Online Price not honoured after payment taken

Bish397

I'd be gratefull for any advice on this....
John Lewis were selling a Google Pixel 7A mobile for £329.  They also had an offer code giving £100 off making the total price  £239. I saw the offer in the Tech section of the Daily Express.  What a deal ! So I ordered it, paid for it and had a confirmation E Mail. On the 12th March, Including a VAT reciept. I opted for delivery to my local Waitrose.   On the 13th March i had a confirmation that it was at my local Waitrose for collection. I went along to pick it up. The staff member had it on the desk Infront of her the box had my name on it.  I told her that I was there to collect my phone - despite it literally being in her hand she said "I can't give you this as head office have just told us there was a pricing error.

I've checked John Lewis Ts and Cs and it looks to me like the contract was complete. I bought it in good faith and I still haven't had any cancellation on my account, no refund and in fact the phone is still shown as ready for collection !
The pricing error seems to be that the phone should have been £399 not £329 and the code was valid.

I have emailed John Lewis customer service and I fully expect them to stick to their guns.  Do I have any rights ? Or are John Lewis in the right, despite seemingly not complying with their own terms.

Thanks for reading !!

DullGreyGuy

Their terms allow them to not accept an order if they identify a pricing error and advise a refund will be made to be with you within 5 business days

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

DullGreyGuy said:

Their terms allow them to not accept an order if they identify a pricing error and advise a refund will be made to be with you within 5 business days

Out of curiosity where did you see this?

I could see 

For items being delivered to you (as opposed to Click & collect), when your product is shipped from our warehouse we will send you a despatch confirmation email

Order acceptance and the completion of the contract between you and us will take place on the despatch to you of the Products ordered unless we have notified you that we do not accept your order, or you have cancelled it in accordance with the instructions in Change or cancel an order

from their main terms & conditions page but couldn't see anything about acceptance for Click & Collect orders. 

Alderbank

Immediately below your quote above from the main T&Cs is:

Non-acceptance of an order may be a result of one of the following:

• The product you ordered being unavailable from stock

• Our inability to obtain authorisation for your payment

• The identification of a pricing or product description error

I couldn't find anything specific just for acceptance for C&C orders either, so the generic paragraph must apply:
Order acceptance and the completion of the contract between you and us will take place on the despatch to you of the Products ordered...

'Despatch' means to send out or send away. When the OP arrived in store to collect, the phone was still in the physical possession of JLP so had not been despatched, and the JLP employee in control of the phone was aware of the non-acceptance of the order due to the pricing error.

I believe JLP will contend that there was no acceptance of the OP's offer to buy so no contract was formed.

Bish397

That's the way I read it -and what I'm expecting them to say.  Although my name was on the parcel - so has it been despatched to me ? Considering I had also paid for it.  Well it's sunny here so I'll take that !!

Aylesbury_Duck

Bish397 said:

That's the way I read it -and what I'm expecting them to say.  Although my name was on the parcel - so has it been despatched to me ? Considering I had also paid for it.  Well it's sunny here so I'll take that !!

But you don't have the phone, do you?  There's another poster just posted but their situation is slightly different in that the phone was sent directly to them and they've received it.  JL are saying it was priced incorrectly and that a refund will be processed, but that poster has the phone in their possession.  You don't, so it will be harder to force JL to honour the mistaken pricing.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Alderbank said:

Immediately below your quote above from the main T&Cs is:

I couldn't find anything specific just for acceptance for C&C orders either, so the generic paragraph must apply:
Order acceptance and the completion of the contract between you and us will take place on the despatch to you of the Products ordered...

'Despatch' means to send out or send away. When the OP arrived in store to collect, the phone was still in the physical possession of JLP so had not been despatched, and the JLP employee in control of the phone was aware of the non-acceptance of the order due to the pricing error.

Thanks, missed that for some reason.  

Section 69 of the CRA says 

Contract terms that may have different meanings

(1)If a term in a consumer contract, or a consumer notice, could have different meanings, the meaning that is most favourable to the consumer is to prevail.

Obviously it's more favourable to OP if "dispatched to you" means has left their warehouse and is on it's way to store. If a store employee hands you something would you say they "dispatched" it to you? 

Would be interesting to see if there's any T&Cs on the emails to clarify

Alderbank said:

I believe JLP will contend that there was no acceptance of the OP's offer to buy so no contract was formed.

I bet they would! 

screech_78

We had something similar before go to small claims. 

Pricing error on an item. Was being delivered by DPD, dispatch email received and with the courier but we recalled it due to the error. Customer went to small claims and lost as although the judge agreed a contract had been formed, they stated the pricing error was obvious (around £200) and an email had also been sent to customer to inform them we wouldn’t be sending the item - although it still landed with the courier. 

In this situation, I’m not sure the pricing is obvious and it certainly seems wrong to have the item ready to hand over to you, however JL are pretty good at ensuring their legal obligations are covered. Possibly worth testing further though. 

DullGreyGuy

The most common outcome from a consumer breach of contract is the rescinding of the contract but thats what JL is already doing. The OP will shortly have their money back and not suffered a loss.

Bish397

Just checked my JL account and it shows the parcel has been collected from the store !  I've only had the verbal confirmation from the member of staff that they could not give me the item - not even had a cancellation E-mail ,let's see where this goes ....

Aylesbury_Duck

Bish397 said:

Just checked my JL account and it shows the parcel has been collected from the store !  I've only had the verbal confirmation from the member of staff that they could not give me the item - not even had a cancellation E-mail ,let's see where this goes ....

Where is the phone now?  JL (or Waitrose in this case) still has it, don’t they?