Nightmare with Zara, can I go to court?

formerzarashopper

Just over 6 months ago I placed an online order with Zara and Yodel left the parcel on my doorstep in heavy rain. The box seemed to have disintegrated from both ends, some of the items were soaked through with ink bleeding from the tags. Due to this I returned items worth £218 to Zara. I posted them using a prepaid Royal Mail returns label provided by Zara. 

I put the return parcel in a Royal Mail parcel postbox and have the digital proof of postage Royal Mail offer through their app. The Royal Mail tracking never showed as delivered. Zara won’t accept the digital receipt and kept asking for a paper post office receipt. Zara didn’t explicitly say to use a post office, they use the terminology “drop off point” and the return tracker on their website acknowledges it is with Royal Mail. 

I got a statement from Royal Mail saying the digital proof of postage is valid and then Zara claimed they don’t have to refund for returns they don’t receive.

After 6 months of trying to reason with Zara and seeing them featured on BBC's Watchdog, I sent an LBA to call their bluff. Zara responded saying they do not have to refund for returns that aren’t received by their warehouse. They also said they will provide my full returns history as a defence and are confident the judge will draw their own conclusions from this in Zara’s favour. I don’t think I have unusual return behaviour. Account is over 10 years old and I place on average 5 orders a year, including homeware, returns are not made from every order placed. 

I paid using a gift card which also leaves me wondering what my legal rights are with this payment method. Can someone confirm if this is a case that can be resolved via small claims court? 

eskbanker

formerzarashopper said:

They also said they will provide my full returns history as a defence and are confident the judge will draw their own conclusions from this in Zara’s favour. I don’t think I have unusual return behaviour. Account is over 10 years old and I place on average 5 orders a year, including homeware, returns are not made from every order placed. 

That seems very cagily worded - how many of those fifty-odd orders have you returned?

Having said that, it wouldn't affect your statutory rights - if they were unhappy to retain you as a customer then they're not obliged to accept orders from you, but once they have, they're obliged to comply with all relevant consumer legislation, so if you've sent the LBA and they've declined to settle, then it's time to go through with your threatened action....

sheramber

Did you put  the soaked box in new outer packaging?

formerzarashopper

eskbanker said:

formerzarashopper said:

They also said they will provide my full returns history as a defence and are confident the judge will draw their own conclusions from this in Zara’s favour. I don’t think I have unusual return behaviour. Account is over 10 years old and I place on average 5 orders a year, including homeware, returns are not made from every order placed. 

That seems very cagily worded - how many of those fifty-odd orders have you returned?

Having said that, it wouldn't affect your statutory rights - if they were unhappy to retain you as a customer then they're not obliged to accept orders from you, but once they have, they're obliged to comply with all relevant consumer legislation, so if you've sent the LBA and they've declined to settle, then it's time to go through with your threatened action....

Thank you and sorry, I didn’t mean to come across that way. I was trying to keep my post from getting too long. 

1 order might consist of 7 items and I might return 2 of those items but then make no returns from my next 2 or 3 orders placed. Once I ordered 2 lamps (for bedside tables), 1 arrived damaged so I returned it and I ordered a replacement before they even issued the refund. I just don’t think my return history is anywhere near excessive? I’ve never returned a full order and I’ve had no previous problems with returns. 

Does them being (in my opinion) pedantic over the proof of postage and gift card payment make a difference? 

formerzarashopper

sheramber said:

Did you put  the soaked box in new outer packaging?

No I didn’t, should I have done? I took pictures and complained to Zara about Yodel before I sent anything back but they didn’t seem too concerned. 

I occasionally sell old clothes on eBay so I keep some plastic mailing bags at home, I used one of these. 

Alderbank

OP, under section 43(5)(b) of the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013, Zara must reimburse you without undue delay and not later than 14 days after the day on which you supply evidence of having sent the goods back. Your digital proof of postage seems to be evidence of that. The judge would simply decide whether the evidence of this claimed return was satisfactory (on balance of probabilities). He would not be interested in any previous returns and it would be wrong in law for him to take them into account. 
As was stated in a similar recent post, if the law said the reimbursement depended on the trader confirming they had received the goods back some unscrupulous traders would never pay any refunds.

Zara's legal advisors know this.

The trader must make the reimbursement using the same means of payment as the consumer used for the initial transaction. In this case that means the refund will be back to your original gift card.

eskbanker

formerzarashopper said:
Does them being (in my opinion) pedantic over the proof of postage and gift card payment make a difference? 

I'm not familiar with digital proof of posting, in the context of a prepaid label supplied by the vendor, but if the package shows as being within the RM system then that should convince a court. 

Payment by gift card shouldn't affect anything.

However, perhaps worth noting that a retailer's own returns policy may deviate from your rights under consumer protection legislation (although it can't override them) so if you're simply following the retailer policy rather than formally rejecting or returning under the relevant Acts, then this may impose more stringent conditions regarding exactly how shipment needs to happen, proof obligations, etc.

FFHillbilly

formerzarashopper said:

sheramber said:

Did you put  the soaked box in new outer packaging?

No I didn’t, should I have done? 

Yes definitely. You can't just send a half disintegrated carboard box through the postal system and expect it to get there. It's probably fully disintegrated now and thats why it never reached it's destination

formerzarashopper

FFHillbilly said:

formerzarashopper said:

sheramber said:

Did you put  the soaked box in new outer packaging?

No I didn’t, should I have done? 

Yes definitely. You can't just send a half disintegrated carboard box through the postal system and expect it to get there. It's probably fully disintegrated now and thats why it never reached it's destination

Don’t worry, the box went in the recycling bin. I used a new plastic mailing bag to post the return.

formerzarashopper

eskbanker said:

formerzarashopper said:
Does them being (in my opinion) pedantic over the proof of postage and gift card payment make a difference? 

I'm not familiar with digital proof of posting, in the context of a prepaid label supplied by the vendor, but if the package shows as being within the RM system then that should convince a court. 

Payment by gift card shouldn't affect anything.

However, perhaps worth noting that a retailer's own returns policy may deviate from your rights under consumer protection legislation (although it can't override them) so if you're simply following the retailer policy rather than formally rejecting or returning under the relevant Acts, then this may impose more stringent conditions regarding exactly how shipment needs to happen, proof obligations, etc.

Our local post office closed during the lockdowns and Royal Mail gave us a parcel postbox to replace it. The Royal Mail app has a proof of postage section, scan the QR on the parcel, then scan the QR code on the postbox and when the parcel gets scanned into Royal Mail’s network a digital receipt appears in the app. If you don’t put the parcel in the postbox the receipt never appears. So it seems to be foolproof as you don’t get the receipt without the Royal Mail scan.

I found this in Zara’s terms and conditions: The refund will be paid as soon as possible and, in all cases, within 14 days from the date on which you notified us of your intention to cancel. Notwithstanding this, we may withhold the reimbursement until we have received the items back, or until you have supplied sufficient evidence of having sent back the items, whichever is the earlier.

So I would assume the proof of postage and their own website acknowledging Royal Mail have the return is sufficient evidence? 

formerzarashopper

Alderbank said:

OP, under section 43(5)(b) of the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013, Zara must reimburse you without undue delay and not later than 14 days after the day on which you supply evidence of having sent the goods back. Your digital proof of postage seems to be evidence of that. The judge would simply decide whether the evidence of this claimed return was satisfactory (on balance of probabilities). He would not be interested in any previous returns and it would be wrong in law for him to take them into account. 
As was stated in a similar recent post, if the law said the reimbursement depended on the trader confirming they had received the goods back some unscrupulous traders would never pay any refunds.

Zara's legal advisors know this.

The trader must make the reimbursement using the same means of payment as the consumer used for the initial transaction. In this case that means the refund will be back to your original gift card.

Thank you. The person who replied to the LBA referred to himself as a legal advisor. When I Googled their name Linkedin had them as living in Spain, not surprising given Zara is a Spanish company. Which makes me think perhaps Zara try to process disputes following Spanish law? 

But the UK arm of Zara is definitely registered as a UK company and their terms and conditions state they follow English law. I sent the LBA to their registered, London address.