Who is responsible for delivery problems

Badger850

Background: I bought an item from Halfords and was promised delivery. I will not go into details, but in summary it was delivered (on time) to the wrong address (in spite of being correctly addressed) in the village in which I live. Luckily, the resident saw my name and the correct address and popped it round to me; so, in the end, I got what I ordered.

It is my understanding that the Consumer Right Act places the responsibility for completing the delivery on the seller, ie Halfords in this case. I raised the matter with Halfords, who washed their hands of it (told me to contact DHL - getting anything meaningful out of them is impossible) and drew my attention to the HalfordsTs & Cs, which, amongst other things, states:     

"We shall have no liability for any delay in delivery of the Goods, or failure to deliver the Goods, where the delay or failure is caused either by an Event Outside Our Control or .................

To my mind, Halfords Ts & Cs are in contravention of the CRA. Can they justify their stance on this; who has supremacy - Halfords Ts & Cs (which I have tacitly agreed to - I had no choice) or the CRA?

Halfords is an example, and a lot of other companies have similar conditions. Is it legal for companies to absolve themselves of their apparent legal responsibility?

Any comments or thoughts?

Okell

In your specific case there is no point complaining to Halfords as you seem to have received your goods.

On a general point of principle Halfords and other online traders can - within certain limits - put anything they like in their T&Cs, but s31 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 basically says that any trader's term that tries to limit or exclude their liability to a consumer in respect of (inter alia) delivery and/or passing of risk, cannot be enforced against the consumer.

So Halfords can put such a clause in their T&Cs, but it has no effect against you or any other consumer.

There might be an argument that such a clause was a criminal offence under The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 but you'd have to contact Trading Standards to discuss that, and you as a member of the public can't go to TS direct.  You have to go through CABx.

Arunmor

I frequently have to go hunting around our rural area for parcels. extremely annoying but not worth getting too excited about it. Some couriers are worse than others and for those I am more wary, but I tend to know their favourite drop off houses.

eskbanker

Badger850 said:

...the HalfordsTs & Cs, which, amongst other things, states:     

"We shall have no liability for any delay in delivery of the Goods, or failure to deliver the Goods, where the delay or failure is caused either by an Event Outside Our Control or .................

To my mind, Halfords Ts & Cs are in contravention of the CRA. Can they justify their stance on this; who has supremacy - Halfords Ts & Cs (which I have tacitly agreed to - I had no choice) or the CRA?

Halfords is an example, and a lot of other companies have similar conditions. Is it legal for companies to absolve themselves of their apparent legal responsibility?

Any comments or thoughts?

The Ts & Cs also define that:

An Event Outside Our Control means any act or event beyond our reasonable control, including without limitation strikes, lock-outs or other industrial action by third parties, civil commotion, riot, invasion, terrorist attack or threat of terrorist attack, war (whether declared or not) or threat or preparation for war, fire, explosion, storm, flood, earthquake, subsidence, epidemic or other natural disaster, or failure of public or private telecommunications networks or impossibility of the use of railways, shipping, aircraft, motor transport or other means of public or private transport.

so that sort of force majeure clause is neither unusual nor unlawful IMHO, and certainly has nothing to do with a courier delivering to the wrong address!

Ultimately the supplier remains responsible to deliver goods into your possession or to refund, so if a force majeure event occurred and they tried to rely on such a clause to deny any liability for doing either then that would undoubtedly be cause to challenge....

TELLIT01

The non-delivery is not outside their control.  They chose the delivery company. 

Alderbank

TELLIT01 said:

The non-delivery is not outside their control.  They chose the delivery company. 

I would go further than that.

They entered into a B2B contract with the delivery company so all contract terms were agreed by both parties.

Ergates

If the parcel had not been found, then Halfords would not have been able to absolve themselves of responsibility by blaming the delivery company, and would have had to have either resent the item or refunded the OP.   But that didn't happen here.

What the T&Cs actually talk about, however, *isn't* that scenario anyway - so the person the OP spoke to was doubly wrong.  But that also means it doesn't look like it breaches any laws.

400ixl

OP, what are you trying to achieve?

Your parcel has been delivered, albeit via a kind neighbour. So not sure what you want, unless it is just confirmation of who would have been responsible should it not have made its way to you.

If that is your question, then the responsibility to you would have been with Halfords as that is who you have a contract with. It would be for Halfords to deal with their contracted delivery partner.

GDB2222

400ixl said:

OP, what are you trying to achieve?

Your parcel has been delivered, albeit via a kind neighbour. So not sure what you want, unless it is just confirmation of who would have been responsible should it not have made its way to you.

If that is your question, then the responsibility to you would have been with Halfords as that is who you have a contract with. It would be for Halfords to deal with their contracted delivery partner.

I think that the OP just wanted to be reassured that, had the parcel been completely lost by the courier, he would have had a case against Halfords. 

Olinda99

If it had been, they would.

Badger850

Thank you all fro your comments; what am I trying to achieve? Nothing in this particular case, but many deliveries in our village seem to go astray (in spite of two large signs on our gate), and I was simply wondering who is liable. It seems that, although Halfords deny responsibility, in the case of a total loss, then the retailer is responsible to me. As Okell says:  So Halfords can put such a clause in their T&Cs, but it has no effect against you or any other consumer. Lets hope we never have to really fight our corner in the case of a total loss.
Thanks again, everyone.