? Section 75 for purchase in Bosnia

dottydora

Hi grateful for any advice. We very stupidly succumbed to hard sell during an organised trip to a carpet factory in Bosnia and Herzegovina as part of a holiday with RSD Travel. We paid a deposit on credit card and agreed to 3 further payments by end of December. We have a contract to this effect. As it was outside of EU we have no cooling off option. We have contacted the company to ask them to consider allowing us to cancel as soon as cannot afford the purchase. Edited to add they have offered a reduction and extension of installments. It was very hard sell but we were not in an unsafe environment to best of our knowledge. A Google review shows that this is not a new issue. My question is, would we be able to claim under section 75 of consumer credit act 1975 due to the hard sell? We have not received the goods as we still have the 3 payments to make. If not, would we be able to walk away now and lose the deposit? The carpet is not a special order and is already made. Any help and guidance appreciated. 

TadleyBaggie

S 75 doesn’t cover charges of mind. 

eskbanker

dottydora said:

We paid a deposit on credit card and agreed to 3 further payments by end of December. We have a contract to this effect.

S75 offers protection where there's a breach of contract by the supplier, but not by the customer.

DullGreyGuy

dottydora said:

Hi grateful for any advice. We very stupidly succumbed to hard sell during an organised trip to a carpet factory in Bosnia and Herzegovina as part of a holiday with RSD Travel. We paid a deposit on credit card and agreed to 3 further payments by end of December. We have a contract to this effect. As it was outside of EU we have no cooling off option. We have contacted the company to ask them to consider allowing us to cancel as soon as cannot afford the purchase. Edited to add they have offered a reduction and extension of installments. It was very hard sell but we were not in an unsafe environment to best of our knowledge. A Google review shows that this is not a new issue. My question is, would we be able to claim under section 75 of consumer credit act 1975 due to the hard sell? We have not received the goods as we still have the 3 payments to make. If not, would we be able to walk away now and lose the deposit? The carpet is not a special order and is already made. Any help and guidance appreciated. 

As above, S75 only covers breach of contract. So what does your contract state about cancellation? Have the sellers breached that or is there no cancellation right and therefore they haven't?

Alternatively, do you have a statutory right of cancellation in their country? Certainly in the UK you dont for in person purchases and would be surprised if they do but cannot say I know anything about their legal landscape

dottydora

Thank you. No breach on their part, just an uncomfortable hard sell that made it quite difficult to walk away. I only mentioned section 75 of consumer credit act because someone advised us to try this route as cancellation not possible and being outside of EU there’s no protection from cooling off period. Will have to suck it up and put it down to experience. We are currently negotiating a discount though. Thanks for the replies. 

eskbanker

dottydora said:

As it was outside of EU we have no cooling off option.

dottydora said:

being outside of EU there’s no protection from cooling off period.

Just to reiterate, if you went to a carpet factory in the UK (or EU) and contracted to purchase a carpet, there wouldn't be a cooling-off period here either - such protections will generally only apply to distance contracts, such as online or phone purchases, or certain regulated sectors....