14 day cooling off period and "Gestures of goodwill"

Salsa8641

So I had my sodastream sparkling water maker break on me due to a design flaw. After much moaning from me and them telling me it was out of warranty eventually they eventually offered to replace it if I signed up to their annual "sparkle saver" plan that involves them shipping me the gas canisters as a service.

In order to have the machine replaced they asked me to agree to not cancel within their 30 day cooling off period. sending me this email:

Thanks for your time on the call just now. As discussed, as a goodwill gesture, we will be processing your replacement machine using the additional extended warranty that comes with an annual plan. Normally there is a 30 day period where you have the right to cancel the plan. To enable us honor the replacement early, can you please confirm with an email response that you wouldn't be cancelling this plan within the initial 30 day period. Looking forward to your response. Thanks,

To which i replied that I confirm and also said so on a supposedly recorded call. After I subscribed over the phone with my credit card they sent me an invoice listing the new machine as £0, as well as details of my new annual subscription.

Given that they said they were doing this as a "goodwill gesture". Can I just cancell this within my 14 day cooling off period and get a full refund? As I understand it this is a statatory right and I cannot sign it away under any circumstances? Could they then try and charge me for the new machine if I did?

I do intend to keep the plan but I was just curious as this seemed unusual practice to me.

I am in England.

born_again

Salsa8641 said:

So I had my sodastream sparkling water maker break on me due to a design flaw. After much moaning from me and them telling me it was out of warranty eventually they eventually offered to replace it if I signed up to their annual "sparkle saver" plan that involves them shipping me the gas canisters as a service.

In order to have the machine replaced they asked me to agree to not cancel within their 30 day cooling off period. sending me this email:

Thanks for your time on the call just now. As discussed, as a goodwill gesture, we will be processing your replacement machine using the additional extended warranty that comes with an annual plan. Normally there is a 30 day period where you have the right to cancel the plan. To enable us honor the replacement early, can you please confirm with an email response that you wouldn't be cancelling this plan within the initial 30 day period. Looking forward to your response. Thanks,

To which i replied that I confirm and also said so on a supposedly recorded call. After I subscribed over the phone with my credit card they sent me an invoice listing the new machine as £0, as well as details of my new annual subscription.

Given that they said they were doing this as a "goodwill gesture". Can I just cancell this within my 14 day cooling off period and get a full refund? As I understand it this is a statatory right and I cannot sign it away under any circumstances? Could they then try and charge me for the new machine if I did?

I do intend to keep the plan but I was just curious as this seemed unusual practice to me.

I am in England.

Full refund of what?
It was a £0 transaction.

This is not a purchase that has a 14 day cooling off period. They have offered this as a good will gesture. 

powerful_Rogue

Salsa8641 said:

So I had my sodastream sparkling water maker break on me due to a design flaw. After much moaning from me and them telling me it was out of warranty eventually they eventually offered to replace it if I signed up to their annual "sparkle saver" plan that involves them shipping me the gas canisters as a service.

In order to have the machine replaced they asked me to agree to not cancel within their 30 day cooling off period. sending me this email:

Thanks for your time on the call just now. As discussed, as a goodwill gesture, we will be processing your replacement machine using the additional extended warranty that comes with an annual plan. Normally there is a 30 day period where you have the right to cancel the plan. To enable us honor the replacement early, can you please confirm with an email response that you wouldn't be cancelling this plan within the initial 30 day period. Looking forward to your response. Thanks,

To which i replied that I confirm and also said so on a supposedly recorded call. After I subscribed over the phone with my credit card they sent me an invoice listing the new machine as £0, as well as details of my new annual subscription.

Given that they said they were doing this as a "goodwill gesture". Can I just cancell this within my 14 day cooling off period and get a full refund? As I understand it this is a statatory right and I cannot sign it away under any circumstances? Could they then try and charge me for the new machine if I did?

I do intend to keep the plan but I was just curious as this seemed unusual practice to me.

I am in England.

You can indeed sign it away in certain circumstances.

eskbanker

Salsa8641 said:

After I subscribed over the phone with my credit card they sent me an invoice listing the new machine as £0, as well as details of my new annual subscription.

Given that they said they were doing this as a "goodwill gesture". Can I just cancell this within my 14 day cooling off period and get a full refund? As I understand it this is a statatory right and I cannot sign it away under any circumstances? Could they then try and charge me for the new machine if I did?

As the invoice includes both the new machine and the annual subscription, were you hoping that you'd be able to selectively cancel the latter while keeping the machine for nothing?  It seems to me that, as they'd made it clear that the deal encompassed both items being bundled together, you can't just pick and choose what to cancel, and that the expectation would be that you'd either return the machine or renegotiate a price....

km1500

I don't know if you would have the legal remedy to cancel the plan but I am fairly sure that even if you did you would only be able to cancel the whole deal ie cancel the monthly canasters and return the new machine

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

If you conclude a contract for a service (such as a subscription for gas canasters) at a distance the trader can not contract out your rights (to cancel under the The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013).

Your agreement is academic.

Depending upon what was said their actions could be a breach of the The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008.

If traders could do that every retailer would offer you a free hairpin in exchange for you waiving your rights to cancel. 

What they could do is sell you a subscription and a free machine, if this was formed under a single contract the machine would need to be cancelled (or returned if already received) when the contract was cancelled (plus you'd be liable for an amount to cover the proportion of the service received up until the point of cancellation if you made an expressed request for the service to begin within the cancellation period). 

I'm sure a lot of these "extended warranties" exclude replacements within the cooling off period for this exact situation. Rather than being tricky about it and asking you to agree not to cancel they should simply supply the replacement under the the extended warranty that comes with the gas canister subscription at the time they typically would do so rather than "early". 

I do understand that it reads they are being "nice" by doing it early but the ham fisted way they've gone about it is rather poor in reality. 

Really depends how they've set up your replacement as to whether you can cancel the subscription and keep the machine. If it's defined as a replacement under the warranty then it probably has to be returned in the event of cancellation. If they put it through completely separately as "goodwill" then AFAIK you can't really take back "goodwill" one you've given it.