Argos/Homebase 49p telly discussion thread

Dave=m55

ganadon wrote:

Does anyone remember the gamecube fiasco a small while back? I ordered one of those from Virgin and eventually they said if I could buy it from somewhere else, they would refund the difference, they had already taken my money then aswell. How is this any different??

They would have done this as "loss of bargain". Not being aware of the circumstances here, it would seem Virgin were unable to supply the goods, and felt they could be held responsible for not supplying them. To claim for loss of bargain you would have to purchase the goods elsewhere, then get money back from the original supplier to cover the loss of bargain.

This is provided for in s.51 of the Sale of Goods Act 1979 - Damages for Non-delivery:

"51(3) Where there is an available market for the goods in question the measure of damages is prima facie to be ascertained by the difference between the contract price and the market or current price of the goods at the time or times when they ought to have been delivered or (if no time was fixed) at the time of the refusal to deliver."

The important statement here is "market or current price of the goods", a retailer could claim an item that sold for £200, was only worth £20, and try to argue this in court. It doesn't state the RRP of the item being sold.

Loss of bargain would, IMO, not apply to Argos/Homebase, as no contract was ever formed.

If you want to know why the Kodak case was different, have a read here http://www.venables.co.uk/n0203mistakes.htm

An important statement here is "Kodak's actions in settling the case mean that we have missed the opportunity to gain any precedent in the area, which is especially unfortunate because all previous well-publicised cases would almost certainly have fallen foul of Hartog due to blatant pricing errors."

This is why I beleive any attempt to pursue this will fail, and may set a precedence in favour of the retailer.


On another point, but still relevant:-

You decide to sell your car
You use an online ad and send it off "Vauxhall Nova for sale £1000"
The advert, unknown to you, appears on the web as "Vauxhall Nova for sale £10.00"
A buyer calls you up, having seen your advert on the web, and gives you an envelope for the car containing cash.
You open the envelope and find only £10.
Has the contract been finalised when you accepted the envelope, as the buyer could state he paid the price asked?

Having opened the envelope, and seen only £10, I think you would claim a mistake had been made, and withdraw the sale.
If, in the meantime, the buyer had driven away, it could be said that the contract had been completed, and you had lost £990.

HGLTsuperstar

I also asked when to expect the return of my money they took under false pretence. I received the same email as above, clearly a standardised message. I replied asking for a human, not computer, to actually read what I had asked and how their "customer service" needed looking at. I also pointed out I was not questionning their decision not to provide the TVs, so their reponse was totally irrelevant. Of course, am now waiting for another mass email circular in reply

bugbod

HGLTsuperstar wrote:

I also asked when to expect the return of my money they took under false pretence. I received the same email as above, clearly a standardised message. I replied asking for a human, not computer, to actually read what I had asked and how their "customer service" needed looking at. I also pointed out I was not questionning their decision not to provide the TVs, so their reponse was totally irrelevant. Of course, am now waiting for another mass email circular in reply

According to this you won't get one! But can we believe them?
On behalf of Argos, may I apologise for any inconvenience that this may have caused. We now consider this matter closed and we will be unable to engage in any further dialogue

I got that letter as well after I queried them not adhering to their own terms and have written again asking them to answer the questions. Seems they have washed their hands of us all. I've also seny copies to GUS, but I don't expect that to get any better response.



jaxxy00 What main points would you say i need to get across other than the fact that they have taken money after they found out about the price mistake? Any ideas i will note down to help.

My main point was that they say in their T&C

If we discover an error in the price of goods you have ordered we will inform you as soon as possible and give you the option of reconfirming your order at the correct price or cancelling it.

As we all know, they didn't.

mirandamayhem

i wonder how many people simply emailed saying they wanted the tv for 49p. Must have been a fairly large number to get back such a totally irrelevant email to the questions we asked!

I'm not going to bother anymore though. If anyone has more problems with mispricing in the future it will definately be worth contacting trading standards about it,
Personally, being a fairly new MSEer I don't know about all the previous situations, but from now on I'll be more aware

mdbs

I ordered this TV, and I have NOT had any communication telling me it is being cancelled. But my wife has had both email and a posted letter.

Does this mean I can demand delivery? As their T&C state they will inform me of cancellation immedietly. It is now a week and counting,, Anyone?

Dave=m55

mdbs wrote:

I ordered this TV, and I have NOT had any communication telling me it is being cancelled. But my wife has had both email and a posted letter.

Does this mean I can demand delivery? As their T&C state they will inform me of cancellation immedietly. It is now a week and counting,, Anyone?

Since there was NO CONTRACT to supply you with a tv in the first place I doubt you can demand delivery, unless of course you want to go to court, and lose of few quid getting laughed at, in the hopes of winning, what I see as, an unwinnable case.

There seems to be 2 points hacking people off here :-

1) Argos/homebase taking the money after they realised an error had occured.

This depends how there billing system works, and how they proposed to deal with the situation. They may have decided to let ALL payments go through, then refund them en mass. This, as a solution, would be a lot easier than dealing with 2 sets of customers, those who have paid, and those who hadn't. (Its also the way I would have dealt with the situation).
If you wanted to be difficult you could put the payment into dispute if you paid by credit card. In the long term, this would cause more headaches for you, and the retailer, as well as the credit card company. In this instance, its not the way I would go.

2) The retailer breaching there own T&Cs by not giving the option of reconfirming your order.

They could turn round and say it was implied. End of story on that one. As a point of relevance, its about as useful as saying I have size 9 feet, and that also has nothing to do with the '49p' TV.

Instead of carefully reading through Argos/Homebase T&Cs spend a bit of time reading this :-

http://www.venables.co.uk/n0203mistakes.htm

If you are really hacked off about it complain to the Trading Standards Authority, you may have a complaint under Part III of the Consumer Protection Act 1987, but thats up to Trading Standards to decide whether or not to prosecute.

bugbod

They say 'We will give you the option of cancelling' then in their 1st communication after acknowledgement they say 'this has now been cancelled'.

In what way is the option 'implied'? Is that legal jargon that I shouldn't take the dictionary definition from?

Dave=m55

bugbod wrote:

They say 'We will give you the option of cancelling' then in their 1st communication after acknowledgement they say 'this has now been cancelled'.

In what way is the option 'implied'? Is that legal jargon that I shouldn't take the dictionary definition from?

Were you aware that you could have bought the TV for the retail price?

I haven't read the email/letter, it was just my opinion as to a defence, however, If this is your ONLY basis for trying to get a 49p tv, then you WILL lose in court.

What basis are you stating that by the retailer not offering you the option of cancelling overrides that fact that no contract existed in the first place? That confuses me. It seems to just be a badly worded communication that didn't want to go into legal jargon.

Have a read here
http://www.venables.co.uk/n0203mistakes.htm
then come back here and tell me why you beleive a contact has been formed

4 direct questions for you.

1) Let me know why, because they wrote "this has now been cancelled" instead of 'We will give you the option of cancelling" this overrides Hartog v Colin and Shields [1939]3 All ER 566

2) Also please let me know why "At common law, when the mistake is operative the contract is usually void ab initio, ie, from the beginning. Therefore, no property will pass under it and no obligations can arise under it." is NOT relevant here.

3) Let me know whether you beleive you had a contract with the retailer to supply you with a tv combi for 49p

4) State that you thought that 49p was the correct price.

You're grasping at straws, in a fight that is not, in this instance, worth fighting.

bugbod

More from your C&P editing.
Unfortunately, there is no general doctrine of mistake - the rules are contained in a disparate group of cases. This is also an area of confusing terminology. No two authorities seem to agree on a common classification, and often the same terminology is used to cover different forms of mistake

jaxxy00

Dave=m55 do you have a connection with Argos as you seem to be very defensive of them?