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The ongoing saga of the Thomas Pink shirt (and an offer to charity)
Sorry for the longer blog post but I hope some of you will be interested in the following...
Browsing the web for a new work shirt in the January sales I spotted a Green and Blue Carabin Stripe shirt on the Thomas Pink website. It should have been reduced from £85 down to £39 but, due to an internet typo, the shirt was incorrectly advertised as £0.00. Clearly it was a mistake and when I went through to the order screen the correct price was displayed, so being the good humoured type of chap I am I emailed Thomas Pink with a screenshot letting them know I had spotted the error. I dually received a very polite reply informing me that the price I discovered had been labelled incorrectly and had since been rectified, and thanking me for taking the time to bring the issue to their attention.
I mentioned the incident to a number of friends who all were of the opinion that Thomas Pink were obliged to give me the shirt at the price I saw it advertised at. I should immediately point out that I disagree with this view point, but I was intrigued about the correct legal position. What is a trader obliged to do in such a situation? Is there a medium?
Egged on, I checked a number of consumer advice forums and websites but found they were unhelpful and, for the most part, were little more then a collection of unsubstantiated opinions and hardly any sustainable advice. I therefore checked the guidelines offered by the "Department for Business Enterprise & Regulatory Reform". They have a Pricing Practices Guide which offers guidance to traders on good practice in giving information about prices (Whilst it’s an interesting document I won’t regurgitate it all here. If you want to read it you can visit: http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file46254.pdf)
Basically there is the thinest chance that my friends are right. Part 2.1.1 lends itself to the situation: Thomas Pink gave misleading information about the cost of the Green and Blue Carabin shirt, and this would be likely to cause the consumer (me) to take a different transactional decision (i.e to buy the Green and Blue shirt rather then continue to search for the one I really wanted!). Part 2.1.2 logically follows that when I took the decision to buy and click on the ‘add to bag’ button, I was then advised of a higher price at the checkout.
Of course, this is all a matter of interpretation but it does highlight how convulated guidelines on such situations actually are. For this reason I’m pursuing the matter further. I’ve dropped an email to Thomas Pink with my research and they have promised me that they are looking into the matter and will ensure a full response is sent as soon as it has been investigated.
You understand this is a matter of establishing principle and I’m not actually bothered about the shirt. For this reason I make the following commitment: If Thomas Pink find that my friends are right and give me the shirt at the original advertised price, I will auction it off on ebay for charity (I’ll ask for a neutral collar size and not my massive 18” neck size!).
Unless anyone has a better idea I plan to set the minimum price at the correct sale price (£39) and see what happens. I’ll hand over whatever money is raised to the chosen charity and if it doesn’t sell on ebay I’ll hand it over to a charity shop and ensure there’s an audit trail everyone can follow online.
I’ll keep this blog updated with any developments, but I’d welcome some thoughts on the correct charity for such a venture. Any suggestions?
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Invitation to treat
A contract is made when an offer is accepted and consideration is passed. An advertised price is merely a so-called 'invitation to treat' and not an offer. Legally the offer is made by the buyer, not the seller, so since there is no contract, there's no obligation on the seller to stick to any advertised price. Some do in this situation, which is mostly about saving face and not pissing customers off. Or so said my legal training about 20 years ago.
Snap
Was just about to try to explain this myself - excellently done Occam
I struggled in vain...
to explain what you did so brilliantly.
Fisher vs. Bell
if I remember correctly? And Wiki says i do
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher_v_Bell
Thirded
Occam puts it beautifully, glad he got there before me!
Fisher v Bell indeed
Gotta love the cases that built contract and tort law - Fisher with flick knives, Donaghue v Stevenson with the old snail in a beer bottle and the bizarre flu remedy in Carlill vs Carbolic Smoke Ball Co.
Well worth mugging up on.
Thanks awfully for the kind comments btw - more often my contributions kill a thread stone dead!
That
is true,, as a retailer of over 35 years *cough* experience they have no obligation to sell the goods at the price advertised.
Now...
...about my boiler.
Pretty to look at
Nice to hold
But if you break it
Then it's sold.
Strictly speaking
if you break something, you would be obliged to make good the loss to the owner. That should only be the shops purchase price and not the sale price.
Dare you to try it.....
I might just try that.
In fact, the next time I see that particular sign in a shop, I'm going to take it off the wall, rip it up and see what they do.
Alternative version
At what stage in buying a meal in a restaurant are you obliged to pay for it (assuming there's nothing wrong with it)?
When you order? When it's brought to your table? When you start eating it?
I think
Once you start eating it you are obliged to pay something. But (Fisher v Bell) you don't have to pay the menu price if you don't think it's worth it - you can offer a lower price, give your contact details and leave, and see if they sue you. Requires some cojones though.
I saw this in the window...
...of a knife shop -
"Pretty to look at,
nice to hold,
stab someone with it,
consider it sold"
It all started here (or thereabouts)
Self selection being an offer and the checkout being the acceptance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmaceutical_Society_of_Great_Britain_v_B...
Online, many retailers will accept your offer when they ship thus allowing themselves the ability to reject your offer even though you may have confirmation by email.
I love case law!
I work with immigration case law in my job and nearly always find a logical answer to an operational problem (though it may take a while to find it!).
It's interesting stuff, all the more so here because the establishing laws come from the 50's and 60's but are still just as valid in this modern virtual global superhighway of a world.
As I said in my original post, I don't THINK I'm entitled to anything at all, but I'm interested in why and I assume that the retailer should know the correct answer.
It's interesting that Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain V Boots establishes the idea of "invitation to treat" but doesn't deal with denial of the opportunity to make an offer. In the case of the Thomas Pink shirt I was denied the opportunity to capitalise on the Invitation to Treat which surely can't be right? To extend that idea further, Regulation 5(4)(g) of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (CPRs) prohibits traders from misleading consumers about the price of a product, or the manner in which the price is calculated.
I assume this is where the murkiness creeps in, and where people usually go running to trading standards.
Any views?
Misleading
would suggest a certain deliberateness whereas Thomas Pink clearly made a mistake. The principle is that they do not have to sell it to you if they don't want to (although it may leave them with a disgruntled customer who tells 10 friends of his experience etc.)
Contract law deals with the enforcability of the contract - i.e. are they in breach if they do not provide you with the product. In your case, there is no contract so they are not in breach.
I think (but am not completely sure because I haven't read the Regulation and its very late) that the regulations exist to provide a route for the authorities to fine or punish retailers for misleading or unfair practices. You can report the retailer but you'd still have to sue for damages if you felt you had suffered a loss from whatever the misleading practice was.
Errors & Omissions Excepted
Doesn't the inclusion of the legend 'E&OE' in an advert cover the situation where it's clearly a mistake?
There's no obligation to accept an offer
Even if you were able to make one. It would be rare for a mistake to be construed as having an intention to mislead.
I'd go as far as to say that
Intent requires deliberateness. Therefore a mistake cannot be made with intent.
I was going to posit the word 'deliberacy', but feared for my future dental well being if I did so.
Happy New Year, Archie!
Refunds
Are another minefield; with people all having different opinions regarding the law.
IMHO Thomas Pink are right
but they *could* have slipped you a reward for your observation and for saving further embarrassment if, say, the Daily Mail had picked up on the story.
Mrs Beany recently ordered sone goods from QVC and they sent her double for the price of one. When she informed them and offered to return they said she could keep for her honesty.
Lets see what happens if we tell The Word chaps of any factual/typo errors in the next issue. Free record tokens you reckon?
Tell you what though
I needed some collar bones and nipped into Pink's who gave me a nice little envelope with half a dozen in for freemans. Very pleasant too. I shall return and buy something.
HOLD ON A MINUTE!!!
A PINK SHIRT!!!!!
PINK!!!
WTF?
Carl Purkins wrote...
"Is there a medium?" No, they only had large and extra large left. Bdm tsh!
Thank you. I'll be here all week, etc.