Can I be charged a returns charge for cancelling online order before delivery?

Okweird0987

Hi all,

I placed an order with dusk.com for a bed on the 30th August,

It is due to be delivered on thursday 11th September. I have since decided that I no longer want this bed as it will be too large for the bedroom, so emailed this morning asking to cancel the order.

With no response via email I rang them and they said that since it has been dispatched to their delivery provider I can still cancel but i would incur a £39.99 cancellation fee, she was not budging and said this is in their t&c’s.

I finally also got a response via email which states “If you wish to proceed with cancelling your order, we can contact our delivery partner to arrange this. However, as the order has now been dispatched, a return charge of £39.99 is applicable.”

Is there any way around this return/cancellation fee?

Not sure if relevant but I paid using an American Express card via PayPal.

Thanks in advance!

MyRealNameToo

Okweird0987 said:

Hi all,

I placed an order with dusk.com for a bed on the 30th August,

It is due to be delivered on thursday 11th September. I have since decided that I no longer want this bed as it will be too large for the bedroom, so emailed this morning asking to cancel the order.

With no response via email I rang them and they said that since it has been dispatched to their delivery provider I can still cancel but i would incur a £39.99 cancellation fee, she was not budging and said this is in their t&c’s.

I finally also got a response via email which states “If you wish to proceed with cancelling your order, we can contact our delivery partner to arrange this. However, as the order has now been dispatched, a return charge of £39.99 is applicable.”

Is there any way around this return/cancellation fee?

Not sure if relevant but I paid using an American Express card via PayPal.

Thanks in advance!

They are entitled to charge for them arranging its return. If you think £39.99 is too much then accept delivery and arrange your own courier to return it to them but would imagine a courier would charge you much more for a bed. 

How you paid is irrelevant when the merchant is doing nothing wrong. Paying via PayPal likely invalidates any S75 claims you'd have against a credit card anyway

Okweird0987

Hi,

Thanks for your response!

they said they don’t accept returns with a courier of my own choosing - they charge 12.99 for delivery but charge 39.99 for a returns delivery with no option but to use their own courier. 

What happens if I reject delivery?

Undervalued

Okweird0987 said:

Hi all,

I placed an order with dusk.com for a bed on the 30th August,

It is due to be delivered on thursday 11th September. I have since decided that I no longer want this bed as it will be too large for the bedroom, so emailed this morning asking to cancel the order.

With no response via email I rang them and they said that since it has been dispatched to their delivery provider I can still cancel but i would incur a £39.99 cancellation fee, she was not budging and said this is in their t&c’s.

I finally also got a response via email which states “If you wish to proceed with cancelling your order, we can contact our delivery partner to arrange this. However, as the order has now been dispatched, a return charge of £39.99 is applicable.”

Is there any way around this return/cancellation fee?

Not sure if relevant but I paid using an American Express card via PayPal.

Thanks in advance!

If they have genuinely dispatched it and / or incurred other expenses as a result of you cancelling then no. If their actual costs are less than £39.99 then arguably you should only be charged the lower amount but that works both ways. If your cancellation has cost them more they can look to you for the extra.

powerful_Rogue

Okweird0987 said:

Hi,

Thanks for your response!

they said they don’t accept returns with a courier of my own choosing - they charge 12.99 for delivery but charge 39.99 for a returns delivery with no option but to use their own courier. 

What happens if I reject delivery?

I'd imagine they would deduct £39.99 from your refund.

Okweird0987

Undervalued said:

Okweird0987 said:

Hi all,

I placed an order with dusk.com for a bed on the 30th August,

It is due to be delivered on thursday 11th September. I have since decided that I no longer want this bed as it will be too large for the bedroom, so emailed this morning asking to cancel the order.

With no response via email I rang them and they said that since it has been dispatched to their delivery provider I can still cancel but i would incur a £39.99 cancellation fee, she was not budging and said this is in their t&c’s.

I finally also got a response via email which states “If you wish to proceed with cancelling your order, we can contact our delivery partner to arrange this. However, as the order has now been dispatched, a return charge of £39.99 is applicable.”

Is there any way around this return/cancellation fee?

Not sure if relevant but I paid using an American Express card via PayPal.

Thanks in advance!

If they have genuinely dispatched it and / or incurred other expenses as a result of you cancelling then no. If their actual costs are less than £39.99 then arguably you should only be charged the lower amount but that works both ways. If your cancellation has cost them more they can look to you for the extra.

Thanks for the reply! 

How does this work in relation to CCR?
Consumer Contracts Regulations allows for cancellation without penalty within 14 days of order receipt. As I am cancelling before I have received the product should the returns charge of £39.99 be applicable in this case?

The only cost consumers may incur is return shipping, but as I have not received the item, and have requested cancellation prior to receipt, can this fee be chargeable?

MyRealNameToo

Okweird0987 said:

Undervalued said:

Okweird0987 said:

Hi all,

I placed an order with dusk.com for a bed on the 30th August,

It is due to be delivered on thursday 11th September. I have since decided that I no longer want this bed as it will be too large for the bedroom, so emailed this morning asking to cancel the order.

With no response via email I rang them and they said that since it has been dispatched to their delivery provider I can still cancel but i would incur a £39.99 cancellation fee, she was not budging and said this is in their t&c’s.

I finally also got a response via email which states “If you wish to proceed with cancelling your order, we can contact our delivery partner to arrange this. However, as the order has now been dispatched, a return charge of £39.99 is applicable.”

Is there any way around this return/cancellation fee?

Not sure if relevant but I paid using an American Express card via PayPal.

Thanks in advance!

If they have genuinely dispatched it and / or incurred other expenses as a result of you cancelling then no. If their actual costs are less than £39.99 then arguably you should only be charged the lower amount but that works both ways. If your cancellation has cost them more they can look to you for the extra.

Thanks for the reply! 

How does this work in relation to CCR?
Consumer Contracts Regulations allows for cancellation without penalty within 14 days of order receipt. As I am cancelling before I have received the product should the returns charge of £39.99 be applicable in this case?

The only cost consumers may incur is return shipping, but as I have not received the item, and have requested cancellation prior to receipt, can this fee be chargeable?

It's already been dispatched so your receipt is only a matter of time; things would have been different if you had cancelled it before it was dispatched. 

Do you think they arent going to want their bed back just because it hasn't reached you yet? Who do you think would be paying the courier to get the bed back to their warehouse? 

Ergates

Relevant parts of the CCR:

Return of goods in the event of cancellation

35.—(1) Where a sales contract is cancelled under regulation 29(1), it is the trader's responsibility to collect the goods if—

(a)the trader has offered to collect them, or

(b)in the case of an off-premises contract, the goods were delivered to the consumer's home when the contract was entered into and could not, by their nature, normally be returned by post.
...
...

(8) The consumer is not required to bear any cost of collecting goods under paragraph (1) [F2unless the trader has offered to collect the goods and the consumer has agreed to bear the costs of the trader doing so.]

A bed, by it's nature, cannot be returned by post, so the trader is responsible for collecting it.

IF the T&Cs of the contract state that the consumer will bear the cost of the return, then acceptance of these would, I believe, be an agreement to do so.

Worth noting that the refund should also include the cost of delivery (or, at least, the *cheapest* option for delivery if you chose a more expensive delivery method).

Okweird0987 said:

The only cost consumers may incur is return shipping, but as I have not received the item, and have requested cancellation prior to receipt, can this fee be chargeable?

IF the bed is still delivered then yes, it's quite likely that it's already in transit at this point.

Okell

Okweird0987 said:

Undervalued said:

Okweird0987 said:

Hi all,

I placed an order with dusk.com for a bed on the 30th August,

It is due to be delivered on thursday 11th September. I have since decided that I no longer want this bed as it will be too large for the bedroom, so emailed this morning asking to cancel the order.

With no response via email I rang them and they said that since it has been dispatched to their delivery provider I can still cancel but i would incur a £39.99 cancellation fee, she was not budging and said this is in their t&c’s.

I finally also got a response via email which states “If you wish to proceed with cancelling your order, we can contact our delivery partner to arrange this. However, as the order has now been dispatched, a return charge of £39.99 is applicable.”

Is there any way around this return/cancellation fee?

Not sure if relevant but I paid using an American Express card via PayPal.

Thanks in advance!

If they have genuinely dispatched it and / or incurred other expenses as a result of you cancelling then no. If their actual costs are less than £39.99 then arguably you should only be charged the lower amount but that works both ways. If your cancellation has cost them more they can look to you for the extra.

Thanks for the reply! 

How does this work in relation to CCR?
Consumer Contracts Regulations allows for cancellation without penalty within 14 days of order receipt. As I am cancelling before I have received the product should the returns charge of £39.99 be applicable in this case?

The only cost consumers may incur is return shipping, but as I have not received the item, and have requested cancellation prior to receipt, can this fee be chargeable?

Assuming (1) that the bed is not personalised and has not been made to your specifications and (2) that you have cancelled the contract in accordance with para 32 of the CCRs, then the best you can do is argue the case with Dusk.  If you get no satisfactory response from Dusk, you'd have to consider whether it would be worth suing them over £39.99

Your argument would be based on para 34(8) which says " The trader must not impose any fee on the consumer in respect of the reimbursement" and Dusk's T&Cs actually describe it thus:  "Please be advised a £39.99 fee will be deducted from your refund" - it's described in their own T&Cs as a "fee" and not as a returns charge.

Against that, Dusk will argue that their returns policy makes it clear that the £39.99 is a "collection fee" and not a cancellation charge.

You can also argue that although the consumer can be charged the direct cost of returning an item under para 35(5) of the CCRs, that only seems to apply apply if the consumer has had to send the goods back under para 35(2) because the trader is not responsible for collecting the goods, but - as I understand Dusk's returns policy - it is Dusk's responsibility to arrange collection of large items such as beds, so I don't think they can charge you for them collecting the bed.  At least that's my reading of para 35.

You can also try arguing that as they haven't actually delivered it they can't charge a fee anyway, but if you didn't try to cancel the order or withdraw your offer to buy before the bed was dispatched, I don't think that's an argument likely to succeed.  I think the fact it hasn't been delivered yet is a bit of a red herring here.

You could also try arguing that their T&Cs and returns policy are not compliant with para 35(5)(b) and that therefore they can't charge you for a return - but I think that's an even weaker argument and even less likely to succeed.

So you can try arguing the toss with them and see where it gets you.  If they don't relent you'll have to decide how far you want to pursue it for 40 quid.

(I'm not commenting on whether s75 would apply or not)

flaneurs_lobster

Look at it another way, if you'd gone into Beds'R'Us and bought a bed for delivery, then gone home and changed your mind because it's now too big, the retailer would be within their rights to not accept your return request, whether it was in transit or otherwise.

Think that £40 is not a bad get-out cost.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

The cancellation period begins when the contract is entered into, if you cancel before this no fee may be imposed. 

T&Cs don't seem to state when the contract is entered into, I would assume their actions of either accepting payment, sending you an order confirmation or dispatching the goods would be classed as acceptance. 

After acceptance the consumer is to bear the return costs when the trader states such and, in the case of goods which can't be returned via normal post, states the fee, which Dusk do. 

Based on that the fee is due

Okweird0987 said:

What happens if I reject delivery?

It's an interesting question, the goods remain at the trader's risk, whether delivery of goods from the CRA  would allow you to treat the contract at an end for the traders failure to deliver entitling a full refund has been discussed here before with no real answer.

@born_again will likely clarify if a chargeback for non receipt is valid with rejected delivery (I have a feeling it isn't but may be wrong). 

Sperate to all of the above, their terms and conditions effectively mention under cancellations they will not refund for opened/used/assembled items, which they can not do, the CCRs state the consumer is not bound by the contract if the trader fails to provide the required information, what this means in the real world I've not seen answered here. 

The paragraph under cancellations in the T&Cs looks as if it should be separated after the link to the returns policy meaning their returns policy isn't related to your right to cancel But then they already have a section in the T&Cs about returns mentioning to look at the return policy page.

The information is poorly presented and I really can't tell whether they honour the right to cancel for used/etc items.