Contracts error with a service provider

[Chowbellow]

I came across it as they're a company who use verbal consent to sign you up to contracts but they also send you through credit agreements which you sign online. One refers to 14 days cooling off period (what you sign); the other (verbal) refers to 31 days. I was signing up to a new credit agreement with this company and questioned it and they're checking which takes priority.

AIBU to think that if you use verbal consent to a contract then you should retain it for the duration of the contract and if you sign up to a contract verbally, than that should override the written one?

The other side of it is that they only retain phonecalls for 12 months so there's no record after 13 months of you agreeing to anything but the written terms.

The 14 day written one takes priority- if you’ve signed it.
Written contract always takes priority over verbal contract.
If all written or all verbal, then the later contract always supersedes any earlier contracts.

If you haven’t signed the 14 day written one yet, the 31 day verbal contract is still in force. You can demand they amend the written one from 14days to read 31 days and then sign.

I knew this which is why I was mildly interested to start with in relation

The other issue is that if their sales patter/adverting promises a 31 day cooling off, money back guarantee but their written sales contract reads only 14 days, then that is misleading/false advertisement and you can report them to your local Trading Standards Office for prosecution and fine.

I need to be able to return something in approx one month, if the recipient doesn't like the colour 🤓so I was most surprised to see the disparity in the cooling off period chimed out to me and what I was actually about to physically sign. The sales rep was dismissive initially until I read out the clause to her and she admitted that she had never read the terms and spent a while with her supervisor for a second time before deciding that they were going to err on the side of caution and presume it was 14 days.

Good thing you actually read the T&Cs, not many people do.

I suspect that there are millions of contracts which could be argued with if they've fucked up this badly on one clause. After the second time clarifying it with her, where I managed to find the clauses in writing, she said that her supervisor was escalating it to their legal team. I think they cocked up massively.

I know that you have a statutory right to 14 days cooling-off but couldn't find 31 days (which is what they were telling you verbally) anywhere in the contract.

I've been stung by contracts before.

She said that nobody had ever mentioned it to her in her 18 months working there. I'm anal about reading contracts after having been stung as I said by what I think I've signed up to and then getting a physical copy of the other terms I've signed up to.

Quite apart from the disparity in terms, the fact that they don't keep a call recording of your verbal consent is worrying as it leaves you exposed to whatever terms you have physically signed.

Yes, you can report it to your local Trading Standards office if really upset. It doesn’t matter who caused the problem in the company. Whether an honest mistake like their legal team updating the T&Cs in the contracts and then not telling the sales team to update the marketing material or something more nefarious.

14 days is the standard as it’s the statutory minimum.

I'm not an arsehole so I'm not going to name the company, but I would be really interested to find out who has a leg to stand on here as I have other contracts with them.

I'm not really upset as I didn't sign yet but I remember being enraged with this same company about 2 years ago when the physical terms I signed were different to the verbal ones that I recalled agreeing to and some smart arse kept referring me back to the physical (in writing) terms and I actually started to question my memory.

Linda. Listen to me.

I think that it's an honest mistake but it's a very fucking costly one if anyone decides to go nuclear on their asses. It would essentially null and void every contract. It's not a new thing with them as the reason I particularly read these terms was because of a vague recollection of having an argument about similar with them a couple of years ago and then seeing the physical terms (in writing) which made me question my sanity.

I'm not a lawyer but I used to work in jobs (a few different ones incidentally) where for e.g. we had to look out for certain clauses in T&Cs. In general, it was presumed that the last signed document (which is why we sent OUR terms and conditions out with everything) were the governing terms. However, in two of the companies, they had clearly been stung in the past.

In one company we had to look out for LDs (Liquidated damages) which basically means that the customer can hold you liable if the order is delayed and they incur costs as a consequence. Some of them had LDs in the hundreds of millions and what we were selling could conceivably incur costs at that level if not delivered on time. I remember that clause was usually stuck in somewhere around Clause 13. Our T&C's limited the damages to 20 million 🤑

The other one we had to look out for was the governing law. In that company they had lost millions on a lawsuit which didn't follow English law; it followed the law of Barbados or something.😄

I only happened to be looking out for the cooling off period on this contract which is why it came to my attention.

At work it was a game of both customer and seller sending their T&C's out as an attachment. So the customer (it would be a business, not an individual) sends the enquiry in, we quote, they place an order which they must sign and on every step, we had to ensure T&C's were included.

We did have legal departments who negotiated contracts where the terms were not reasonable but obviously it would have been impossible to negotiate terms with everyone who placed an order with us.