I bought some shelving online for £1,000 and now the firm says there was a price glitch on the website.
It has offered either to refund me or I have to pay the discrepancy, which is £800, before it will send the shelves. What am I entitled to do?
J.W., London.
Dean Dunham replies: There is a common myth that if a retailer advertises goods at the wrong price, consumers are legally entitled to buy at that price once they have pressed the ‘buy now’ button or taken the item to the till.
Although this may sound logical, the law does not see it this way — and unlike with most situations with consumers, the Consumer Rights Act 2015 does not come to the rescue.
Too good to be true? A reader thinks they’ve bagged a bargain set of shelves thanks to an online price glitch
There are some occasions when a consumer can hold a retailer to a mistaken price tag but it all depends on whether a contract has been formed.
If an item is priced incorrectly in a shop, then the retailer can refuse to sell it to you at the till and withdraw the product from sale at the wrong price.
This is because at this point there is no contract: this would only be formed when you have actually paid for the item and left the shop.
If the item is priced incorrectly online, the position is slightly different, as it is likely that you will have committed to the purchase and actually paid for it.
However, as these mistakes are fairly common, most online traders have a provision in their terms and conditions that is commonly known as ‘invitation to treat’.
The effect is that when items are displayed for sale online, the trader is ‘inviting’ consumers to offer to purchase — which you do by pressing the ‘buy now’ button, followed by making the payment.
However, for the contract to be formed, the retailer must ‘accept’ the order — and this is where most cover themselves in their terms and conditions.
These will often say they do not ‘accept’ the order until the point at which the goods are actually dispatched.
So prior to shipment, the retailer is entitled to cancel your order and provide a refund — here, to correct a pricing error — as no contract will have been formed.
If you’ve paid the wrong price for goods and actually left the shop, or have received them after an online purchase, a contract will have been formed.
As a general rule, once a contract has been formed between the consumer and a retailer, it is often very difficult for the retailer to cancel the order, even when they become aware that there is a pricing error.
Even so, a retailer can cancel an order if it can be proven that it was realistically expected that the consumer should have noticed that the pricing on the product was a mistake, and this was a genuine error.
Here, the pricing error is significant, and in my view the retailer will be able to claim it should have been ‘obvious’ and therefore demand the difference is paid or the transaction reversed.
Who pays for gardener’s error?
Our gardener has dug up well-established shrubs I didn’t ask him to remove and I’m hopping mad.
I want the cost of replacement taken out of his weekly wage, but my husband says he is not obliged to pay for his mistake. Who is right?
B.R., via email.
Dean Dunham replies: It depends on the status of your gardener. If he’s an ‘employee’, the general rule is that an employer cannot deduct such money from wages and if it does then it will be classed as unlawful under a law known as the Employment Rights Act 1996.
If it is a more casual arrangement, the position is very different and the Consumer Rights Act 2015 will apply. It says that services, such as gardening, must be provided with ‘reasonable care and skill’.
Where this is breached, which it would be here, the consumer is entitled to a remedy. You could therefore legitimately deduct the appropriate amount to cover the replacement cost of the shrubs.
- Write to Dean Dunham, Money Mail, Scottish Daily Mail, 20 Waterloo Street, Glasgow G2 6DB or email d.dunham@dailymail.co.uk. No legal responsibility can be accepted by the Daily Mail for answers given.
