John Lewis not honouring codes

HeinzVarieties

clarabella23 said:

Thank you- that's the information I haven't seen anywhere. As far as I could tell, John Lewis was legally bound by its terms and conditions, and as much as people are telling me it's a glitch, no chance, nobody has said that legally they don't have to abide by their terms and conditions.

I have no interest in taking to court! But I don't like the way they have gone about this matter, so I will be pursuing a complaint. Trying to get any communication has been like trying to get blood out of a stone.

If the contract is void then they're not bound by anything.

clarabella23

HeinzVarieties said:

clarabella23 said:

Thank you- that's the information I haven't seen anywhere. As far as I could tell, John Lewis was legally bound by its terms and conditions, and as much as people are telling me it's a glitch, no chance, nobody has said that legally they don't have to abide by their terms and conditions.

I have no interest in taking to court! But I don't like the way they have gone about this matter, so I will be pursuing a complaint. Trying to get any communication has been like trying to get blood out of a stone.

If the contract is void then they're not bound by anything.

I had no way of knowing their contract was void- it hadn't been mentioned in previous replies here that I can see, they have not told me that in any contact that they have had, they have just stated that they have cancelled the order. They have told me that the discount code behaved incorrectly, but they haven't told me that legally that means the order is void, or that they can now break their terms and conditions. I have asked the same question of them several times, and none have responded addressing anything at all, other than the order has been cancelled. When I question how this is possible, they pass it to another department.

Alderbank

clarabella23 said:

Thank you- that's the information I haven't seen anywhere. As far as I could tell, John Lewis was legally bound by its terms and conditions, and as much as people are telling me it's a glitch, no chance, nobody has said that legally they don't have to abide by their terms and conditions.

Both parties, you as well as John Lewis, would be legally bound by its terms and conditions if a valid contract had been formed. That's what both sides agree to.  Also, to form a contract, both parties have to have some skin in the game. Legally this is called consideration. Your consideration is paying for the goods and JLP's is sending them to you. No contract until that happens. You put your consideration in but JLP decided not to do so.
I suspect, but I don't know, that if JLP had not noticed the error their web bot had made until after they had sent the goods to you they would have written the incident off and not tried to claw back the goods. However they did notice, no contract was entered into and your payment was returned immediately.

That's how it works.

HeinzVarieties

clarabella23 said:

HeinzVarieties said:

clarabella23 said:

Thank you- that's the information I haven't seen anywhere. As far as I could tell, John Lewis was legally bound by its terms and conditions, and as much as people are telling me it's a glitch, no chance, nobody has said that legally they don't have to abide by their terms and conditions.

I have no interest in taking to court! But I don't like the way they have gone about this matter, so I will be pursuing a complaint. Trying to get any communication has been like trying to get blood out of a stone.

If the contract is void then they're not bound by anything.

I had no way of knowing their contract was void- it hadn't been mentioned in previous replies here that I can see, they have not told me that in any contact that they have had, they have just stated that they have cancelled the order. They have told me that the discount code behaved incorrectly, but they haven't told me that legally that means the order is void, or that they can now break their terms and conditions. I have asked the same question of them several times, and none have responded addressing anything at all, other than the order has been cancelled. When I question how this is possible, they pass it to another department.

It doesn't matter whether they told you it was void or not. It was void the moment that JL voided it.  I'm telling you what the law is, nothing more and nothing less.

What they do or do not tell you after is a matter of customer service, not the law.

user1977

clarabella23 said:

HeinzVarieties said:

clarabella23 said:

Thank you- that's the information I haven't seen anywhere. As far as I could tell, John Lewis was legally bound by its terms and conditions, and as much as people are telling me it's a glitch, no chance, nobody has said that legally they don't have to abide by their terms and conditions.

I have no interest in taking to court! But I don't like the way they have gone about this matter, so I will be pursuing a complaint. Trying to get any communication has been like trying to get blood out of a stone.

If the contract is void then they're not bound by anything.

I had no way of knowing their contract was void- it hadn't been mentioned in previous replies here that I can see,

It might not have been explained in words of one syllable, but that's the principle that for example JetpackVelociraptor was basing their advice on:

JetpackVelociraptor said:

According to citizen's advice, and what I understand from my own dealings with the other side of this issue, the retailer (JL) can cancel your order if either the contract hasn't been formed yet, or if there is a genuine mistake that should have been obvious to you.

Thrugelmir

clarabella23 said:

I have no interest in taking to court! But I don't like the way they have gone about this matter, so I will be pursuing a complaint. Trying to get any communication has been like trying to get blood out of a stone.

Perhaps they'd prefer not to further waste time on the matter. Why should they. When you placed the order you knew something was wrong in the system. There's nothing left to be said. 

Nearlyold

If you were to try and pursue this in Court on the basis that John Lewis were not upholding their contract with you by breaking their terms & conditions (or vice versa) they might wish to rely on this aspect of contract law:-

Unilateral Mistake

Unilateral mistake addresses misunderstandings between the parties that relate to the terms of the contract or the identity of the parties to the contract. It does not apply to mistakes about the facts known or assumed by the parties.

In unilateral mistake cases, only one party is mistaken: the other party knows about it and takes advantage of the error. So, it's not a mistake made by both parties to a contract.

In Hartog v Colin and Shields (1939) the seller had made a mistake as to the price of goods. It was held that the buyer must have realised the mistake. The contract was held to be void. 

pinkshoes

clarabella23 said: 

I had no way of knowing their contract was void

An order worth £700 that you were expecting a £20 discount on then came up as £250 and you had no idea the order would be void?!?!?

Just phone them up, repay the £680 that you intended to pay for the presents in the first place and all sorted.

(Unless of course you knew about the glitch and were only ordering because of this...???)

Caz3121

it looks like some people got their stuff and others not.....posted round various forums as a bargain
https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/Christmas/4410011-jl-hopefully-this-won-t-be-deleted
It think this sums it up....
"Apparently there was a code you could enter at check out that was intended to give you £20 off your basket, but it had been coded by either the work experience kid or someone who'd just been sacked, and it gave £20 off every item with no minimum spend.
So people ordered a **** load of stuff and hardly paid for it."

warby68

If you were 100% genuine and still want all your items with just £20 off then I don't think it would be unreasonable to ask for that.

Cancelled orders and little communication are commonplace when glitchy codes arise as the company scrambles to limit the damage. 

You may not like the customer service around the issue but you have to be realistic. Most people placing large orders will have been chancing it and will not rank highly in JL's customer base. It may be that some email comes out in a few days with a replacement code for genuine shoppers to have another go. These are 'win some, lose some' events and its been happening for years.

Hand on heart, you really didn't know it was a glitch and order more?