Online or instore purchase?

Dervona

Hello all. I recently purchased something online and selected to collect in store. I have asked for a refund on an item which wasn't in the box. The order was collected by a third party so they didn't check what was inside. The retailer is telling me it is an instore purchase and to go back to store for a refund. Which is difficult without access to a car. However I purchaed and paid online so thought it would be covered as an online purchase? Which is correct?

elsien

It’s an online not an instore purchase, if it was paid for in advance and not reserve and collect.
What did the returns terms and conditions in place when you made the order say about returns? 

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/15/section/20/enacted

Whether or not the consumer has a duty to return the rejected goods, the trader must bear any reasonable costs of returning them, other than any costs incurred by the consumer in returning the goods in person to the place where the consumer took physical possession of them.

As this is the goods not conforming to the contract, rather than cancelling the contract, I think the retailer can ask the goods to be returned to store and it would be taken you took possession in store as the person collecting was doing so under your instruction. 

Manxman_in_exile

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/15/section/20/enacted

Whether or not the consumer has a duty to return the rejected goods, the trader must bear any reasonable costs of returning them, other than any costs incurred by the consumer in returning the goods in person to the place where the consumer took physical possession of them.

As this is the goods not conforming to the contract, rather than cancelling the contract, I think the retailer can ask the goods to be returned to store and it would be taken you took possession in store as the person collecting was doing so under your instruction. 

But does the bit you quote mean that the retailer can insist on a return in person by the buyer?  Or does it simply mean that IF the goods are returned in person, then the retailer need not pay for any costs incurred by the buyer?

(Of course it might be that if they were collected in person then they should be returned in person.  But isn't that a slightly different question?)