Can a company change their T&C without directly informing the customer

Say a company - lets call them Woedacom - change their T&C without directly informing their customers or are they in violation of Part G of the CPA?

For example if Woedacom had the following into their T&C "Woedacom has the right to change or modify these Terms and Conditions at any time without notice. The obligation therefore is on you to review these Terms and Conditions at regular intervals."

Yes, if it explicitly states so in the original contract that you signed. They may then make changes at their discretion without notification to you. However they cannot fundamentally change the Ts and Cs to change how the contract favours each party. If they change it to favour them more than you, the contract automatically becomes null and void - you are no longer bound by it. So they have to tread a fine line...

bwana said:

Say a company - lets call them Woedacom - change their T&C without directly informing their customers or are they in violation of Part G of the CPA?

For example if Woedacom had the following into their T&C "Woedacom has the right to change or modify these Terms and Conditions at any time without notice. The obligation therefore is on you to review these Terms and Conditions at regular intervals."

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No, clauses which permit a supplier to unilaterally alter the terms of an agreement are illegal in terms of S. 44(3)(i) of the cpa regulations, except where the agreement is "open ended" in which case S. 44(4)(c)(iv) applies, where Woedacom, must inform the consumer forthwith, and the consumer has the right to immediately terminate the agreement.

There are also plenty of other clauses in the CPA which these contracts violate, like the "must be fair, reasonable and just" clauses, and the "defeat the purposes and policies of the act" clauses, but the ugly truth is that Woedecom doesn't care for consumer protection legislation because they've got an army of lawyers on staff specifically to frustrate the efforts of the various consumer protection regulators, thus allowing them to continue to abuse the consumer.

Welcome to Africa. No lube for you. You want to get your protest noticed: burn something down.

Vote with your wallets, folks.

Don't be brand-loyal, be wallet-loyal.

Your wallet will thank you for it.

Drunkard #1 said:

No, clauses which permit a supplier to unilaterally alter the terms of an agreement are illegal in terms of S. 44(3)(i) of the cpa regulations, except where the agreement is "open ended" in which case S. 44(4)(c)(iv) applies, where Woedacom, must inform the consumer forthwith, and the consumer has the right to immediately terminate the agreement.

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Does this not apply to renewals only? They have to inform a customer of an impending end of contract and offer a renewal - they may not alter the agreement in terms of duration without explicit customer agreement. If it applies across the board to absolutely every single aspect of the Ts and Cs then that's brilliant. I wasn't aware of this...

and the consumer has the right to immediately terminate the agreement.

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It has been my understanding that the customer may terminate the agreement with immediate affect if an agreement is unilaterally changed to favour the service provider. I wasn't aware it extended itself to notifications too...

Need some clarity here...

DJ... said:

Does this not apply to renewals only? They have to inform a customer of an impending end of contract and offer a renewal - they may not alter the agreement in terms of duration without explicit customer agreement. If it applies across the board to absolutely every single aspect of the Ts and Cs then that's brilliant. I wasn't aware of this...

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It applies to all agreements. S. 120(d) of the CPA specifically provides for these regulations, which were gazetted on 1 April 2011. I don't see why they shouldn't apply.

DJ... said:

It has been my understanding that the customer may terminate the agreement with immediate affect if an agreement is unilaterally changed to favour the service provider. I wasn't aware it extended itself to notifications too...

Need some clarity here...

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Read the regulations. There is no case law, so for now, it's clear as mud.

it's also a common law principle. if they change the terms of the contract such that you would not have reasonably entered into the contract under those terms, then you have a case. if it is a contract that falls into pre-cpa, the question of whether it is worthwhile following legal recourse comes into play.