Supplier wishes to cancel order after payment

[chrispedro]

Late last December I ordered and paid for 2 £500 sofa’s for £250 each online from a major retailer. They initially gave me a delivery date of the 21 January, in January they called to say it would be February, in February they called me to say it would be March, on March the 6th they said the sofa’s are no longer being made and they will refund my money.

We did have our hearts set on those sofa’s and are really disappointed, can we insist they supply them?

The January sales are now over and it may well be impossible to get such a bargain; the retailer does now have £700 sofas for £350, but that’s an extra £200. Could this be considered a loss of bargain and do you have any advice on how I could get my sofa’s or ones of equivalent value without incurring extra costs?

[Amy]

Re: Supplier wishes to cancel order after payment

How can the supplier possibly supply them when they are no longer made?

For the length of time they have had your money I would be insisting on a bit more than a refund.

[Tools]

Re: Supplier wishes to cancel order after payment

Who are the retailers?

If the £700 (£350) sofas would be acceptable replacements for you then I would contact the retailer. Suggest that as a gesture of goodwill, compensation for their delays and to prevent you entering into litigation or informing trading standards that you would be willing to accept the £700 (£350) sofas by way of settlement.

Although they would argue that this would be a £200 loss for them, undoubtedly a lot less taking into account their markup %, this would be less costly for them than to enter into litigation with you. I would also remind them of that fact.

[Guest]

Re: Supplier wishes to cancel order after payment

See here - Loss of Bargain

[Happyolddog]

Re: Supplier wishes to cancel order after payment

It's a disgrace how these high street traders treat their customers. I have refused to use them for some time and I tend now to miss out the middle-man and go to the importer, saving the mark up on furniture and no waiting for months to be disappointed when the furniture arrives. I just bought four items of furniture from an online dealer/importer and saved a lot of money on high street price hikes, plus they were delivered in three days.


http://www.artemishome.co.uk/

[chrispedro]

Re: Supplier wishes to cancel order after payment

The supplier is Argos. I looked at the Loss of bargain thread, but in that instance the goods had been delivered.

The Argos T&C's say "8.3 Argos shall be under no liability for any delay or failure to deliver products or otherwise perform any obligation as specified in these terms and conditions if the same is wholly or partly caused whether directly or indirectly by circumstances beyond its reasonable control. ", do I still have a case?

[Guest]

Re: Supplier wishes to cancel order after payment

Whether the goods have been delivered or not is not relevant to your situation.

Current understanding of web-based transactions is based almost solely on a collective belief of how such transactions should progress from lawyers – it has not been legislated for by Parliament, nor tested before the courts. It is generally accepted that an advert on a website of an item for sale at a certain price is the invitation to treat and the process of filling out the order form and passing over personal details such as credit information by the customer is the offer. Following this to its logical conclusion, the next communication from the retailer is the acceptance of the offer, at which point the contract is formed and the retailer is therefore under a legal duty to perform.

Since Argos have failed to perform, they have breached the contract and you are at liberty to sue for loss of bargain.

Whether or not you have a case is impossible to say and the only way you can know that is to issue a Letter Before Action and if they fail to satisfy you, issue a claim.

[chrispedro]

Re: Supplier wishes to cancel order after payment

I issued a Letter Before Action and received a phone call a week later from Customer Services; he said that this wasn’t a loss of bargain case, but he can offer me £150 our selected Sofas, so I paid a £45 uplift and the new sofas were delivered today.

Surprise, surprise the missus says she doesn’t like them and they have to go back; will it ever end? L

[Guest]

Re: Supplier wishes to cancel order after payment

You take legal advice from Argos customer services now?

[chrispedro]

Re: Supplier wishes to cancel order after payment

Thank you Cetelco. In my pursuit of brevity, I didn’t explain myself very well, let me try again.

Firstly, I called Argos Customer Services and explained that they had breached their contract with me and that I wanted 2 more expensive sofa’s for the same price, a £195.80 reduction. They put me onto a “Manager” who offered a £75 reduction, I said £75 was insufficient; but she wouldn’t increase it, so I said I would sue for loss of bargain.

I sent them a letter Before Action, Customer Services called, he said this was not a loss of bargain case and offered me £150 discount. I still thought it was a loss of bargain, but was relatively happy with the discount and didn’t feel it would be a productive use of my time arguing the toss with Argos, so I accepted his offer. (I was also under some pressure from the missus to stop messing about and get some sofa’s.)