Unfair Term in Contract?

[rustybucket]

Our company signed up to a 6-month Service Agreement which contained the following Term:


"MONEY BACK GUARANTEE: In the event that the Provider fails to deliver the Services as agreed upon, the Client can exercise their right to a refund within the time period set out on the Provider's website."


We don't believe the Services have been delivered so wish to claim the refund but the time period stated on the Provider's website (30 days) has now expired. Should the time period be mentioned explicitly in the Service Agreement because a website can easily be altered? Or is it fair to include a Term such as this?

Thanks for any advice.

[echat11]

Hi Rustybucket

Welcome to LB

Business to Business contracts have limited cancellation rights.

Clearly having one set of Terms and Conditions on the website and a different set of Terms and Conditions on paper is 'unfair'. What if the website is down on the 30th day? How can you check? Say you phone up, what if the person doesn't know? They promise to find out and call you back, but they don't.

No doubt the business concerned will say this, say that, it would be down to the Courts as to whether the those Terms and Conditions are 'unfair'.

[atticus]

If the service has not been provided your company has a claim for damages for breach of contract.

[Tremarl]

You can reference other documents, but these shouldn't be used to vary/materially change the contract unilaterally through alterations to those other documents.

So the best thing to do in this instance is to go to the reference document and save a copy of it on the date of the contract being signed, or as close as possible, as this would be the binding period.

You will likely in your service agreement have a generic term about variation, so have a look at that as well.