Debenhams Took Payment Without Consent and Shipped to Unapproved Address

Vivi2010

I purchased an item through Debenhams over a week ago for £125. After putting it in my cart, I had to select my payment method and I opted for Klarna. Before anything was processed, Klarna had to verify a £0 transaction to confirm it was me making the purchase.

After clearing this, Debenhams advertised a £12 delivery fee for my item. I applied the free delivery voucher, which they had plastered over every page, but the price remained unchanged, despite it stating that the voucher had been applied.

I clicked a button that was labelled something like 'next' or 'continue' and clicked this, assuming that the price with the discount would be shown on the next page, prior to purchasing the item.

Instead, Debenhams took payment without my approval. It wasn't even for the £137 price I had seen and was actually for £130, a price that had not even been displayed anywhere at any point (it seems the voucher has removed SOME, but not all of the delivery fee).

To add to the confusion, I had never been asked for a delivery address at any point, so how could Debenhams have processed an order without knowing where to send it?

After checking the email from them, I saw it was being delivered to an address I haven't lived at for many years, which happens to be the address on my account from when I last used Klarna a long, long time ago. The only source for the address would have been my Klarna account, but at no point was it stated that Debenhams were going to request my address from Klarna and ship it there.

I immediately contacted Debenhams, asking that the address be changed (as well as complaining about the other issues, which they ignored). I was told that they couldn't change the address and I would have to travel there and wait outside the property for the courier to show up if I wanted my order.

The item was subsequently refused by the person living at my old address and abandoned in the street by the Evri courier.

I have tried contacting Debenhams several times, but they are ignoring the fact that I never asked to have it shipped to that address and are stating that Evri delivered it to a safe place that I had personally designated, so it counts as delivered. I hadn't even provided Evri with a safe space to deliver it to, never mind instructed the driver to just dump it in the street.

Eventually, I managed to get Debenhams to accept that I provided Evri with no such instruction. Debenhams is only willing to provide a refund on the grounds that I sign a form claiming that the item was not delivered, in which they want me to state that the delivery address they shipped it to is my residence, which it is obviously not.

I have told them that I cannot sign this form, but it falls on deaf ears and they just reiterate that they will not provide me with a refund unless I lie in a form. For obvious reasons, I have no intention of doing this.

Klarna has told me that I will have to wait a month before they even look into this. I am also unable to get a chargeback through my bank as Klarna are the ones that processed the payment.

It seems that all I can do now is wait a month for Klarna to decide if this is acceptable, or do I have other options?

ammarose009

You do have other options and you are legally in the right: under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 and the Consumer Rights Act 2015, Debenhams must clearly show the final price, obtain explicit consent before taking payment, and deliver goods to an address you agreed to, none of which happened here, as payment was taken without clear approval, a price you never saw was charged, an old Klarna address was used without disclosure or consent, and the item was not delivered to you but abandoned in the street; Debenhams cannot lawfully refuse a refund unless you sign a form containing false statements, so your next steps should be to submit a formal written complaint to Debenhams citing these regulations, continue the dispute with Klarna (who are FCA-regulated and can reverse the payment), and if necessary escalate to the retailer’s Alternative Dispute Resolution scheme or the Financial Ombudsman, rather than signing anything untrue or simply waiting a month.

itsthelittlethings

When it showed the delivery address on the statement at the end, what was the delivery address?

itsthelittlethings

Whenever you buy online, there should be a page where it sets out what you are buying, the cost, and the delivery address. Does this not happen if you buy with Klarna?

Vivi2010

ammarose009 said:

You do have other options and you are legally in the right: under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 and the Consumer Rights Act 2015, Debenhams must clearly show the final price, obtain explicit consent before taking payment, and deliver goods to an address you agreed to, none of which happened here, as payment was taken without clear approval, a price you never saw was charged, an old Klarna address was used without disclosure or consent, and the item was not delivered to you but abandoned in the street; Debenhams cannot lawfully refuse a refund unless you sign a form containing false statements, so your next steps should be to submit a formal written complaint to Debenhams citing these regulations, continue the dispute with Klarna (who are FCA-regulated and can reverse the payment), and if necessary escalate to the retailer’s Alternative Dispute Resolution scheme or the Financial Ombudsman, rather than signing anything untrue or simply waiting a month.

The problem is that Debenhams' support doesn't seem to care. My guess would be that their only listed contact method (WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger) is handled by support in the Philippines or India who either don't understand a word I am saying and are sending templates back, or are being directly told to ignore all complaints and fob customers off with templates.

I have made a complaint via Debenhams but, from what I have subsequently read, this is going to be ignored. I'm not at the stage where I can go to FO yet as they haven't had adequate time to respond to my complaint.

I am worried that Klarna will side against me as their support has been horrific. I have a chat conversation with one of their agents where they admit to providing Debenhams with my address, stating that they had to. Then once I pointed out that them providing the address caused it to be shipped to the wrong location, the same guy claimed that Klarna never gave Debenhams the address on my account. He then attempted to convince me that Debenhams picked a random address in the UK to ship to, claiming that it's just pure coincidence that they happened to choose the same one that's on my Klarna account.

I have also tried informing Trading Standards (via Citizen's Advice), but the people taking those calls don't seem qualified as I was told the following:

1. 'You have 14 days in which you can change your mind about an order. You need to contact Debenhams now to do this.'

2. 'Well actually, this is your fault for not updating the address on your Klarna account. Klarna don't need your consent to provide them with the address on your account and Debenhams had every right to assume that that would be where you wanted it delivered.'

Obviously I do not want to do the first, as the issue is not that I have changed my mind about the purchase. Additionally, Debenham's T&C's actually state that they can charge customers fees for changing their mind!

With the second, I had to sit there reading the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 to Citizens Advice...

itsthelittlethings said:

When it showed the delivery address on the statement at the end, what was the delivery address?

Which 'statement at the end' are you referring to? There was no address until they had processed the transaction without my approval and it showed up in an order confirmation email. No address was shown at all on their website throughout the entire transaction. I created an account with Debenhams after to try and correct it, but the address they shipped it to isn't even on their website. It's only in the confirmation email.

itsthelittlethings said:

Whenever you buy online, there should be a page where it sets out what you are buying, the cost, and the delivery address. Does this not happen if you buy with Klarna?

There was a page with what I was buying and the cost, but no delivery address. I have seen another review online where somebody is perplexed about how Debenhams got their old address and shipped it there. I am assuming that this person also used Klarna, but couldn't figure out that the address came from there.

They have it set up so that, if you pay by Klarna, you have to approve the transaction before you even see the final price. This then enables them to charge whatever they want without the customer agreeing to the purchase.

eskbanker

Vivi2010 said:
I have made a complaint via Debenhams but, from what I have subsequently read, this is going to be ignored. I'm not at the stage where I can go to FO yet as they haven't had adequate time to respond to my complaint.

Just to be clear, FOS has no jurisdiction over Debenhams so you won't be able to escalate a complaint about Debenhams there, although Klarna are within their scope.

itsthelittlethings

Vivi2010 said:

ammarose009 said:

You do have other options and you are legally in the right: under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 and the Consumer Rights Act 2015, Debenhams must clearly show the final price, obtain explicit consent before taking payment, and deliver goods to an address you agreed to, none of which happened here, as payment was taken without clear approval, a price you never saw was charged, an old Klarna address was used without disclosure or consent, and the item was not delivered to you but abandoned in the street; Debenhams cannot lawfully refuse a refund unless you sign a form containing false statements, so your next steps should be to submit a formal written complaint to Debenhams citing these regulations, continue the dispute with Klarna (who are FCA-regulated and can reverse the payment), and if necessary escalate to the retailer’s Alternative Dispute Resolution scheme or the Financial Ombudsman, rather than signing anything untrue or simply waiting a month.

The problem is that Debenhams' support doesn't seem to care. My guess would be that their only listed contact method (WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger) is handled by support in the Philippines or India who either don't understand a word I am saying and are sending templates back, or are being directly told to ignore all complaints and fob customers off with templates.

I have made a complaint via Debenhams but, from what I have subsequently read, this is going to be ignored. I'm not at the stage where I can go to FO yet as they haven't had adequate time to respond to my complaint.

I am worried that Klarna will side against me as their support has been horrific. I have a chat conversation with one of their agents where they admit to providing Debenhams with my address, stating that they had to. Then once I pointed out that them providing the address caused it to be shipped to the wrong location, the same guy claimed that Klarna never gave Debenhams the address on my account. He then attempted to convince me that Debenhams picked a random address in the UK to ship to, claiming that it's just pure coincidence that they happened to choose the same one that's on my Klarna account.

I have also tried informing Trading Standards (via Citizen's Advice), but the people taking those calls don't seem qualified as I was told the following:

1. 'You have 14 days in which you can change your mind about an order. You need to contact Debenhams now to do this.'

2. 'Well actually, this is your fault for not updating the address on your Klarna account. Klarna don't need your consent to provide them with the address on your account and Debenhams had every right to assume that that would be where you wanted it delivered.'

Obviously I do not want to do the first, as the issue is not that I have changed my mind about the purchase. Additionally, Debenham's T&C's actually state that they can charge customers fees for changing their mind!

With the second, I had to sit there reading the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 to Citizens Advice...

itsthelittlethings said:

When it showed the delivery address on the statement at the end, what was the delivery address?

Which 'statement at the end' are you referring to? There was no address until they had processed the transaction without my approval and it showed up in an order confirmation email. No address was shown at all on their website throughout the entire transaction. I created an account with Debenhams after to try and correct it, but the address they shipped it to isn't even on their website. It's only in the confirmation email.

itsthelittlethings said:

Whenever you buy online, there should be a page where it sets out what you are buying, the cost, and the delivery address. Does this not happen if you buy with Klarna?

There was a page with what I was buying and the cost, but no delivery address. I have seen another review online where somebody is perplexed about how Debenhams got their old address and shipped it there. I am assuming that this person also used Klarna, but couldn't figure out that the address came from there.

They have it set up so that, if you pay by Klarna, you have to approve the transaction before you even see the final price. This then enables them to charge whatever they want without the customer agreeing to the purchase.

So you never clicked “buy” on a page laying out what you were buying, the cost and the delivery address?

On PayPal, you approve it on PayPal and then are taken back to the merchant to approve.

itsthelittlethings

Keep us updated, Klarna are a credit provider but they are a big business so I’d assume they meet their regulatory obligations.

screech_78

Unless paying over more than 12 months, Klarna payment plans (pay in 3, pay in 30 days) are unregulated agreements and so also not within scope of FOS.

Vivi2010

Eventually, I was able to get a refund after the merchant Debenhams sold the item from (Living and Home) agreed to reship and then Evri also left this abandoned in the street (no surprise there) rather than delivering it.

Unsurprisingly, Debenhams has not responded to my complaint. Is there anything I can do?

I have already reported it to Trading Standards but, based on the phone call I had with Citizens Advice (who now have to take all TS calls), I fear that Debenhams unlawful selling methods were either not passed on, or were passed on incorrectly.

Surprisingly though, Klarna failed to respond to a GDPR complaint and have been reported to the ICO.

Vivi2010

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81837330#Comment_81837330

This is correct. When you pay via Klarna, you verify a £0 transaction to connect the Klarna account and are never asked to confirm the final payment. As you have approved the transaction earlier, Debenhams is able to charge whatever they want through Klarna without your approval.