Patient Direct, misselling of advertising.

[Lola49]

Re: Patient Direct, misselling of advertising.

Can you use that when its business to business? I thought that might be just for consumers and didn't protect business to business dealings?

[Lola49]

Re: Patient Direct, misselling of advertising.

Can you use that when its business to business? I thought that might be just for consumers and didn't protect business to business dealings?

Found the relevant legal protection:
The*Sale of Goods Act 1979*and the*Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982*have not been repealed and still apply to contracts for the sale of goods and the supply of services outside a consumer context (eg private sales and business to business transactions).**The main protection offered covers*where the seller does not have the right to sell the goods,*where the goods are sold by description there is an implied term that the*goods will correspond to that description, businesses must ensure that the goods they sell are of satisfactory quality and fit*for their purpose, where the goods are sold by sample there is an implied term that*the goods will correspond to the sample in quality.*In addition there are implied terms that the service must be carried out with reasonable care*and skill,*that the service will be carried out within a reasonable time*and where no price is agreed a reasonable price will be paid.*These protections are in the form of statutory implied terms. This means that the*Consumer Rights Actor the*Sale of Goods Act*will put these terms into all contracts for the sale of goods no matter what the parties themselves have agreed in the terms and conditions of sale.

[des8]

Re: Patient Direct, misselling of advertising.

Claims for misrepresentation are governed by both the common law and the Misrepresentation Act 1967 (MA 1967) and are applicable to all contracts (B2B or C2B)
The false statement may be made innocently, negligently or fraudulently.
An actionable misrepresentation entitles the innocent party to rescind the contract unless the court determines otherwise, though it may award damages in lieu of rescission. Damages are also available where the misrepresentation has caused the innocent party loss.

[Cubsfan]

Re: Patient Direct, misselling of advertising.

Thank you, that's very helpful

[EXC]

Re: Patient Direct, misselling of advertising.

Just throwing this out there but there are some regulations ''The Business Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations 2008'' that may be relevant.

See Page 4 Paragraph 3 (2) (a) and beyond.

3 Prohibition of advertising which misleads traders

(1) Advertising which is misleading is prohibited.

(2) Advertising is misleading which

(a) in any way, including its presentation, deceives or is likely to deceive the traders to whom it is ad-dressed or whom it reaches; and by reason of its deceptive nature, is likely to affect their economic behaviour...

The question is whether 'presentation' includes what you are told in sales patter.

[Peridot]

Re: Patient Direct, misselling of advertising.

As an aside, I know of other advertising type arrangements on these screen, where although the ad was fine, it was discovered that the screen was rarely even switched on! Very difficult to monitor this other than sitting in the waiting room all day. Do check what obligations the surgery or other place with the screen has to leave it switched on and cycling the ads.

[Lola49]

Re: Patient Direct, misselling of advertising.

Yes Peridot this is my exact experience. It is hard to monitor but evety time I've gone into the surgery the screen is not on ( bar one time).
Also if you've had no business from it this is an indication that its not doing what the seller told me it would.

[Cubsfan]

Re: Patient Direct, misselling of advertising.

The surgery reckon it's all controlled from Patient Direct, that the TVs are on timers and that they only get 5% of the advert revenue

- - - Updated - - -

I have had no business from it in four months

[Lynnzer]

Re: Patient Direct, misselling of advertising.

Thanks I will look into that

Try this. The Australian Federal Court has fined them $230,000 and got an undertaking from them for a change in business practices for much the same sort of stuff that goes on here. The Australian contract was worded exactly the same as in the UK so the changes forced on them by the Federal Court should have been company wide, ie across the rest of the group's entities.
As a Federal court in Australia has a much higher status than a UK County Court the case law would be more or less enough to kill any claim over here. The burden of proof in a criminal court is also far heavier than the more lax "balance of probabilities" that is applied in a civil court so must be not only persuasive to a UK court but I suggest would be the end of the road for any UK court action they take. Australian case law would be allowed here.

The write up, perhaps on the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) or another site somewhere that speaks of the case, says that the Directors admitted to the failings of the contract. That being so they did nothing to change it over here where the same failings are apparent.

https://www.accc.gov.au/media-releas...ties-of-230000

[weneedtotalk]

We have a 2 year contract with this company Patient Direct aka Direct Digital in a surgery - recently we discovered that their system hadn't been operative for near to 2 mths - we hadn't been informed by them - in fact we informed them!! (they did know about the loss of service because the surgery had already informed them!!) and told them that we considered this a breach of contract - they responded by referring us to the contract which states that any temporary?? downtime will be added at the end of the contract - however surely we needed to informed and this wasn't temporary in the true sense of the word? My suspicion is that they had no intention of informing us. Now we have stopped direct debits for 3 months and planned to restart them for the 6 remaining months of the contract. The company has said we can only do this if we pay the final 6 months as a lump sum in advance. They have threatened legal action if we don't accept this offer. If we did this and there was another failure of service we would have no recourse so we are considering offering to pay in two instalments with the final one at the end of the contract - I would appreciate advice - surely our offer is generous given the circumstances? I would prefer to walk away totally from this contract given their behaviour but would rather avoid court proceedings hence my offer to them which I imagine may well be rejected

[Lynnzer]

We have a 2 year contract with this company Patient Direct aka Direct Digital in a surgery - recently we discovered that their system hadn't been operative for near to 2 mths - we hadn't been informed by them - in fact we informed them!! (they did know about the loss of service because the surgery had already informed them!!) and told them that we considered this a breach of contract - they responded by referring us to the contract which states that any temporary?? downtime will be added at the end of the contract - however surely we needed to informed and this wasn't temporary in the true sense of the word? My suspicion is that they had no intention of informing us. Now we have stopped direct debits for 3 months and planned to restart them for the 6 remaining months of the contract. The company has said we can only do this if we pay the final 6 months as a lump sum in advance. They have threatened legal action if we don't accept this offer. If we did this and there was another failure of service we would have no recourse so we are considering offering to pay in two instalments with the final one at the end of the contract - I would appreciate advice - surely our offer is generous given the circumstances? I would prefer to walk away totally from this contract given their behaviour but would rather avoid court proceedings hence my offer to them which I imagine may well be rejected

They will probably take legal action but only for a frightener. We got hit with a claim for 10 and a half grand. They didn't pay the final court hearing fee though so it was struck out.
I did have a good defence put together which must have shaken them into not progressing the case.
I'm going to update my own site at this link so that all the relevant facts are shown for others to act on. However the fact is that any temporary downtime cannot be automatically applied in circumstances such as these. They will have no control on when the TV screens are switched on. That's entirely down to the location management people, ie the surgery receptionist or whoever. PD will say that they can prove that the stream was live but so what? It's no damn use unless the tv is switched on. I believe you had good reason to cancel the direct debit and void the contract. They have failed to deliver the goods and haven't informed you of the downtime which they say they could add on at the end of the contract. Oh, by the way, have you even cancelled the automatic rollover of contract yet? It'll roll on for another year if not, without any cancellation rights as well. SO, what now? I would get as much confirmation as you can from the surgery as to how often the screen was not switched on for a starter. Ask the practice manager. Email or written letter so it can go on record.You cannot possibly know how often the screens were off, nor will PD know. Ask them (PD) to give you the dates of non screening. Do it all by email so you can present it as part of a defence if needed. They will probably ignore it, or tell you the same thing again about rolling over the downtime. Word everything on the basis of tieing them up with questions that will elicit a loaded response. Now, I was lucky inasmuch that the hospitals were obliged to give answers from the FOI about the screens being on or off, and the answer was that there was no record. So my options became very clear. I was also in contact with someone else who uses PD for their advertising and he did visit the locations of the screens several times. Sometimes they were switched on and sometimes not. He took video footage of the being off, and in fact I know he visited one location where the screen was on but he had a Samsung TV app on his mobile so he switched it off then walked in again and took the video with the screen off. There's more than one way to cook a goose........ The one thing I had in mind when I made a damned long and particularly detailed defence was that they say in the terms and conditions that the legal cases will be heard at Blackpool where they are located. Most cases will automatically go to your local court though but I do know that they put in a request to Teesside Court to have the case moved to Blackpool. If it had been, and of course if they didn't bottle out in the meantime, I would have asked the court to consider the case on the submitted papers in my absence. The minutiae of detail would have to be read and considered by the court. All of it, not just pointed questions form the judge who may have skimmed the case over pre-hearing. Given that POD seems not to know how to make a valid and satisfactory case anyway I believe this would be the best option.. Anyway, for now I'd start a trail of correspondence with them to draw out answers you will need for a defence if it does go legal. Visit my website at the Index link below where I've put together a basis for most situations.

[Lynnzer]

This is not an addition to my last post BUT it's something you could potentially use for your good, or at least to throw some disdain or alarm into the fray against the places which have contracted to show the adverts. If screens are not https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1999/31/contents on, and you can prove it, and potentially are off a good percentage of the time, then you could write to the surgery practice manager/hospital administrator etc and warn them of their own contractual breach with PD that gives you the right to invoke the Contracts(Rights of third parties ) Act 1999. It may well give them reason to cancel or not renew the contract with PD at the very least.

[faisal]

Can anyone help me, the previous director to my company signed up with Patient Direct around November 2016 for a 2 year advertising contract, around 9 months into the contract, we checked all 3 advertising sites regularly and noticed that the boards were constantly off, we monitored it for over 12 weeks then cancelled the DD payment. We emailed the company stating the reasons and also told them that we wish to no longer deal with them and want to cancel the contract. The company has randomly chased for payment and now stating that the contract has auto renewed as i didn't send a recorded delivery within 6 months of end date, and as such has rolled over another year and now that that its only 3 months for the next auto renewal, its going to roll over again for another year. This 2 year contract is working out to be 4 years now. This is a scandal! Can someone please check over this contract and see if it is enforceable or not?

1. The company number is missing from the contract.
2. At the bottom of page 1, it states that any alternation to this agreement must be signed by both parties. The contract was altered to allow a monopoly situation so that another local nursery "Busy Bees' cannot advertise, but this was only signed by the sale rep.

Any help will be appreciated.

[Amethyst]

Do you have that email you sent saying why you cancelled the DD ? When was it sent and did it say that you were cancelling ? If sent before the end of the first contract period but within 6 months then it should have at least carried forward to the next 'auto renewed' contract and apply as over six months notice on that.

Ill have a look at the contract.

[Amethyst]

Ok def need date and content of the email sent xx

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