Unfair refusal of refund

eskbanker

What do you mean about a "contract" and cancelling it?

When you agree to make a purchase, you're forming a contract with the seller, under which you pay them money and in return they provide goods or services.

The significance of the term is the rights granted under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013, which permit consumers to cancel an online purchase for a full refund within 14 days, without having to give any sort of reason, a powerful right for those making distance purchases from UK companies and generally more useful than complying with a company's own return policy.

However, this statutory cancellation right doesn't apply to non-UK companies and also doesn't offer assistance beyond 14 days, so isn't relevant to your situation anyway.

Your issue is one seen not infrequently on here, namely the difference between having rights and enforcing them, so when encountering resistance from a trader, your options become much more limited unless you have the appetite for pursuing them through foreign courts, although if you paid by credit card and the items were over £100 each then you might be able to make a section 75 claim for breach of contract from the card provider.

wthit56

@MyRealNameToo Where are these "terms"? Can you link me to where you're referencing?

I don't see what "try it" could possibly mean that doesn't involve opening the packaging. Therefore to me, "try it" explicitly states "open the packaging."

Are you suggesting I just send it to the returns address, ask for the money for the returned goods, they refuse, then I talk to my bank, explain the situation, and the bank will refund the transaction it all came from? Is that the idea? I'm not too clear on the terminology and how these things work.

@eskbanker Thanks for explaining. It was 2 units, and totalled around £60, so it wouldn't be applicable for that unfortunately.

Is there a route to report this company in some way, for malpractice (or something like that)? I'm not going to get into suing them myself; I'm guessing they simply won't pay. But these things seem like they should be against some kind of laws somewhere. Is there some organisation that investigates such practises? I've heard of the Ombudsman, for example.

eskbanker

Is there a route to report this company in some way, for malpractice (or something like that)? I'm not going to get into suing them myself; I'm guessing they simply won't pay. But these things seem like they should be against some kind of laws somewhere. Is there some organisation that investigates such practises? I've heard of the Ombudsman, for example.

As above, your issue is that when you're dealing with a foreign company, you don't benefit from the consumer rights we take for granted here in the UK, so have very little actual meaningful protection. There isn't even a proper retail ombudsman that would have covered you in the UK (you could report them to Trading Standards or Advertising Standards but neither would actually help get your money back) and there's certainly no global supervisory body that would cover this elsewhere.

You can sometimes benefit from chargeback via card providers but this only covers certain scenarios, rather than enforcing consumer rights as such, and I'm not convinced that your situation is one of the valid chargeback reasons.

wthit56

@eskbanker Yeah, I guessed that chargeback would be for if they were' purely fraudulent, taking money and not giving you the goods. This is just plain ol' shady advertising practises.

Can the UK not block sites for not adhering to UK law, something like that? Like, something like Temu has to (theoretically) adhere to UK safety standards to trade in the UK, I believe. Which I suppose would mean the UK could block things being sent into the UK, if that company is known to send dangerous goods into the country—customs type of stuff. Would there not be something similar for a company like Emsense?

eskbanker

Can the UK not block sites for not adhering to UK law, something like that? Like, something like Temu has to (theoretically) adhere to UK safety standards to trade in the UK, I believe. Which I suppose would mean the UK could block things being sent into the UK, if that company is known to send dangerous goods into the country—customs type of stuff. Would there not be something similar for a company like Emsense?

No - I think there may be specialist regulations relating to shipping, say, electrical equipment that doesn't comply with UK industry regulations, but there is no more generic obligation on foreign websites to comply with UK consumer rights legislation, so if the company sent something with wires hanging out then that might give you options, but misleading descriptions, etc, would remain subject only to the jurisdiction of the site itself rather than places it ships to.

MyRealNameToo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81906296#Comment_81906296

In theory it could but it's not practical to do so and most probably wouldnt want it.

For a start, if they have no UK presence at all they dont necessarily have to abide by UK law, though the full details are complex. Certainly some people, myself included, want to be able to buy from niche retailers in other countries and would vote against any politician that unilaterally blocked all overseas vendors. When I contact a niche supplier in Japan who have no presence here, dont advertise here and dont even have an English language website it would be very onerous to expect them to then comply with UK law and as the only person to have approached this year from the UK they'd simply say no to the sale were it the case.

The problem is that it takes less than an hour to create a website, put ads on social media etc. Many of these websites dont identify any legal entity so even if one was blocked in less than a day its replacement will be up and running. Its a continuous game of wak-a-mole

Customs are supposed to be on the lookout for dangerous goods but some things are much easier to spot than others. Weapons you can programme an X-Ray machine to identify but if a foot massager has been made to good standards or not isnt going to be possible to say from an xray. Just as they make up the website they may well be making up the sender. The reason they are always 75% off etc is because the goods arent worth close to what they claim is the value, even if customs did stop 10% of the shipments it wouldnt make a material difference to them.

You're much better off doing your homework before buying by looking at the terms, how old the website is etc. I certainly won't say dont buy anything from overseas companies because I do all the time but when its a nearly brand new website, advertising on social media and their terms are a whole hotchpotch of countries then unless its a brand you already know and trust probably walk away.

Ergates

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81906296#Comment_81906296

That would not be popular - or good.

It would, essentially, prevent people buying almost anything from a non-UK website.

noitsnotme

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81906296#Comment_81906296

The best bit of advice I can give you is to never click on any Facebook ads. A massive proportion of them are scams or links to overseas sellers. It's safer to avoid them altogether. If you see something you're interested in then come away from Facebook and find a seller yourself who you can research. If you want it cheap then search on Temu or Aliexpress - at least they give you some protection.