 weeks since the order was made. I was told to wait for up to 4 more weeks for investigation to finish before a replacement can be sent. They said there is nothing they can do to shorten the time it takes to investigate missing parcels. This is clearly unreasonable. I believe I have been more than reasonable and I want them to immediately replace the goods. 
I am writing them a letter before action. I doubt I would actually take them to court. It Would have been clear what to do if they are a British company but the item was sent from France.
- Is there a difference if they are an EU or British seller? i.e. I would be protected by different laws? How do I know if their online store is classified as a British or French seller? 
- Do I still go to small claims court in UK if I do sue them? (it is unlikely but if we get that far...)
Note: I do not want to call up my credit card company. The reason is that the item has gone up in price. The cost of a replacement is higher so I do not want a refund. My goal is to make them to deliver the item now rather than in April / May. A letter threatening to sue is usually the best way to get their management's attention.

Of course there is a difference if they are an EU rather than a British company - they would be bound by the laws of their jurisdiction and not ours. You would have to pursue an overseas seller via their country's court process, not ours. Look at the terms and conditions page of the company's website as that should show their jurisdiction.

JJ_Egan

Depends an item bought online from a co,uk does not need to be a UK company .

EU seller then its that countries law/ EU law not UK laws .

Probably in your case french laws /

MattMattMattUK

jupiterthegreat999 said:

Note: I do not want to call up my credit card company. The reason is that the item has gone up in price. The cost of a replacement is higher so I do not want a refund. My goal is to make them to deliver the item now rather than in April / May.

You do not have a choice in the matter, it is entirely the retailer's decision if they refund you or dispatch replacement goods.

jupiterthegreat999 said:

A letter threatening to sue is usually the best way to get their management's attention.

It will firstly be a legal letter with no standing, threatening a French company with UK law will just get the letter binned/email deleted. If you want it to have any chance of being accepted as credible you will need to send it in French, citing the correct parts of French law. Secondly you will probably find that they will refund you and block you from ever ordering from them again.

davidmcn

jupiterthegreat999 said:

How do I know if their online store is classified as a British or French seller? 

By reading the terms on their web site. Assuming you bought from dior.com, the terms are here:
https://www.dior.com/en_gb/legal-terms#general-sales-conditions
from which you'll see that it's a French company and French law applies.

gettingtheresometime

Not having much luck are you?

steampowered

The above posters are mistaken. English law applies to your contract with Dior. It makes no difference that Dior is a French company.

This is because, as a mandatory rule of law, within Europe, where you have a contract between a business and a consumer, it is always the law of the place where the consumer lives that applies. This is what EC Regulation 593/2008 states - this takes precedence over any choice of law in the T&Cs: 
"a contract concluded by a natural person for a purpose which can be regarded as being outside his trade or profession (the consumer) with another person acting in the exercise of his trade or profession (the professional) shall be governed by the law of the country where the consumer has his habitual residence"

The Dior T&Cs do actually recognise this. The Dior T&Cs say: 
"These general terms and conditions of sale shall be subject to French law, unless otherwise required by Regulation (EC) No 593/2008 of 17 June 2008 on the law applicable to contractual obligations (Rome I)."

That position may change in future due to Brexit (Brexit is very bad for consumers - indeed for anyone who buys anything from outside the UK), but for now remains a part of UK law.

Furthermore, it is perfectly possible to sue a French company in the UK through the UK courts. The UK courts allow you to serve proceedings on a company anywhere where it does business. You just need to identify a business address used by Dior in the UK.

However, the T&Cs do likely allow a refund to be paid for non-delivery, so I'm not sure you can force them to pay you the difference.

Might be easiest to just accept a refund or get one from your credit card company.

unholyangel

steampowered said:

The above posters are mistaken. English law applies to your contract with Dior. It makes no difference that Dior is a French company.

This is because, as a mandatory rule of law, within Europe, where you have a contract between a business and a consumer, it is always the law of the place where the consumer lives that applies. This is what EC Regulation 593/2008 states - this takes precedence over any choice of law in the T&Cs: 
"a contract concluded by a natural person for a purpose which can be regarded as being outside his trade or profession (the consumer) with another person acting in the exercise of his trade or profession (the professional) shall be governed by the law of the country where the consumer has his habitual residence"

The Dior T&Cs do actually recognise this. The Dior T&Cs say: 
"These general terms and conditions of sale shall be subject to French law, unless otherwise required by Regulation (EC) No 593/2008 of 17 June 2008 on the law applicable to contractual obligations (Rome I)."

That position may change in future due to Brexit (Brexit is very bad for consumers - indeed for anyone who buys anything from outside the UK), but for now remains a part of UK law.

Furthermore, it is perfectly possible to sue a French company in the UK through the UK courts. The UK courts allow you to serve proceedings on a company anywhere where it does business. You just need to identify a business address used by Dior in the UK.

However, the T&Cs do likely allow a refund to be paid for non-delivery, so I'm not sure you can force them to pay you the difference.

Might be easiest to just accept a refund or get one from your credit card company.

Thats not quite what the rome convention means. They can still choose the governing law, but the trader can't use choice of law to deprive the consumer of their legal protection. 

The full text of the part you've quoted is:

1.Without prejudice to Articles 5 and 7, a contract concluded by a natural person for a purpose which can be regarded as being outside his trade or profession (the consumer) with another person acting in the exercise of his trade or profession (the professional) shall be governed by the law of the country where the consumer has his habitual residence, provided that the professional:
(a)pursues his commercial or professional activities in the country where the consumer has his habitual residence, or
(b)by any means, directs such activities to that country or to several countries including that country,
and the contract falls within the scope of such activities.
2.Notwithstanding paragraph 1, the parties may choose the law applicable to a contract which fulfils the requirements of paragraph 1, in accordance with Article 3. Such a choice may not, however, have the result of depriving the consumer of the protection afforded to him by provisions that cannot be derogated from by agreement by virtue of the law which, in the absence of choice, would have been applicable on the basis of paragraph 1.

What it aims to do is ensure consumers have minimum protection and that (for example) a german retailer can't sell to the UK but choose to apply chinese law because it removes the consumers statutory rights they would have under german or UK law. They could however choose german law, if it offered the same protections. 

What you might be thinking of is the brussels convention. Which sets the jurisdiction of disputes rather than governing law. They can't stipulate the french courts have exclusive jurisdiction, they need to allow you to bring action in the member state you are domiciled in.

jupiterthegreat999

steampowered said:

The above posters are mistaken. English law applies to your contract with Dior. It makes no difference that Dior is a French company.

This is because, as a mandatory rule of law, within Europe, where you have a contract between a business and a consumer, it is always the law of the place where the consumer lives that applies. This is what EC Regulation 593/2008 states - this takes precedence over any choice of law in the T&Cs: 
"a contract concluded by a natural person for a purpose which can be regarded as being outside his trade or profession (the consumer) with another person acting in the exercise of his trade or profession (the professional) shall be governed by the law of the country where the consumer has his habitual residence"

The Dior T&Cs do actually recognise this. The Dior T&Cs say: 
"These general terms and conditions of sale shall be subject to French law, unless otherwise required by Regulation (EC) No 593/2008 of 17 June 2008 on the law applicable to contractual obligations (Rome I)."

That position may change in future due to Brexit (Brexit is very bad for consumers - indeed for anyone who buys anything from outside the UK), but for now remains a part of UK law.

Furthermore, it is perfectly possible to sue a French company in the UK through the UK courts. The UK courts allow you to serve proceedings on a company anywhere where it does business. You just need to identify a business address used by Dior in the UK.

However, the T&Cs do likely allow a refund to be paid for non-delivery, so I'm not sure you can force them to pay you the difference.

Might be easiest to just accept a refund or get one from your credit card company.

Thanks. This is the answer I was looking for. Some of the other commentators are jokers. - I won't name them; they know who they are. It doesn't seem plausible that one has to sue them in French court and write them the letter in French. 

"However, the T&Cs do likely allow a refund to be paid for non-delivery, so I'm not sure you can force them to pay you the difference.
Might be easiest to just accept a refund or get one from your credit card company."

^^ I know that fully well. I only wrote the letter to draw their senior management to the attention. The worst case scenario is a speedy refund with a letter - more likely than not, I will get a replacement. In a rational world - you'd expect business normally wants your customs. Forcing you to take a refund and refuse to let you buy again when they have been poor, well, seems irrational. I figured that if they were going to force me to take a refund, then they probably would have done it anyway if I did not write a letter. I could have written a normal letter of complaint, but I don't think that would receive much attention.

If I call up a credit card companies, I will get a refund for sure, but I was still hoping to get a replacement.

Aylesbury_Duck

At least you're not accusing the driver of theft this time.  Refreshing.

68ComebackSpecial

Dior stores in the UK will, presumably, be reopening in five weeks. As this is a money saving site I would recommend a trip to their outlet store in Bicester Village which will, for a time at least, be noticeably quieter than usual without the hoards of overseas shoppers.