Cancelling an order before dispatch and still being charged 25% Restocking fee

Manxman_in_exile

Jenni_D said:

mattyprice4004 said:

Seems fair enough if they’ve put the time into building it.

No it doesn't ... they have legal obligations to abide by. If they can't or won't abide by them for online sales then they should find another way of doing business.

I agree.  If they can't follow the law applicable to online sales they should not be selling online.

LoosSerine

Jenni_D said:

Others have already covered your rights - if you used a configurator tool that they supplied on their website then it is NOT personalised or customised in any way. Therefore a full refund is due.

If they decline to provide a full refund then raise a chargeback claim with your card provider (assuming that is how you paid - how did you pay?) for the balance.

I paid by debit card so I presume will be harder to chargeback.

LoosSerine

So thanks all for your feedback. I quoted the information @Manxman_in_exile stated including Trading Standards and they've now come back with: 

I just took this email to the boss and he said listen the last thing he wants is a fight with trading standards over a PC that we are only making a small profit on anyway, its not worth the hassle.

He has said to offer you the below final 2 options to resolve this positively – A – we ship the PC out to you today for delivery tomorrow and we will refund back to your card £75 or B – we will just take the hit on the restocking fee and make a refund.
 

Its sad it came to this and we want you to have nothing but a great experience with us and hopefully with the refund offer you are happy to proceed, but if not the offer is there for a full refund, but I need to know ASAP for the dispatch team. The last thing we want to do is sell you a PC and then have a big fight with you and trading standards and im sure your don’t want this either. SO please get back to me ASAP to sort this matter with one of the above options.

Find that there is a bit of a guilt trip play here but they have now offered the full refund.

As stated just for reference the key points:

• The business is a PC builder, I've just used their own configurator tool to select the parts so nothing outside their normal business operations - so this can't be counted as specialist build.
• Requested cancellation and refund within 2 days of ordering (1 1/2 days) and before product was built or ready for dispatch
• Product was stated with 5-10 days dispatch
• Business stated cancellation would require 25% restock fee the moment I sent the cancellation request way before the dispatch date's minimum range
• Business claimed that the product would then count as second hand despite not having left the Palicomp warehouse and that their boss sells the product on eBay - "I think the boss gets someone to sell them on ebay from time to time, I know he makes a loss on them and that’s why there is the fee" - this is illegal I would think as the company made the purchase and hence only the company can sell and not the boss selling on eBay where they don't even trade.
• Mentioning Trading Standards got them to offer full refund

Now just waiting on the refund, 2 hours and nothing in account yet so will give it a day or two, the money went into their account pretty quick.

Alderbank

LoosSerine said:

Jenni_D said:

Others have already covered your rights - if you used a configurator tool that they supplied on their website then it is NOT personalised or customised in any way. Therefore a full refund is due.

If they decline to provide a full refund then raise a chargeback claim with your card provider (assuming that is how you paid - how did you pay?) for the balance.

I paid by debit card so I presume will be harder to chargeback.

No, chargeback applies to debit cards as well as credit cards.
It is s75 protection which you do not have with debit cards.

Manxman_in_exile

If you are happy with the full refund then you are right to take it - indeed, you have a legal right to it.  If they wanted to fight you over it they would lose.  (It's interesting they they backed down so quickly - isn't it?     )

As @Alderbank says, Chargeback applies to both debit and credit cards, but s75 protection only applies to credit card purchases > £100.  s75 offers better consumer protection as chargebacks are subject to a number of arbitrary rules that don't make a lot of sense.  (eg if something is delivered, but to the wrong address, you can't do a chargeback if the trader has proof of delivery - even to the wrong address!)

s34 of the legislation I referred to earlier says the trader must refund you without undue delay and in any case no later than 14 days after you told them you were cancelling.  So you probably need to wait a bit before going to your card company.

born_again

LoosSerine said:

Jenni_D said:

Others have already covered your rights - if you used a configurator tool that they supplied on their website then it is NOT personalised or customised in any way. Therefore a full refund is due.

If they decline to provide a full refund then raise a chargeback claim with your card provider (assuming that is how you paid - how did you pay?) for the balance.

I paid by debit card so I presume will be harder to chargeback.

Except there is no chargeback for change of mind.

You only hope would be non receipt of refund. But for that you need something like a receipt from retailer. Date, amount & last 4 of card. Then have to wait 15 days (visa) if no refund of the stated amount, then you can start one. Odds on getting that proof??

Manxman_in_exile

I think the OP needs to wait for up to the 14 days before complaining to any card companies - that's if they have a claim in respect of a debit card payment.

There's another current thread on here where the OP has quite likely thrown a spanner in the works by prematurely complaining to their card provider about not getting a refund, and that's slowed everything down to snail's pace.  If they'd done everthing in the correct order I suspect that OP would have been refunded months ago... 

visidigi

I have to say, as a component build, the next customer would have no clue your part was fitted to another PC that didn't leave their premises.

So don't let the guilt trip affect you, they won't lose out here.

LoosSerine

visidigi said:

I have to say, as a component build, the next customer would have no clue your part was fitted to another PC that didn't leave their premises.

So don't let the guilt trip affect you, they won't lose out here.

Thanks, I know. I didn't really buy the spiel that their 'boss will have to sell the parts second hand on eBay at a loss' as the items were in their possession the entire time and can just be placed in another customer's build as that's all this company does.

I just found it fascinating that some people still side with businesses that operate in the way that you're not allowed to change your mind and as such would get penalised for it. If I had returned it after a change of mind and had taken ownership, I think fair enough (though 25% is still a bit steep) but I'd take a restock charge for that. Given the fact I never received the build as it was so soon after making the order and they still wanted to charge restocking is a bit of a shock.

Will see how long they take to process the refund though, how long should I normally wait if the money doesn't show up as I don't normally cancel items and await refunds.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

LoosSerine said:

visidigi said:

I have to say, as a component build, the next customer would have no clue your part was fitted to another PC that didn't leave their premises.

So don't let the guilt trip affect you, they won't lose out here.

Will see how long they take to process the refund though, how long should I normally wait if the money doesn't show up as I don't normally cancel items and await refunds.

Most retailers seem to state 5-7 days for a card refund to show back on the statement, it seems they have conceded so hopefully the refund will appear.

Nice to see they agreed to refund. I do appreciate their pain of building a PC only to have the order cancelled but that is the requirements of the regs which are designed to inspire confidence and increase consumer spending so generally speaking although they may suffer the odd cost of cancellation the general concept should award them more business overall.

I'm surprised they can't let the customer fill one option with anything, say number of USB ports, allowing the customer to enter any number rather than pick one would presumably make the goods custom. I understand the customer may enter 500 but then presumably the price would put them off from continuing with the order.