Unfair "non refundable" deposit contract term

Uplander1111

Thanks for that Alderbank, I am not an unreasonable person but this situation does seem a tad unfair.

I appreciate your thoughts.

born_again

Uplander1111 said:

I am latching on to this thread for obvious reasons but if this is not the done thing I am sure somebody will put me straight.

In July 2022 I placed a pre-order for a model train - £30 of an eventual £130.  There was no guaranteed delivery date and I accept that they take advance orders to support the production run.  That said and as far as I recall, it intimated that delivery would be something like Q1/Q2 of 2023.  We are now heading towards Q4 and the shop acknowledges that they have no idea when the model will be available.  They say I may cancel the order but that I will forfeit the deposit; to quote "it is not uncommon in this industry for pre-order items to take 2 sometimes 3 years to arrive".  They also say that the retention of the deposit is covered in their T&C's.

I am prepared to wait until 2024 but I am beginning to feel as if I (and probably many others) are being treated somewhat unfairly.  I totally understand that there has to be some give and take but surely there must come a point where seeking to have the deposit returned is not unreasonable?  I paid the deposit via Paypal so I could turn to them but I shall not do anything until the new year anyway.  I was just interested to see what the views on this were.

PayPal only have a 180 day dispute (from payment date) window. Not aware that they have the extended period for future dated purchases.