Company not honouring online prices

Xpoppyxx

Hi all,

I recently went to a tool hire shop to hire some equipment for an ongoing D.I.Y project. I searched online for companies in my local area doing my own price comparison as I was working to a budget. When I had chosen my preferred supplier I made a call and made a reservation as they don't have the ability to book online. No price was mentioned on the call, so I just presumed I would be charged the price they have advertised on their website.

It came time to go collect the items but when it came time to pay I was shocked with the price. Instead of the £54 they had advertised online, it had jumped to £98 (plus tax plus deposit). The deposit I had no issue with, because of course that's standard practice. However when I questioned the price as I specifically said and quoted the price on their website I was told. "Oh those prices are years out of date. The company owner was quoted £4000 to update the website but he didn't want to do it because he felt he could get a new website for that price so we just never updated them. I've told him to take the website down but he doesn't want to do that either because then people won't find our services".

Now I don't really know where I stand with all this because surely this is a case of knowingly misleading customers? At the time I felt pressured and awkward so I just paid the new price because they said "somewhere on the website it says prices are subject to change". 

Can someone help shed light on the legality to this argument? I appreciate prices are subject to change, but if their prices changed years ago and they're just refusing to pay to update them then surely this becomes a case where they are knowingly misleading customers?

DullGreyGuy

You can report them to trading standards, normally via CAB, if you want but if they decide to do anything is another matter. 

Its a far from unique problem though, the owner of a small museum is a regular at our local, his website still says they require wearing of masks and social distancing etc when visiting but its similarly because the website is old, the creator locked them in and charged them about £3k to put the covid warnings up and wants the same again to remove them so they just live with it. 

powerful_Rogue

Xpoppyxx said:

Hi all,

I recently went to a tool hire shop to hire some equipment for an ongoing D.I.Y project. I searched online for companies in my local area doing my own price comparison as I was working to a budget. When I had chosen my preferred supplier I made a call and made a reservation as they don't have the ability to book online. No price was mentioned on the call, so I just presumed I would be charged the price they have advertised on their website.

It came time to go collect the items but when it came time to pay I was shocked with the price. Instead of the £54 they had advertised online, it had jumped to £98 (plus tax plus deposit). The deposit I had no issue with, because of course that's standard practice. However when I questioned the price as I specifically said and quoted the price on their website I was told. "Oh those prices are years out of date. The company owner was quoted £4000 to update the website but he didn't want to do it because he felt he could get a new website for that price so we just never updated them. I've told him to take the website down but he doesn't want to do that either because then people won't find our services".

Now I don't really know where I stand with all this because surely this is a case of knowingly misleading customers? At the time I felt pressured and awkward so I just paid the new price because they said "somewhere on the website it says prices are subject to change". 

Can someone help shed light on the legality to this argument? I appreciate prices are subject to change, but if their prices changed years ago and they're just refusing to pay to update them then surely this becomes a case where they are knowingly misleading customers?

Valuable lesson to always ask and confirm.