Help! M&S won’t refund, on live chat

[ComputerIsSayingNo]

On live chat, did a big order for M&S for DH’s birthday. Present and clothes to wear. Ordered on the 9th and paid extra for next day delivery. This was presented as the 11th as the 10th was a Sunday. Didn’t arrive yesterday and checked today to see they have put delivery as the 19th. I wouldn’t have selected this date and don’t know where the error is.

Asked for them to send for tomorrow, said no. Asked to cancel and refund my order so I can reorder for tomorrow, said I am not allowed to cancel the order or ask for a refund. Even though it hasn’t been dispatched and won’t be a for a week!

i have siad distance selling allows me to cancel according to government but they are still saying I am only allowed to cancel 30mins after the order.

Well the referring me to Mrs Brady is just delightful 😂

This sort of thing is why I always take a screen shot of the order confirmation page with the cost, the item(s) and any delivery info. I have needed it on a couple of occasions.

I would just wait for the late delivery, presumably you still want the items you ordered or are they things for a party, which are no use once the date has passed?

But did you ask for the number of the complaints department at Head Office or did you just allow customer services to fob you off?

Omg. Really just listen.

Your right to cancel is not a right to cancel the dispatch. Some companies may choose to do that but a whole lot more will not as their systems simply aren’t set up for it, but it doesn’t matter because they are not breaking the law. Your right to cancel is covered by them allowing you to return the goods once you have received them.

You cannot cancel the order before it is dispatched if they are telling you that they don’t allow that. Your right are not being affected. They are not breaking consumer law because they’re policy allows you to return the items once you have them.

Placing an order and paying doesn’t create the contract, then dispatching the order does. They write that term in simply so they can cancel an order if they run out of stock or something and you can’t claim you had a contract. The contract is only accepted by them once they dispatch. That doesn’t affect your situation, it was just a little extra info I was giving you.

But in summary; you have no legal right to cancel the dispatch. They don’t have to cancel it for you. You do have a legal right to candle your contract with them by returning the goods once you have them. Really, just stop now. You’re wrong and you’re not going to get what you want.

I think that the fact that you made a mistake with the order date is a bit of a red herring. Even if you actually wanted the goods delivered on 19th but had now changed your mind you have the right to cancel under the Consumer Contracts regs.

Which has a template for this. I'd send it direct to Nick Folland, M&S General Counsel, along with a complaint.

Itslegitimatesalvage · Today 13:48

Omg. Really just listen.

Your right to cancel is not a right to cancel the dispatch. Some companies may choose to do that but a whole lot more will not as their systems simply aren’t set up for it, but it doesn’t matter because they are not breaking the law. Your right to cancel is covered by them allowing you to return the goods once you have received them.

You cannot cancel the order before it is dispatched if they are telling you that they don’t allow that. Your right are not being affected. They are not breaking consumer law because they’re policy allows you to return the items once you have them.

Placing an order and paying doesn’t create the contract, then dispatching the order does. They write that term in simply so they can cancel an order if they run out of stock or something and you can’t claim you had a contract. The contract is only accepted by them once they dispatch. That doesn’t affect your situation, it was just a little extra info I was giving you.

But in summary; you have no legal right to cancel the dispatch. They don’t have to cancel it for you. You do have a legal right to candle your contract with them by returning the goods once you have them. Really, just stop now. You’re wrong and you’re not going to get what you want.

Perfect !

Sadly I think it has now become about a sparkly top someone wanted to wear, rather than it's very possible the incorrect delivery date was entered in the first place.

Summarising the learning points:

1. Double check the dates you're entering, and review any small print on the website, and confirmation emails received.
2. Don't believe companies when they say next day delivery if it's for something critically important to you.
3. Be more organised and order earlier, especially around the busiest times of the year.
4. Understand you can't cancel until it's been shipped (and sometimes delivered), and then you can request a refund.
5. A refund will take a while to process and hit your bank (depending on the company). A chargeback will take even longer, typically over a month.

That is actually excellent customer service. Your DD was the customer and they really didn't have to communicate with you or send you anything.

There is no complaints department in Head Office.

Could you be more condescending? Not helpful at all.

This. Sorry, OP.

I’ve had similar lately with an order that a company cancelled on me! It was ridiculous getting my money back.

Dd ordered a toy from Smyths. After ordering it I got an email saying it wouldn’t be delivered for 3 weeks as it was a preorder. Nowhere on the actual item did it say it was a preorder, it even said it was in stock in our local shop! No bloody clue what they were doing but it turned up 3 days later anyway.

I thought ordering 4 days in advance with next day delivery was plenty

You'd think so but at this time of the year it's a lottery.

Not sure if anyone has mentioned as haven’t read the whole thread but I would also maybe contact them via their socials ie instagram/twitter and tag them.

this has worked for me in the past when I wasn’t getting anywhere with a well known company!

Before giving advice please ensure you actually know the correct information.

Read Itslegitimatesalvage reply- it’s spot on and IS the law. No rights are violated here, OP has the right to cancel still.

But if you want to give the company a laugh then yeah fill in the complain form with all of your incorrect information🤣

@ComputerIsSayingNo Next/Named day delivery is all in the same option on M&S. Mistakes happen and unfortunately this was yours, OP. Refuse it when it arrives or return it.

It’s likely been picked and packed and is waiting to be dispatched so it arrives on the date you clicked on - the 19th. If their website was so broken it’s assigning the wrong dates to orders they’d know about it and would have put it right within hours.

They can’t just go and pluck a parcel out of the delivery pipeline once it’s been processed, unpackage it and process a refund. Imagine the logistics of trying to do that every time this happens! The parcel has to come right back around and into Returns by the correct route.

This with bells on.

Also, OP you said you ordered on a Saturday? What time? A lot of stores stop taking next day delivery orders on a Friday for Monday delivery and the ones that accept Saturday orders for a Monday usually have a v. early cut off period (midday, for example). Sometimes earlier.

Either way, I think you need to let this go and have a sherry. Bleating on about the law and how they won't refund you is just going to wind them and you up. And saying you're always nice to customer support staff...well you're not are you? Not if you're going on about the law - only arseholes do that (and ill-informed ones given you were wrong!)

Finally, your husbands comment was passive aggressive at best - particularly given you have completely misunderstood what the right to cancel is - and downright obnoxious at worst. It was hardly the humorous comment you thought it to be. I'd be mortified if anyone I knew said that to customer support.

@Mrsttcno1
M&S still have 7 days in which to suspend delivery. A company such as this should be more than capable of dealing with this without dispatching the goods. Moreover this will save them incurring delivery costs which they will also need to reimburse.

I'd have no issue with inconveniencing a company by filing a complaint in this instance (along with a template cancellation forma) and they'll have to deal with it which should help resolve any laughter issues.

Under distance selling you have the right to a refund, not cancellation of the order. You have 14 days following receipt of the order to request said refund.

Several posters have already said that you're wrong here OP. You're in for a shock when you return the order too as delivery upgrades are none refundable, only the cost of standard delivery where applicable. Having a go at staff isn't going to get you very far, M&S are not breaking the law. In future, read your emails. I deal with customers like you all the time who don't read their emails that contain important information and expect me to be out of pocket for their mistake.

Read up on the actual legality here.

M&S do not have to do anything, any reasonable person can see that M&S are a huge company- it’s not as simple as you’d think to prevent picking/packing/dispatch for individual orders. There’s a reason most companies do not do this, and your rights are completely unaffected because you can simply return the items when you get them and receive a full refund no problem at all. It’s a cost weighing exercise for m&s, doing it their way they have to reimburse a few £ delivery fee. If they get into cancelling and refunding while in this stage, it is quite possible that the items still end up being posted and arriving so they would be significantly more out of pocket. And again- they are totally okay to do this.

As someone who worked in complaints, you won’t be inconveniencing them by sending them a complaint full of inaccurate statements and information. As I already said, they’ll probably have a little giggle, then point you towards your clear (and undisputed) rights.

The CRA use the word “reasonable” a lot. I’ve not opened the law but I suspect this is one of those times. As an uninterested third party, 30 mins seems reasonable to me before your order is thrown into the machine (and is common to other retailers I’ve shopped with before).

M&S policy then sort of overrides the law provided it is ‘reasonable’, so I can understand this and their later comments.

Even if it’s not picked yet, I imagine that they just don’t have the software to delete it from the pick list once it’s left the first system and moved onto the second - it’s incredibly common to prevent orders being missed / incorrectly cancelled / duplicated / maintain controls around sales records, or they just don’t want to invest in that functionality.

Id be wary of ordering again though, as I suspect there’s a supply issue that’s not on the website but that the system throws out once it tries to book the next day delivery - so if you’re sure you’ve picked the 10th then proceed with caution (I ordered from M&S and it came two days before the date I selected…)

I don’t think I’ve ever handed anything I was dealing with to my dh to sort out 😱
I think us women are more than capable

Large retailers such as Amazon cope. It's a simple question of IT being fit for purposes. Perhaps this is why every news headline about M&S in the last 8 years involves the word "decline". Fortunately we take customer complaints far more seriously in the organisation in which I work - probably why our profits and revenues have increased year on year over the last decade. I'm sorry for whichever company saw fit to employ you in a CS role if a childish giggle is your response.