Can a service company legally hide unspecified charges behind a generic term?

[frobisher]

I realise I may have to get more specific here, but trying a general approach first.

Say a company allows you to change an order and in its T's and C's it states that you will have to pay the difference between the old price and new if it's greater, but you won't get a refund if it's lower.
So far so good - all out in the open.

The terms and conditions state: “any price difference between the original <price> paid and the lowest total price available at the time of the <order> change is charged” and, separately, “any price difference between the original <amount> paid and the lowest total price available at the time of the change is charged”.

The company concerned publishes prices online - they do vary based on time and demand, but at the moment you make the phone call to change the order, you can see the published prices clearly.

Is that company now allowed (legally) to add conditions to that change of order that are mentioned nowhere in their terms and conditions and therefore manipulate the "total price" they arrive at? That is, could they say that even if there is no admin fee chargeable, there is a document fee or a "I'm wearing green pants today" fee or "My dog needs a new collar" fee or some other random thing that, to reiterate, is not specifically referred to anywhere in their terms and conditions?

Say, for example, that of the two parts that make up your overall order (therefore total price), they claim that one part of the order was bought at tier 2 pricing and therefore - even though tier 1 pricing is available on the new item you want to switch to and is the current published price you can see online - you are not eligible for that price and must instead pay the tier 2 price that you cannot even see online at that moment.

Say also that tier 1 pricing is not available on the other part of your order and therefore the published price visible is tier 2 so that when, added together, the total price for the two items in your order is artificially inflated by this unpublished rule, leading to you having to pay approx £50 more even though the prices you can see online added together would be exactly the same you originally paid.

Based on the published terms and conditions stating "lowest total price", is it reasonable, let alone legal for them to adopt this approach and charge you the higher price?

To clarify, I would have no problem if their published T's and C's clearly stated that the "lowest total price" used in the calculation is based on the individual items that make up your order and may bear no relation to the prices visible at the time.

Is that a bit vague or do you see where I'm coming from? Thanks for any opinions/thoughts.

[Amethyst]

Soooooooooo (i'll have a bash )............ you placed an order for item A. You subsequently changed your order to item B.

When you ordered item A you were to pay Price A which was showing online at the time you placed your order.

HOwever when you changed the order to item B, the price showing online at the time of changing the order was price B, but they charged you price C - and you believe the change of price from B to C was to cover some unidentified Admin charge for changing your order which wasn't allowed for in the terms.

If not, you might need to go into a bit more detail ( or wait see if someone else has the foggiest what you're on about )

[frobisher]

Sorry - I see your point. I did try to simplify it as much as possible! You're pretty much spot on apart from the admin thing. That was me just trying to make a point on them referring to "total price" in the T's and C's but not actually specifying what goes into the total price. They could, in theory, refer to total price and then say they have no end of other stuff that *they* choose to add to individual items to make it a new total price that you cannot see online, but they can on their system.

They're using the "you paid a tier two price for item a on order no. 1 so you cannot have a tier one price for the equivalent item a on order no. 2 even though that's what it currently shows is available online" argument. Nowhere does it refer to this in their terms and conditions. Neither can you see the tier 2 price for the new item a on order 2, only they can see it on their computer.

They seem to be ignoring their "total price" on the T's and C's and manipulating the individual item prices to make damn sure that you pay more for the new order even though online it shows as exactly the same.

"Making the rules up as they go along" I think it's known as!