Can you please help me with my case against a mail order company?

[Drew32]

I was told I could expect a refund of a product would be in my account by the 1st June.

I was in Liverpool the 5th. I relied on this money being there to book a National Express home.

I went to pay online. the money was not there.

On investigation, which took several hours with my bank, it turned out the company failed to provide my customer reference that I had sent them.

I got the money deposited correctly, then had to spend £80 more on a train home as the last bus had left for the day.

Can I hold this refunding company responsible? On what legal grounds?

Thanks.

[Drew32]

I believe it is promissory estoppel?

The company have stated that even though they told me that I could expect the refund to be in my account by the 1st, it was not expressly stated as definite and they cannot be held to this?

Surely my reliance on it suffices?

[R0b]

Depends on what exactly was stated to you. If they said you should expect it by that date but it wasn't qualified such as its an estimate then yes you should expect it and probably claim what little interest there is for the delay.

Difficulty you have with holding them to account is that there's nothing to suggest that you checked between 1st to 5th June to see if the money was in your account, and secondly, there's nothing to suggest you made them aware that you needed the money in the account no later than 5th June. Therefore it wasn't in the contemplation of the parties and if it went to court would say why didn't you check if the money was so important to you that you needed it for 5th June?

My view is that you probably don't have much of a chance to recover those incurred losses and you would struggle.

[Drew32]

Help me if you can!

I speak to their legal people tomorrow.

[Drew32]

?????

[Drew32]

rob

"Difficulty you have with holding them to account is that there's nothing to suggest that you checked between 1st to 5th June to see if the money was in your account, and secondly, there's nothing to suggest you made them aware that you needed the money in the account no later than 5th June. Therefore it wasn't in the contemplation of the parties and if it went to court would say why didn't you check if the money was so important to you that you needed it for 5th June?"

I didn't check, I just assumed that they told me it had been paid and would be there, so would be when I wanted to use it.

It did not go in because of their maladministration. Are there any legal grounds for holding them responsible for their mistakes?

[R0b]

rob

"Difficulty you have with holding them to account is that there's nothing to suggest that you checked between 1st to 5th June to see if the money was in your account, and secondly, there's nothing to suggest you made them aware that you needed the money in the account no later than 5th June. Therefore it wasn't in the contemplation of the parties and if it went to court would say why didn't you check if the money was so important to you that you needed it for 5th June?"

I didn't check, I just assumed that they told me it had been paid and would be there, so would be when I wanted to use it.

It did not go in because of their maladministration. Are there any legal grounds for holding them responsible for their mistakes?

You could ask for interest on the payment being late but thats about as best you are going to get though, depending on the amount you probably aren't going to get much. More importantly though, you can't seriously expect them to pay for your extra costs because you never told them that it must be in by 5th June and you specifically needed the money for that date? If you never told them about the specific use for that money then I can't see how they have to cover your losses.

They could say you are just as much to blame because you didn't check on 1st June and you were in a better position than them to know the use of that money so if you intended to use it to get the National Express back home on 5th then you ought to have made sure it was in there. With technology these days it would have taken you a few seconds if you bank using your phone or you could have gone and got a statement from a cash point.

If you want to pursue it, that's your choice but unless you've not told us the full story I think your claim is a non-starter.

[Drew32]

rob

The refund was for £260.

It was not the case that i knew beforehand that I would need this money precisely for the bus journey, it was just that I assumed the money would be in my account when needed, and it just so happened that my cashflow meant I needed it to be there at this time.

I relied on their deadline, and their maladministration led to the additional cost of the train.

Is it not obvious that people will use the money in their bank accounts and that if you tell someone you will have it by this date - i.e. in the case of wages, say, then it will be probably be relied upon from that date?

I didn't check my balance because it did not occur to me that it might not be in there, as they gave me the date it would clear.

And it did not become necessary until it was necessary, which was the time I tried to use it, only to discover that their maladministration led to it not being there at the time they told me it would be.

[Drew32]

des8 Any comment?

[R0b]

rob

The refund was for £260.

It was not the case that i knew beforehand that I would need this money precisely for the bus journey, it was just that I assumed the money would be in my account when needed, and it just so happened that my cashflow meant I needed it to be there at this time.

I relied on their deadline, and their maladministration led to the additional cost of the train.

Is it not obvious that people will use the money in their bank accounts and that if you tell someone you will have it by this date - i.e. in the case of wages, say, then it will be probably be relied upon from that date?

I didn't check my balance because it did not occur to me that it might not be in there, as they gave me the date it would clear.

And it did not become necessary until it was necessary, which was the time I tried to use it, only to discover that their maladministration led to it not being there at the time they told me it would be.

Your losses weren't direct because a direct loss is some loss arising naturally from the breach of contract and you getting the National Express / train back home had no relevance to the refund of your product.

It seems to me that you are seeking to claim from them an indirect loss and in order to do that the losses need to be reasonably foreseeable within the contemplation of the parties at the time. It wasn't reasonably foreseeable because as you admit, you didn't know it was needed at the time and the £260 wasn't specifically earmarked for that journey nor did you inform them of that.

The mail order company will say to you that it would have been reasonable for you to check your account to make sure the money had went in and you didn't, so you were also to blame in this. You cannot expect a company to be liable to you for any losses that you might have incurred because they didn't refund you in time, regardless of the fact that neither you nor the company knew that the money had a specific purpose.

What if you had seen a last minute package holiday which cost £4,000 and you were left short of £260, are you suggesting that the mail order company should be liable to pay you £3,740 because the money wasn't in there at the time you expected it?

The other point to note which I haven't even touched on yet is that the mail order company is likely to have certain terms and conditions you signed up to when you purchased the product. I would bank on the company limiting their liability and specifically excluding their liability for any indirect / consequential losses - so you would be scuppered on that too.

[des8]

From a legal point of view I would agree with R0b in that it is very doubtful that you would win a court claim for compensation for the return being delayed
because the company had failed to quote a reference number.

Your only hope would be if they gave a firm date by which the money would be in your account, and that would depend on the exact wording making it a binding contract which is unlikely.

And then as already stated all you would be entitled to would be interest. You could not claim for loss of a bargain not specifically connected to that actual payment.

Sorry not to be more helpful, but in reality all you can do is complain and hope they offer you a nominal sum by way of compensation

OOps crossed with R0b have to learn to type quicker

[Drew32]

So I spoke to them. They won't even pay interest, and told me if I take them on in Court they'll seek to recover 6K of legal costs.

It occurred to me that when I arranged this refund I did tell them on the phone that I had no money for shopping or rent because of this hold up, and that I needed it ASAP. I didn't specifically state I needed it for a bus journey, but I did make them aware that their undue delay meant that I was going to have no money after the date in question when they told me it would hit my account.

Does this change things?

[R0b]

I don't think so because you didn't put them on notice that you needed it for your bus journey home. Again, I think it also comes round to the fact that you are painting this picture that the money was urgent such that you told them you had no money for shopping or rent and it was needed as soon as possible yet you failed to check the account on 1 June. As an outsider, it seems to me that the money was all that urgent otherwise you would have checked on that date - just playing devils advocate here since that is what is likely to happen if you took it to court.

The interest is really probably going to be a small amount. It would be at best 8% per year divide that on a daily basis and you get about 68p per day multiply by four days and you get £2.72. A court is highly unlikely going to allow you to bring a claim for that sum of money unless it is for exceptional reasons and will probably regard it as de minimis i.e. a trifling matter.

I can see your really trying to scrape the barrel here and my suggestion would be not to pursue it. Even though a claim would likely end up on the small claims track (if made that far) where legal fees are not generally recoverable. I would imagine that they would claim unreasonable /vexatious conduct and a case that is either hopeless or de minimis in order to get their legal costs.

[Drew32]

If I had put them on notice it would be different?

[R0b]

Perhaps, but it would have come down to what was the exact words or phrases said in that call or whichever way you discussed it and whether or not you were considered to have relied on those words. That's all academic though now we are all aware you never mentioned it.