2% Cancellation fee - is this legal?

agemmell

I recently bought a radiator online and quickly realised I bought the wrong one, so rang up the next day and cancelled the order. When i received my refund I was deducted 2% and told "The 2% just covers the fee we are charged for refunding your card we charge nothing for the admin involved."

I have never heard of this before - is this true and is it legal for them to charge me this?

thanks

Nile

Hello agemmell

Welcome to the MSE site.:wave:

I'll move your thread to 'The (Consumer) Vent' board.

Hi, Martin’s asked me to post this in these circumstances: I’ve asked Board Guides to move threads if they’ll receive a better response elsewhere(please see this rule) so this post/thread has been moved to another board, where it should get more replies. If you have any questions about this policy please email [EMAIL="abuse@moneysavingexpert.com"]abuse@moneysavingexpert.com[/EMAIL].

Regards

Nile

hollydays

did you check the terms and conditions on the site-did it mention it there?

Shambler

Does seem strange that it is not a fixed amount.

After all it should cost the same amount to refund £1 or £10000 as it is only an admin charge.

Andy_L

credit card fees are a %age, switch etc are a flat fee.

agemmell

thanks for your replies. I used a Visa debit card. I checked again and the site says "Cancelled orders will be subject to a 2% handling charge" - a slightly different description as to what its for when i challenged it.
I just don't see why they can charge this, seems very unfair and wanted to know if banks etc actually do charge them for refunding the card or are just trying to make some money from it.

deanos

If you cancel under the distance selling regulations then there is no fee applicable

http://www.out-law.com/page-430#Recovery

Terrylw1

2% had always been the fee for credit card charges for their merchant transactions.

Years ago loads of companies added this on (as travel agents still tend to) but they changed it so it was absorbed since it was less than popular.

You never got charged on refunds though to my knowledge.

Tea3

If you cancelled the next day they have to give you a full refund of purchase and postage price paid - the only exceptions from this are if you are outside the UK/EU or it was purchased as a business transaction. I know because we as a business had in our terms we did not refund payment costs if they were non-refundable to us and if the item had been posted and then returned as cancelled we stated we did not return postage costs, and trading standards very quickly pointed out this was a big no no. Granted I had contacted TS to ask them to check terms were all ok and complied with sale of goods act etc (wanted to be honest seller) but was miffed when I found out customer could cost us a small fortune in payment and refund charges and also postage costs yet still get a full refund. We are a small-ish company yet some customers can treat us like a large catalogue, ordering 10+ tems and then returning 9 of them. Frustrating but is the law so your company should not be able to charge you a refund, re-stocking or payment charge etc for a cancelled order and if their terms say otherwise get the correct phrase from TS and quote it to the company - if they dont refund in full raise a complaint with TS.