No idea how to play this one – we have just taken delivery of a new washer/dryer from Dixons Online. We bought it from them based on the description given and price – they sold it as having the following functions:

LED display
30 minute quick wash
Delay timer

I got it plumbed in yesterday whilst my wife was at work but when she got home she noticed it had none of them (most importantly the delay timer as it is something we use daily).

I called the manufacturer and they confirmed it didn’t have one so I called Dixons. Unfortunately the call had to be cut short as my sick daughter was throwing up, but as we had left it, they were offering either a refund or 10% off the alternative washing machine of our choice. The problem is that the only alternative worth considering (based on their own reviews online) is £280 more than we paid for ours (£380). Now the £380 was a special offer (it is normally £530) so we assumed we were buying a pretty well-featured unit at a special discount price.

I feel really aggrieved as the product was massively mis-represented but think their offer of 10% off a full price alternative is a bit rubbish.

Of course I could tell them to come and collect it and go hunting around to find a suitable alternative elsewhere (at a better price) but that would potentially leave us without a machine during the cross-over time.

So basically I have no idea how to play this and would welcome suggestions as well as any legal rights that I may have that you think I should know about.

My really shit week is going from shit to shittier.

off top of my head, you made a contract, it is an implied term of the contract that the goods will be as described you are entitled to receive from them a washer/dryer that has the features they said it would have at the price you agreed . in legal terms specific performance , it is irrelevent that they will lose money on the deal if they made a bad bargin they have to stick to it.

Sale of Goods Act contains the law . Some one more up to date and better informed will be along to post shortly.

Refund then surely? Can’t complain about that..?

do you have evidence of the description?

The retailers maximum liability is the cost of the machine so you canot expect a better specced one for the cost of the one you got really.

Full refund and start again

You’re entitled to your money back. The 10% offer is above and beyond what they have to do.

Pulling your face because there’s nothing else on offer at the moment is a little churlish, I’m not quite sure what else you expect? They’ve made a mistake and are now making good on it.

Yes I have saved the description from their website.

The thing that annoys most is that I took a day out of the office to take delivery so now I will have to go through all that again.

Surely there must be more liability than just saying ‘we got it wrong’ though? The entire product is coneyely different from their description, not just one feature that they accidentally clicked ‘yes’ on in the back-end CMS

Crankboys response is along the lines I was thinking though – clutching at straws probably but I gotta try.

Dixons need to supply you the deal they advertised, even if it was an error.

Phone up and be super nice, explain this repeatedly until they agree, they will.

Get refund, then do what we’ve just done and get a Bosch with cash back and free 4 year warranty from John Lewis.

MF – nope – the got it wrong and will have to refund – they offered you 10% off another one as a goodwill gesture.

You could try to make a claim for incidental losses but its not likely to succeed.

“(most importantly the delay timer as it is something we use daily)”

Not the best solution but couldnt you just put one of those timer socket things on the wall? Or is it a modern new fangled thing that wouldnt stay on a programme unless its switched on?

Dixons need to supply you the deal they advertised, even if it was an error.

No they don’t, a full refund is all they have to do and they’ve offered that…

Phone up and be super nice, explain this repeatedly until they agree, they will.

…although that might well work, being really nice but very persistent can often get good results. Far better done in person if possible.

from sale of goods act
“13 Sale by description.(1)Where there is a contract for the sale of goods by description, there is an implied term that the goods will correspond with the description.”

The remedy for breach of contract is to put the claimant in the position he would have been in if the contract had been preformed properly i.e in this case in possession of a new washer dryer with these functions
LED display
30 minute quick wash
Delay timer
For which he will pay the contractually agreed price . The fact that Dixons have messed up and may even lose out on the contract does not absolve them of their contractual obligation .

It is not a simple full refund case .

This opinion is based on doing really well at consumer law 26 years ago and a scan reading of some easy to locate info. I’m more than happy to be told I’m wrong but would like to know why I’m wrong.

I’m more than happy to be told I’m wrong but would like to know I’m wrong.

Don’t worry, TJ will be back after lunch to help you with the first part of that 🙂

crankboy – but if the item was on the invoice as an specific make and model number and that was what Dixons delivered then they are guilty of getting the description wrong, not of delivering the wrong thing?

As waswas says I think

the maximum liability is also the cost of the machine – so they apologise for the wrong description and refund the price. MF is no worse off than when before he bought it.

Dixons need to supply you the deal they advertised, even if it was an error.

Not true im afraid. often people think this is the case – you see something advertised and the retailer HAS to sell it to them, is indeed nonsense as they don’t have to sell you anything.

it is called an invitation to treat and not a contractual obligation.

to the OP, get a refund and start again, maybe push for compensation for having to use a laundrette but I suspect they wont play ball

wwaswas they sold it by description with those features that’s what they have to supply it’s not the purchasers responsibility to check that the seller got the description correct. The Description is a material term of the contract and is legally binding on the seller

true crankboy – but under soga the maximum recompense is the cost of the machine is it not.

wwaswas they sold it by description with those features that’s what they have to supply it’s not the purchasers responsibility to check that the seller got the description correct. The Description is a material term of the contract and is legally binding on the seller

whilst they are obliged to supply what they described, I suspect (and IANAL) that their maximum liability in doing so is to cancel the contract and refund the money. if you took them to court you could claim ‘loss of a deal’ in damages, but I’m not sure you’d get anywhere

crankboy – Member
wwaswas they sold it by description with those features that’s what they have to supply it’s not the purchasers responsibility to check that the seller got the description correct. The Description is a material term of the contract and is legally binding on the seller

I’ll bet that the invoice/receipt/contract states that they are selling the OP a particular model/brand of washing machine, not ‘a washing machine with these features’. They delivered to that contract. Where they failed was in their description of the features the model had.

I don’t know – my pension doesn’t look like it’ll be what i was told it was going to be. God forbid that I find myself using an iPhone or drinking coffee

God this is now a seminar .
“Not true i’m afraid. often people think this is the case – you see something advertised and the retailer HAS to sell it to them, is indeed nonsense as they don’t have to sell you anything.

it is called an invitation to treat and not a contractual obligation. “

This is wrong . This argument of Highclimers turns around the existence of the contract not it’s terms.

The advert was an invitation to treat not a commitment to sell .
mastiles_fanylion’s sending off for the machine was an offer to contract on the terms of that invitation to treat .
Dixon’s taking of his cash was their acceptance off MF’s offer to buy on their original terms and a commitment to supply the goods as described.
So we have offer acceptance valuable consideration flowing both ways and therefor quad erat demonstrandum a binding contact to which MF is entitled to specific performance .

The law does not care whether it was a good bargain or a bad one just that it is a binding one.

TJ’s point that suppliers liability is limited to the cost of the item needs to be founded on some authority either in the contract terms or statute law that i don’t know of or he is wrong.
.

Its in soga I believe restitution is normally repair / replace / refund. incidental loses are hard to show and claim for but possible so his extra day off work could be an incidental loss. Teh supplier cannot supply a machine that matches the description so teh contract is void adnMF gets his money back

there is only a small bit about descriptions in here.

its certainly a breach of the contract to sell something with the wrong description

Maybe MF could go after them under contract law for recompense beyond the losses incured

http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file25486.pdf

Other situations covered
The remedies of repair, replacement, partial
refund and full refund are also available to
consumers:
Pwhere installation by the retailer is not
satisfactory;
P where installation instructions have
serious shortcomings;
P generally where a good does not match
the public statements made about it by
the retailer, manufacturer, importer or
producer; and

The advert was an invitation to treat not a commitment to sell .

this is what I was referring to. not the fact that Dixons had failed to supply what they had AGREED to. I was speaking in general terms when people insist on a retailer to sell them something they have advertised at a price they didn’t intend to sell at.

TJ ” but under soga the maximum recompense is the cost of the machine is it not” not as i read it . This is the specific provision for Scots law:-
“Where the seller’s breach consists of the delivery of goods which are not of the quality required by the contract and the buyer retains the goods, such loss as aforesaid is prima facie the difference between the value of the goods at the time of delivery to the buyer and the value they would have had if they had fulfilled the contract.”

Which as i read it basically ensure the Scots law on saga dovetails with the general English principle . I can find no limitation on liability to the contract price in the act nor can i think of a reason in principle why there should be one.
“Measure of damages
This is the method for calculating the damages to which the innocent party is entitled. It covers loss of bargain or expectation loss. The usual aim of the court is to put the innocent party in the position he would have been in had the contract been properly performed (Robinson v Harman [1848] 18 LJ Ex 202). The two usual methods of assessing this are difference in value or cost of cure”

refund as offered, then get ye to john lewis and buy one of their own brand ones – loads more features for your money.

Dave

In practice, surely the shop will simply say

“Here’s the signed contract for the Acme 123 machine you ordered, as you can see this is its documented feature list.
Unfortunately, there seems to have been a misunderstanding between what you thought the features were and the actual fact of the matter.
We’re sorry about this misunderstanding, here’s a refund and a 10% voucher”

“Here’s the signed contract for the Acme 123 machine you ordered, as you can see this is its documented feature list.
Unfortunately, there seems to have been a misunderstanding between what you thought the features were and the actual fact of the matter.
We’re sorry about this misunderstanding, here’s a refund and a 10% voucher”
In practice and law the point is simple if the source of the misunderstanding is Dixons advert then it is them that loses out not the customer they misled .

Fair enough crankboy.

So do you think I will be out if luck asking for a £1200 Neff as a replacement? 😉

Update:

They wouldn’t give me a swap for a machine with the features we expected then said that, because we had used it, we had actually contractually accepted it. I pointed out that some of the features they claimed it had wouldn’t actually be apparent until I used it (ie, the ‘Quick Wash’ taking an hour rather than the 1/2 hour they claimed and, to an extent, it not having a function to delay the start.

Eventually they accepted they were wrong and are refunding the purchase price and offered 20% off another machine. (Which I am not taking them up on as I have now bought the machine with the features we want for less than their price with the discount.

Poor bloke on the phone – it was only his second day! LOL!