Can a company cancel a digital sale a week after you bought the item?

Mattevansc3

This one hit the gaming news circuit, not the mainstream news and I was affected.

Microsoft mispriced their Forza 4&5 collection on the Norwegian version of their online store. Purchase was in danish marks but it worked out that the bundle was mispriced from £67 to 67p. By the time they noticed and corrected the store page, myself and a load of others bought the game, the money was taken out of our accounts and we were given receipts.

A week letter Microsoft sent an email to everyone who bought the game at that price that it was a mistake and they would be removing it from our libraries and issuing refunds.

Morals and ethics aside was this legal? Technically the game was delivered as I’d installed it on my device. Can a company renege on a legal contract without the other parties permission and take the goods back just because they made an error?

SergeantBaker

Mattevansc3 said:

This one hit the gaming news circuit, not the mainstream news and I was affected.

Microsoft mispriced their Forza 4&5 collection on the Norwegian version of their online store. Purchase was in danish marks but it worked out that the bundle was mispriced from £67 to 67p. By the time they noticed and corrected the store page, myself and a load of others bought the game, the money was taken out of our accounts and we were given receipts.

A week letter Microsoft sent an email to everyone who bought the game at that price that it was a mistake and they would be removing it from our libraries and issuing refunds.

Morals and ethics aside was this legal? Technically the game was delivered as I’d f it on my device. Can a company renege on a legal contract without the other parties permission and take the goods back just because they made an error?

Yes, you clearly knew it was an error. 

user1977

Depends on the jurisdiction which applied to the contract, but if it had been under UK law then yes, an error as obvious as this means the contract is voidable. If you want advice about Norwegian law (assuming that's the relevant one for this scenario) then you'll probably need to ask somewhere Norwegian.

pinkshoes

Mattevansc3 said:

This one hit the gaming news circuit, not the mainstream news and I was affected.

Microsoft mispriced their Forza 4&5 collection on the Norwegian version of their online store. Purchase was in danish marks but it worked out that the bundle was mispriced from £67 to 67p. By the time they noticed and corrected the store page, myself and a load of others bought the game, the money was taken out of our accounts and we were given receipts.

A week letter Microsoft sent an email to everyone who bought the game at that price that it was a mistake and they would be removing it from our libraries and issuing refunds.

Morals and ethics aside was this legal? Technically the game was delivered as I’d installed it on my device. Can a company renege on a legal contract without the other parties permission and take the goods back just because they made an error?

As it was clearly a mistake then under UK law they can cancel. If it was less obvious e.g. £60 rather than £67 then you would be in a strong position to argue that it was not a mistake. 

km1500

In UK law they cannot cancel after it has been shipped. Yes they could if they had caught it in time, but not a week later.

Further reading here ...

https://www.wilmerhale.com/insights/publications/are-sellers-bound-by-mistakes-in-online-advertisements-june-30-2003

MarvinDay

km1500 said:

In UK law they cannot cancel after it has been shipped. Yes they could if they had caught it in time, but not a week later.

Further reading here ...

https://www.wilmerhale.com/insights/publications/are-sellers-bound-by-mistakes-in-online-advertisements-june-30-2003

I can't see anything in that link that backs up in law what you have stated above.
In fact, what it does state (in a 20 year old link) is:

In England, similar situations have arisen in online commerce, but no cases have yet been decided in court or settled openly.

It's also worth remembering that the OP didn't purchase any physical goods, simply a licence to allow them to use a particular game and I would be very surprised if the T&C's they agreed to didn't allow for the access to be removed should an error in the sale be discovered.

Manxman_in_exile

@MarvinDay -  I think I agree.  I don't see anything in that American link that suggests that there is any precedent in England and Wales to say that a retailer can't rely on a unilateral mistake after goods (or whatever) have been shipped.

In any case, the UK and German cases mentioned in that article seem to be more about when a contract is formed, and not about the effect of a unilateral mistake.

Who knows what Norwegian law says about this sort of mistake...

(Also, of the cases referred to, the ones where there was a pricing error showing a price of only 1% as opposed to 100% of the true price - as in this thread - seem to be the ones where the courts said the retailer was not bound to honour the sale?)

km1500

I think the link discusses 'mistakes' where an order is placed but not yet shipped, or an email acknowledgement had been made but no human has confirmed etc etc..

However, once the offer has been made and accepted, and the goods shipped (or made available in the case of digital licence) then there is no way any person or organisation can come back a week later and say  ....oh hold on a min, I think I made a mistake there...

Nearlyold

km1500 said:

I think the link discusses 'mistakes' where an order is placed but not yet shipped, or an email acknowledgement had been made but no human has confirmed etc etc..

However, once the offer has been made and accepted, and the goods shipped (or made available in the case of digital licence) then there is no way any person or organisation can come back a week later and say  ....oh hold on a min, I think I made a mistake there...

https://hallellis.co.uk/mistake-of-law/ See Unilateral Mistake

user1977

km1500 said:

However, once the offer has been made and accepted, and the goods shipped (or made available in the case of digital licence) then there is no way any person or organisation can come back a week later and say  ....oh hold on a min, I think I made a mistake there...

Why not? I don't see why normal principles about unilateral mistakes wouldn't apply. If it was a mistake in the retailer's favour do you think they'd be entitled to enforce e.g. a price of £6700?

km1500

You are missing the point.

Yes the law of contract allows for unilateral mistakes eg the wrong price displayed. This allows one party to say 'ooops sorry that price I advertised was an error' and allows the offer / acceptance to be cancelled and the contract nullified

What is does NOT do is allow one party to go back after a week once the goods have been shipped, to refund the price paid and take back the goods.

Thus if for example you bought a book from WHSmith, you would not expect a knock on the door 7 days later and a man saying sorry, that book was mispriced, here's the fiver you paid now give me the book back.