Competitor Advice

The Halk · 30 Dec 2010 at 18:51

Ordered a case from a competitor - usually I don't, I only ordered because OcUK was out of stock and the competitor did free delivery.

It was early on Saturday the 18th. They offered next day delivery for the 20th for an extra tenner. It suited me as it meant I could work on the PC when I had the time off at Christmas.

20th came, no case arrived. 21st and no case. I logged into their system and found it wasn't due for despatch until the 30th. Sent them a webnote saying sorry, but refund the next day delivery or cancel the order. They replied saying they couldn't refund delivery there's problems in Scotland. I replied saying either refund the delivery or cancel the order. They replied again saying they couldn't do it. I replied to that telling them to cancel the order.

25th comes and OcUK have the 5% off, and I decide to have a look to see if they have the case in stock, they do. I order quick sharpish. The competitor hasn't cancelled the order yet. I decide to think **** them I'll raise a PayPal dispute instead, I'm sick mucking about with them. I raise it on the 25th, just after ordering from OcUK and it's sat ignored until today.

Yesterday the case arrived, today I installed everything into it (Fractal Design R3 is great btw) and today I get an email from competitor saying they have despatched the case through Parcelforce.

I'm going to refuse delivery of it when Parcelforce arrive with it.

I'm now thinking that the competitor is going to try to refuse to refund delivery.

Anyone have any advice?

The Halk · 30 Dec 2010 at 18:55

Well, the dispute is on Paypal on the 25th, they can't deny that is what I'm thinking. I'd already asked them 3 times before that to cancel the order.

In my opinion they're too ****ing stupid by half and they should not only pay for delivery but pay me for my time - but there's just no chance of that happening.

I just don't want to end up paying them for a delivery cost that they have incurred.

The Halk · 30 Dec 2010 at 18:58

JBuk said:
Refuse delivery then ask for a full refund inc delviery, if they try to pull a fast one speak to consumer direct

I'm hoping Paypal will find in my favour, but I've never had a dispute including delivery costs on Paypal.

The Halk · 30 Dec 2010 at 19:04

Spawn said:
No need for that so get off that stupid high horse of yours...he has a point, dont order from a competitor...btw you do realise that OCUK do free shipping for forum members dont you??...perhaps next time a bit more patience will get you the results you want

Yes I do, I've used it many times - I've ordered thousands from OcUK. As I explained in the first post I ordered from a competitor because it was out of stock.

Telling me afterwards that I shouldn't have is useless. It doesn't help in the least. It's just obnoxious and rude.

The Halk · 30 Dec 2010 at 19:51

billysielu said:
The distance selling act says you can do whatever the hell you want within 7 days. So feel free to refuse the delivery and request a refund.

Yep, I know they apply... however do they also apply to the original delivery charge? Because that's where I think the inept competitor will try and recoup their losses, and on principle what I don't want to pay.

I know it's only a tenner, but it's their fault.

The Halk · 30 Dec 2010 at 19:56

doofer said:
If the competitor did free delivery as you state in the OP, how will you get charged for Postage?

Like I said in the OP, during the order process they offered next day for an extra tenner, which I paid. They let me book it in for the 20th of December, which really suited me. If they didn't ship it until today and I'd not paid for delivery I'd have no issues.

As far as "I shouldn't have ordered from them" I think it's unreasonable to expect a retailer to ignore 4 requests to cancel, and not something I should have expected. I really don't fell at fault for not ordering from OcUK, and I think anyone who's coming with this "Ha ha you made a mistake!" attitude are being neither helpful nor decent about it.

The Halk · 30 Dec 2010 at 20:03

billysielu said:
Delivery was late - you could have claimed the tenner back anyway.
I've done this before when I paid for delivery and it was late.

They say delivery wasn't late, and claim that I agreed to it when I ordered. Their first reply and second replies to me said I couldn't get the delivery refunded.

I think I'm relying on Paypal making a ruling on it, but I've only dealt with Paypal for fake flash memory before, and there was "free delivery" on that so it didn't come into it.

The Halk · 30 Dec 2010 at 20:19

Castiel said:
How do they justify it not being late if it was 'next day', or was the item not 'in stock' or 'dispatched'.

You may find yourself liable to return postage if you return the item under the 'distance selling' 7 day criteria also, even if you refuse delivery.

Email me their site, My wife is a dab hand at disseminating T&C's

Having looked into your query, I can advise that unfortunately we are not
able to remove the shipping costs on this order.

The reason for this is that 31/12/10 is the next available working day for
our deliveries to Scotland, so your order will be delivered the next
available working day.

I've checked their T&C and they don't mention delivery charges directly, however they do in a round about way. They say that orders returned under distance selling rules get a refund for the goods, the implication I'd take from that is that delivery charges aren't refunded.

"If you refuse the delivery of your order for reasons under the Distance Selling regulations or you fail to take delivery because you have cancelled your contract under the Distance Selling Regulations, ****** will refund or re-credit you within 30 days for any sum that has been paid by you or debited from your credit card for the goods."

To be honest though I don't think there's any merit in trawling through the T&C, since it's clear their interpretation is the one that counts. I think they will refuse to refund me delivery and it'll go to a Paypal decision.

The Halk · 30 Dec 2010 at 20:31

AtreuS said:
How do they respond to the fact that you cancelled well before dispatch? they should never have sent the damn thing in the first place so therefore you are not liable for any charges. The fact that they decided to ignore you and send it anyway is their problem not yours.

They only despatched it today, they haven't spoken to me since. They ignored my 3rd message and they haven't replied to the Paypal dispute. Now that the competitor has incurred a delivery cost I'm thinking that they will refuse to refund me. I figure that if they're dumb enough to not cancel after 4 requests they're going to stick to their guns and refuse a refund... meaning it's up to Paypal.

The Halk · 31 Dec 2010 at 16:04

Castiel said:
People making a big deal outta nowt.

Yeah, that's pretty much it. You took a swipe, i swept back. The mods om nommed a few posts and all was well again.

Parcelforce arrived today and I refused delivery - the guy was fine about it. Surely now shoddy competitor has to notice....

The Halk · 31 Dec 2010 at 16:22

Excellent, I didn't know I was entitled to delivery under distance rules. That helps.

Still up to Paypal I guess, but perhaps shoddy competitor will just refund the whole thing.

The Halk · 31 Dec 2010 at 16:58

SkeeterUK said:
They will probably charge you a restocking fee. I once ordered a psu from a competitor and cancelled as got better from a diff competitior straight away like within a hour or two from order and they charged me £6 for restocking fee the damn xxxxx.

Ah, that is not legal. However what are you supposed to do when you get charged £6. The time it would take to recover it is worth more than £6. You'd have to phone non geo numbers, or get hold of consumer direct...

The Halk · 31 Dec 2010 at 17:07

Well. I'm now certain of my rights. Full refund, including delivery charge. I'm thinking I should just let the Paypal dispute run full course - it has 2 weeks left - and only stop it as soon as I get my full refund including delivery.

I'm also pretty sure that no matter how long it takes, and even if I have to get Consumer Direct in... then there's no room at all for me to impose charges on them. Sadly.

The Halk · 31 Dec 2010 at 17:11

Indeed. It's only reasonable too, due to the weather.

However I booked it for the 20th. They didn't contact me to say it was going to be late, and when I found out it was going to be the 31st I wanted it cancelled or the next day refunded.

I'm not saying it's bad that they couldn't deliver, I'm saying it's bad that they wouldn't cancel the order.

The Halk · 31 Dec 2010 at 17:17

SkeeterUK said:
Yeah.

Damn companies, once they have your money they make it frelling hard to get it back.

The principle matters to me. The tenner doesn't.

What bothers me though is if other people get hit with these restocking fees, and they all have to fight to get it back... and not everybody gets it back, then where's the incentive for companies to do things on the straight and narrow? There needs to be some other kind of way for it to work.

If a company tries something dodgy, and you report it to Consumer Direct there should be some kind of penalty that can be imposed on the company. This would quickly sort things out so that companies would stay away from it.

The Halk · 18 Jan 2011 at 08:21

Well...

Much later and here's what has happened.

Paypal requested the tracking info from the competitor, the competitor supplied it.

The case changed between waiting for me to say I had received it - I didn't so I had nothing to do, to waiting for Paypal, then Paypal again and again.

Meanwhile Parcelforce tracking updates and finally the competitor gets the item back.

PayPal finally make a decision yesterday - They say that I received the item and I need to sort it out with the retailer.

I cannot believe their incompetence.

The Halk · 18 Jan 2011 at 20:33

They replied to my email with a very short response -

I have reviewed the case and can confirm that it was closed in seller's
favour on January 17, 2011 as we have confirmed that the item has been
delivered at your address. As you have received the item, no refund has
been issued.

Grr! I'm going to phone them and try not to explode.

The Halk · 18 Jan 2011 at 21:04

Haha!

I got one from OcUK, and it's great!

I've just got off the phone with the poor people at Paypal who had to suffer my barely restrained bile. Some poor manager guy is now going to write an explanation of what I've said in the hope that when they review things for the third time they spot that it wasn't actually delivered.

At least what this does show is that Paypal don't just mindlessly support the buyer. In this case they've leapt to conclusions.

The Halk · 18 Jan 2011 at 21:17

The money was long gone, and it was done by visa debit. The amount was under £100 anyway (£90) so it's much more difficult to do a charge back.

I'd much rather sort it with Paypal. The card is with the bank I work for, and if I really wanted I'd get someone to do a chargeback on it, but I'd consider that a bit dodgy.

I'm not dealing with the supplier, they were awful.

I now think that it should be impossible for Paypal to make the same mistake for a third time. The manager I got should have left a long "Get it right" message on the file.

The Halk · 21 Jan 2011 at 12:05

So... Paypal haven't responded.

But after getting back to the competitor to ask where the refund they promised is... they got back to say they paid me. I got back to say no you didn't. They got back to say whoops.

And they've refunded me the item price but not the delivery cost.

I'm right in thinking that breaks the DSR?