Wilko.com - Knowingly ignoring Consumer Contracts Regulations

zoonyx

I wanted to share my recent experience with Wilko.com to warn others about their practices. I placed an order with them for a total of £67.95, including a £4.95 delivery charge. The retailer cancelled my order before it was shipped and refunded the item cost, but they refused to refund the £4.95 delivery charge.

This is a clear breach of the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013. According to Regulation 29:

"If the contract is cancelled by the trader before the goods are dispatched, the trader must reimburse the consumer in full, including any delivery costs paid by the consumer."

Despite pointing this out and sending a formal complaint, their customer service insisted that their system couldn't process the delivery charge refund and that it couldn't be done manually or by cheque.

I have now initiated a chargeback with my credit card company to reclaim the delivery charge. I wanted to make everyone aware of this issue so you can be cautious if you're considering purchasing from wilko.com. It's unacceptable for a retailer to disregard consumer rights in this manner.

(I will either get the £4.95 back or not, it doesn't make a massive difference to me, so I'm not asking for help here, just highlighting the seemingly widespread breaches and what they are up to.)

Alderbank

Why do you say it is 'seemingly widespread'?

zoonyx

Alderbank said:

Why do you say it is 'seemingly widespread'?

It's been reported by others in connection to the 2nd air conditioner misprice in the last year, and they also did the same thing last time.

They also state by their own admission that the system doesn't allow them to refund - not that it isn't due.  I don't know how widespread it is of course, but my point was more "it's not just me".  Also to repeat, I'm not bothered about £5 - it's the principle of it.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Whilst their actions are indeed poor their terms seem to imply a contract is only formed upon dispatch in which case it wouldn't be a breach of the CCRs*.

Once you have been through the online checkout and placed your order by pressing the "place your order" button, you will be shown an order number along with a list of the products that you have ordered. Shortly after, you will receive the first email from us headed "Thank you for your Order" to confirm that we have received your order. We will then send you a second email headed "Your Order has been Shipped" and it's at this point our contract begins with you.

That said their website also says

Once an order has been placed with wilko and you have received your order confirmation, we are unable to amend the order or delivery.

I would assume most people would think the Thank you for your Order email is what's classed as an "order confirmation" rather than Your Order has been Shipped, obviously subjective, whether Section 69 of the CRA would cover this and give you a contract earlier I'm not sure:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/15/section/69

Their website doesn't actually say much about cancelling your contract that I can see, would be interesting to see the two order emails they refer to as to whether they comply with the info required under the CCRs. 

*I'm not sure what taking money and then not giving it back would be classed as where a contract wasn't formed, @Okell might have an opinion 

zoonyx

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

Whilst their actions are indeed poor their terms seem to imply a contract is only formed upon dispatch in which case it wouldn't be a breach of the CCRs*.

Once you have been through the online checkout and placed your order by pressing the "place your order" button, you will be shown an order number along with a list of the products that you have ordered. Shortly after, you will receive the first email from us headed "Thank you for your Order" to confirm that we have received your order. We will then send you a second email headed "Your Order has been Shipped" and it's at this point our contract begins with you.

That said their website also says

Once an order has been placed with wilko and you have received your order confirmation, we are unable to amend the order or delivery.

I would assume most people would think the Thank you for your Order email is what's classed as an "order confirmation" rather than Your Order has been Shipped, obviously subjective, whether Section 69 of the CRA would cover this and give you a contract earlier I'm not sure:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/15/section/69

Their website doesn't actually say much about cancelling your contract that I can see, would be interesting to see the two order emails they refer to as to whether they comply with the info required under the CCRs. 

*I'm not sure what taking money and then not giving it back would be classed as where a contract wasn't formed, @Okell might have an opinion 

Thanks for this, very interesting read - especially the confusion between 2 wordings of their own terms.  I am being argumentative here (but only in trying to learn)... if there is no contract, I guess they could argue I sent money to them freely and they kept it.

I don't think there is any argument that what they've done is 'wrong' - but I am interested to see what this would be covered under now.  Thanks again for the detailed reply!

Okell

zoonyx said:

I wanted to share my recent experience with Wilko.com to warn others about their practices. I placed an order with them for a total of £67.95, including a £4.95 delivery charge. The retailer cancelled my order before it was shipped and refunded the item cost, but they refused to refund the £4.95 delivery charge.

This is a clear breach of the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013. According to Regulation 29:

"If the contract is cancelled by the trader before the goods are dispatched, the trader must reimburse the consumer in full, including any delivery costs paid by the consumer."

...

Apologies as I'm afraid I must be missing something blatantly obvious here, but I don't think reg 29 says anything like that(?).

Where have you got that wording from?

Reg 34 deals with the reimbursement by the trader of sums paid by the consumer in the event of cancellation, but I've always read that as cancellation by the consumer, not by the trader.

BTW - I'm not disputing that Wilko owe you the money - obviously they do - but I'm not sure if it's covered by the CCRs.

If you think this is a widespread practice by Wilko you should complain to CAB and ask them to refer it to Trading Standards for further investigation.  It won't help you but if you complain as a point of principle there's just a very small possibility that TS might do something about ti and put a rocket up Wilko

Okell

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

Whilst their actions are indeed poor their terms seem to imply a contract is only formed upon dispatch in which case it wouldn't be a breach of the CCRs*...
 

... *I'm not sure what taking money and then not giving it back would be classed as where a contract wasn't formed, @Okell might have an opinion 

Regulation 34 which deals with reimbursement covers both "withdrawal or cancellation", so I don't think it matters if a contrcat has been formed or not?

What I do think might be a problem - and I'm wondering if I'm suffering from sort of temporary amnesia here - is I thought the CCRs only dealt with withdrawal or cancellation by the consumer, not by the trader.

Am I having a senior moment?

If the CCRs do apply to cancellation/withdrawal by the trader then the OP is entitled to recover postage.

Even if they don't apply the OP should get his delivery costs back.  Wilko can't just take money for an order, then cancel, and not give a full refund.  Otherwise Arthur Daley would have been doing it 40 yeras ago...

zoonyx

Okell said:

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

Whilst their actions are indeed poor their terms seem to imply a contract is only formed upon dispatch in which case it wouldn't be a breach of the CCRs*...
 

... *I'm not sure what taking money and then not giving it back would be classed as where a contract wasn't formed, @Okell might have an opinion 

Regulation 34 which deals with reimbursement covers both "withdrawal or cancellation", so I don't think it matters if a contrcat has been formed or not?

What I do think might be a problem - and I'm wondering if I'm suffering from sort of temporary amnesia here - is I thought the CCRs only dealt with withdrawal or cancellation by the consumer, not by the trader.

Am I having a senior moment?

If the CCRs do apply to cancellation/withdrawal by the trader then the OP is entitled to recover postage.

Even if they don't apply the OP should get his delivery costs back.  Wilko can't just take money for an order, then cancel, and not give a full refund.  Otherwise Arthur Daley would have been doing it 40 yeras ago...

and that's kinda my point - I know I'm out of my depth here (Sorry - no idea where 29 came from!), but yes - they've basically just took money for an order, and refunded some of it. It's hard to explain sometimes because people don't quite get what I'm moaning on about - but that's exactly what they've done, and in tickets since the response is (paraphased) because we refunded and made a mistake (forgot the postage), the system won't allow us to refund again, so we are stuck, thanks for the fiver, goodbye.

They don't seem to be arguing that I'm due the £4.95 postage back at all - just that "the system" won't allow it.  They offered free postage on my next order.  Lol... yeah no thanks!

Okell

Yeah - very annoying.

If you get the money back via chargeback, then all well and good.  But be aware that if you do get it back then Wilko have 45 (I think) days in which to challenge it.  But on what grounds they could challenge I can't imagine.

If that doesn't work I'd go back one more time to Wilko and tell that if they continue to refuse to refund you the money you will take it up with Trading Standards as you believe they are breaking consumer law.  See if that works.

Personally I'd go to CAB and ask them to refer it to TS as a complaint even if the chargeback is successful.

HillStreetBlues

My thoughts are it comes down to contract law.
Wilkos should return all monies paid and state there isn't a contract. By keeping some of the monies there must be some sort of contract no matter what their T&Cs state, I can't see how Wilko's can have it both ways.
If there is a contract then the Regs would apply.

TomCanty

Sorry if my comment isn't entirely relevant to the matter in hand, but after my recent experience with Wilko online I know I won't bother to use them again. I recently ordered quite a lot of cat food (my cats like the Wilko brand) and a bag of compost from the store; no complaint about the compost but when the cat food arrived it was 36 packets of one variety and 12 of another short. This was communicated to Wilko and I would have thought it would have been an easy mistake to rectify but after a string of e mails during which I have been asked to provide product codes in addition to order number and a photographic image I am still no closer to resolving the matter as the latest e mail from them  got all the numbers wrong as to the items missing  which were stated to be considerably less than the actual numbers. At this moment I have paid over £20 more than the actual goods received and have given them a week to rectify the matter before I take it up with my credit card company.

Every e mail I have received from Wilko about this bears a different name and I am inclined to think that a lot of the problem is down to lack of communication between their staff together with a lack of comprehension of basic arithmetic and the English language rather than deliberate malpractice. But customers shouldn't have to endure this sort of aggravation and I'd guess that wilko.com needs to get its act together pretty quickly if it is to succeed as an online venture.