Has anyone ever been successful in argueing a mispricing?

I bought a coat the other week at Cribbs that was priced wrong. Should have had a 10% off sticker on (like the other coats the same) but had a £10 sticker on!

Took it to the counter thinking they might mention the mis-price and their only comment was along the lines of "that's lucky, got a bargain there" :)
 
PiKe said:
Just wondering, I placed an order for an item which was a fair bit below the price it should have been, about 25% of its real value but not ridiculously low.
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Was it 25% below what the normal retail price would be (i.e. at 3/4 of the usual price) or was it 25% of the normal retail price (i.e. 1/4 of the usual price)? The answer to that question could be significant.

If it was at 3/4 of the usual price then you might just be able to argue that a reasonable man would have not thought anything particularly amiss about the price, if the latter then it is unlikely to be held that any reasonable person would be believe that the pricing was correct and therefore you'll struggle with the claim. As for the money being taken, that's an issue but not necessarily an insurmountable one for them, however without refreshing my knowledge on this area of law I really wouldn't like to guess how they'll deal with it.

mattheman said:
Once i purchased a 24 flat screen monitor for £25 they took the money i then cancelled my card, they had no option but to send me the product, the contract was done. They tried to send me a cheque, i didnt cash it in, it took 2 months to get it, got the help from CAB.
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Just to check, you're telling us that the CAB actually aided you in a case that should never have proceeded and is tantamount to fraud? Legal advice certainly isn't what it once was...
 
semi-pro waster said:
Just to check, you're telling us that the CAB actually aided you in a case that should never have proceeded and is tantamount to fraud? Legal advice certainly isn't what it once was...
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i lost my card reported it to the bank, isnt fraud. they took out the money, once they take the money there is a contract, because they couldnt return the funds onto my card, so they tried to send me a cheque i refused the cheque, product had to be posted to me.

See the issue here is if they return the fees onto your card you have accepted it and there is nothing you can do, with out accepting the refund they have to send you that product.
 
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semi-pro waster said:
Was it 25% below what the normal retail price would be (i.e. at 3/4 of the usual price) or was it 25% of the normal retail price (i.e. 1/4 of the usual price)? The answer to that question could be significant.

If it was at 3/4 of the usual price then you might just be able to argue that a reasonable man would have not thought anything particularly amiss about the price, if the latter then it is unlikely to be held that any reasonable person would be believe that the pricing was correct and therefore you'll struggle with the claim. As for the money being taken, that's an issue but not necessarily an insurmountable one for them, however without refreshing my knowledge on this area of law I really wouldn't like to guess how they'll deal with it.

Just to check, you're telling us that the CAB actually aided you in a case that should never have proceeded and is tantamount to fraud? Legal advice certainly isn't what it once was...
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It's hardly fraud, considering once the money is taken, that constitutes entering into a contract.

The fact that they couldn't get out of the contract by refunding is beside the point really.

Once the retailer has accepted the monies, regardless of if it's lower than their advertised price, they've completed the sale contract and the goods then belong to the purchaser.

Initially they don't HAVE to sell to the customer, same way the customer doesn't HAVE to accept a refund if they don't wish to.

A lot of stores pretend their Ts and Cs trump the law as a lot if not most consumers don't know any better.
 
Not sure about online proceedings, but I've purchased a few things from shops priced incorrectly, or someone has put them on the wrong rack etc.
Not sure of the legal working behind it, but generally if it's advertised at that price, without it being too great a loss for them, they generally sell you as shown.
 
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n1blo said:
Not sure about online proceedings, but I've purchased a few things from shops priced incorrectly, or someone has put them on the wrong rack etc.
Not sure of the legal working it is but if it's advertised at that price, without it being too great a loss for them, they generally sell you as shown.
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its a bit different with internet shopping, example a few years ago with argos, they refunded cards the money back, and the contract was void, if you lose your card they can't refund you the contract remains open..
 
mattheman said:
i lost my card reported it to the bank, isnt fraud. they took out the money, once they take the money there is a contract, because they couldnt return the funds onto my card, so they tried to send me a cheque i refused the cheque, product had to be posted to me.
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I appreciate you trying to tell me what the law is but whether or not you did receive the monitor at the price there is no way that the claim should have proceeded based on the information provided.

At the moment we've got no consensus ad idem since you wanted a monitor at £25 and they quite clearly did not want to sell you a monitor at that price so in essence you've failed at the principle test of whether you were agreeing to the same thing. After that point the rest is almost an irrelevance.

Also I'd be extremely surprised if a court (should it have got to that stage) would have accepted your refusal to accept legitimate refund of the money, it's not a case for land or heritables so there is unlikely to be specific performance ordered. If you got the monitor at that price then I'd suggest the company did so to negate any possible bad publicity than for any reason related to a legal obligation.
 
Once the retailer has accepted the monies, regardless of if it's lower than their advertised price, they've completed the sale contract and the goods then belong to the purchaser.
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depends...some companies will say that a contract has not been formed until the item has been dispatched, not simply taken the monies...
 
kylew said:
It's hardly fraud, considering once the money is taken, that constitutes entering into a contract.

The fact that they couldn't get out of the contract by refunding is beside the point really.

Once the retailer has accepted the monies, regardless of if it's lower than their advertised price, they've completed the sale contract and the goods then belong to the purchaser.

Initially they don't HAVE to sell to the customer, same way the customer doesn't HAVE to accept a refund if they don't wish to.

A lot of stores pretend their Ts and Cs trump the law as a lot if not most consumers don't know any better.
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The system for taking money is frequently automated as I understand it so there's arguably a point about when a contract is formed e.g. when the sale is actually authorised by some desk jockey pressing the button to confirm it to the warehouse as a possible point or at dispatch as another point. I'm not entirely sure of the legalities at the moment as I haven't looked seriously into this area of law for a while but just relying on the argument of money having been exchanged seems a little rash.

My point about fraud is as much because mattheman conveniently "lost" his card at the point where a refund would be made and bought as a price no reasonable person would expect to be honoured.

I quite agree about lots of T&Cs being presented as law which is wrong, I always have a smirk when I read them trying to derogate from personal injury caused by negligence etc as often seems to be the case but without more information we cannot say if that is the case here.
 
Nickg said:
depends...some companies will say that a contract has not been formed until the item has been dispatched, not simply taken the monies...
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I'm not sure they could argue that well in a court. what happens if they're one of these outfits that take money for out of stock items. Do you have a contract or not???
 
kylew said:
Once the retailer has accepted the monies, regardless of if it's lower than their advertised price, they've completed the sale contract and the goods then belong to the purchaser.
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this is wrong however. the most recent case that i can suggest as precedent was when the Argos website had a mistake on it and they were selling 28" TV's for about 1/10th of their value. legally, a retailer has every right to refuse sale even if payment has been made. the contract is not complete until the purchaser takes delivery of the item and the retailer has the full amount of the fee.

even then, contract or otherwise, with the law as it is, retailers are protected from pricing mistakes by law, as explained in post 9
 
Aod said:
this is wrong however. the most recent case that i can suggest as precedent was when the Argos website had a mistake on it and they were selling 28" TV's for about 1/10th of their value. legally, a retailer has every right to refuse sale even if payment has been made. the contract is not complete until the purchaser takes delivery of the item and the retailer has the full amount of the fee.

even then, contract or otherwise, with the law as it is, retailers are protected from pricing mistakes by law, as explained in post 9
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Providing they can get the money back to the customer, if however, for what ever reasons they can't, then it's a completed transaction.
 
Nickg said:
depends...some companies will say that a contract has not been formed until the item has been dispatched, not simply taken the monies...
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they do but is it legal? because some companies try to do that and if the price has gone up they'll card your card again.
ie they have changed the contract after you paid.
 
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i guess it probably is... it comes down to what constitutes a contract and stuff...working in b2b myself its slightly different to consumer law but there is some crossover.
 
Nickg said:
depends...some companies will say that a contract has not been formed until the item has been dispatched, not simply taken the monies...
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A contract is formed at the point of acceptance from both parties on the price, in a shop its from when you take it to the counter and they accept your money, if its a big business thats deals in quotations and sales orders it's from the date you sent the purchase order, I would assume that online it's at the point they accept your order take your money and issue an invoice which online seems to be instantaneous.

Edit scrap that I would assume it's at the point that they deliver the goods, forgot it's not a shop. The price is an invitation to treat so can be changed at any point up until acceptance. Changing their mind after acceptance but before dispatch may well be legally fine though not morally.
 
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mattheman said:
they do but is it legal? because some companies try to do that and if the price has gone up they'll card your card again.
ie they have changed the contract after you paid.
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In which case you can cancel the contract also. It's not just the retailer that can pull out.
 
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