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Primo

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Quick question guys, I apologise if this has been addressed before, if an online retailer advertises an item for a certain price and that price is a mistake on their part and the item is purchased and confirmed can they simply reverse the order, credit an account which was debited initially and claim that it was a technical misfunction? Im pretty sure they are liable to provide perfomance as the contract had been concluded.
 
It depends a lot on the business you are dealing with. Most will man up and honour the price they displayed on their sales page, as it can get out of hand quickly with lawyers and such from both sides and how the CPA applies to your situation.

Best option is to give them a call and ask. You may get a pleasant surpirse. As I said, most businesses will honour to what was stated on thir page because they don't want to lose you as a future customer and have you blabing to your friends and family about how stupid they are. In summary; ask them nicely to confirm the price. If not, then well you have a credit there and they owe you.
 
The thing is that this company isnt manning up, they seem to think that as a consumer i do not know my rights as provided in the Consumer Protection Act. Yes the price was advertised wrong but what does this say about a company that doesn't honor their word and fails to even apologise to the customer. They went ahead and cancelled the order without even confirming it with me. I was called after they did it. If im not mistaken, once a contract of sale is concluded there is a duty of payment and a duty of performance to provide goods. Clearly the breach is on the part of the retailer as the good were purchased for the priced advertised. Then there's the rights contained in the consumer protection act.

The Consumer Commission is what is in place for problems like this.

T's and C's are straight forward. The wrongful party is liable
 
And....people make mistakes. How would you like it if you made a mistake and then someone tried to take advantage of it by trying to take action against you? Not nice hey?...

My take, let them know there is a mistake. They would then have probably apologized and offered you a discount or something. By going out placing an order knowing it was a mistake, and then getting upset about something you knew was a mistake in the beginning probably isnt the best way to go about it, and will just end up with upset people both sides.

The CPA does make provision for this, but if it is obvious that it is a mistake, the store is also protected. Common sense prevails here....
 
That happened to me on Kalahari.com once. I bought a whole lot of DVD Box Sets for R1 to R6.
Thought it was a bargain (1000's of rands worth of stuff). They cancelled all of it without saying
a word.

I contacted them to find out what happened, and they blamed their supplier (Silverscreen I think)
for giving them incorrect prices. They also said that they have a clause regarding this in their
T's & C's.

I contacted Silverscreen, and they said they weren't to blame, so I crapped all over Kalahari again.
Eventually I got a R250 "Goodwill" voucher. Better than nothing I suppose.

So, my suggestion: Fight until you get something out of them, even if it's just a small voucher. It
works for the big online stores, but I'm not sure about the smaller ones.
 
MrWireless said:
And....people make mistakes. How would you like it if you made a mistake and then someone tried to take advantage of it by trying to take action against you? Not nice hey?...

My take, let them know there is a mistake. They would then have probably apologized and offered you a discount or something. By going out placing an order knowing it was a mistake, and then getting upset about something you knew was a mistake in the beginning probably isnt the best way to go about it, and will just end up with upset people both sides.

The CPA does make provision for this, but if it is obvious that it is a mistake, the store is also protected. Common sense prevails here....
Click to expand...

Well yes, entirely agree..

And its the one thing thats left out of the OP.... the price differential between the correct price and the error....

In my opinion if its like a 10% difference, then its not entirely obvious.. but if its a R2000 product going for R20 or something, then yes its obvious and the CPA protects the store.
 
maybe the manner in which they handled your situation is what has annoyed you the most, in which case no action speaks louder for a retailer than when you speak with your wallet/purse. If you're that unhappy with the service provided, then simply, dont shop there again.

With regards to the pricing, it's likely an honest mistake - not to bait you, or reel you in, or whatever. If that were the case you'd have a really legitimate 'case' on your hands. Here they are just trying not to lose money because of the mistake, and you are actually saying that because they made a mistake, they should lose money by having 'honour'. It's a lovely concept - but ultimately they are not in business for honour alone.
 
Primo said:
Quick question guys, I apologise if this has been addressed before, if an online retailer advertises an item for a certain price and that price is a mistake on their part and the item is purchased and confirmed can they simply reverse the order, credit an account which was debited initially and claim that it was a technical misfunction? Im pretty sure they are liable to provide perfomance as the contract had been concluded.
Click to expand...

no, they dont have to supply you goods at an incorrect price, the cpa allows a retailer to correct an incorrectly advertised price.
 
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