Retailer pricing error

[Spoonfulofgin]

Saw an item online from a well known retailer... bought it... they called me today to tell me that they had made an error with the price and I can either pay the difference or they can give me a full refund. Anybody know what my rights are please?

Thank you

It doesn't work like that, but would be funny to try.

Just tell us what it was already 😂

Octopus, opal covered handbag, Orion’s Belt, ocelot, Opera House (Sydney), Oprah tickets, Oscar statue? Am I close?

Ok . Post the item. Why wouldn't you?

I can't think of a retailer beginning with 'O' that sells high value items. <thinks>

Oak furniture land. It was a sofa, some were rescued to around 495, others were reduced by smaller amounts.

Yes it seemed like a decent saving, but nothing you wouldn’t get in a clearance type sale. It wasn’t me that bought it, it was my mom but she’s staying here over Xmas. She’s cancelled it, I think I’d have moaned a bit more but then I’m feeling particularly argumentative with retailers at the moment thanks to all sorts of hassles with them over the last fortnight!

There is some hilariously bad advice here, in some cases quoting irrelevant legislation.

The answer depends on the retailer's T&Cs. However, with most online retailers the contract is not formed until they take payment and despatch the goods. Until that point they can usually cancel for pricing errors. Unfortunately it's often difficult to challenge cases like these where there are pricing errors and it seems like the goods haven't been dispatched (NB: confusingly retailers often send a "confirmation email" - they mean they have got your order, not that they are confirming it will definitely be fulfilled).

There are some clever legal arguments that you could possibly pull depending on the circumstances, but in practice it's unlikely you'd succeed unless (1) you know your legal rights inside out and (2) you are incredibly persistent

Oven? Old Master? Origami??

Organ? (church, Wurlitzer, pancreas)?

Oh, my next guess was Optimus Prime. Sorry it didn’t work out for your Mum.

Oculus?

See I can understand how a sofa which was at £1700 and reduced to £400, for example, could look like a genuine discount, especially as it’s the Post Christmas sales.

Haha these guesses have been making me chuckle!
thank you - she’s got to buy a new sofa and that’s about her budget. She’ll get a cheap one from somewhere at that price but this one was almost going to be better quality.

so in all fairness to the OP, it IS a high value item but 700 discount isn’t totally unusual for these sorts of sales - so it was a great deal but hardly a ‘too good to be true’ one. We had an order confirmation but not a despatch one.

There was a long thread on here once about a M&S chair or sofa that was misplaced at £10 or something like that, loads of people ordering and I think all cancelled

I remember that, half of MN put an order in

Spoonfulofgin · Today 16:42 Thanks all for your replies so far! I only bought it yesterday in the sale, paid online, got a confirmation email, not yet delivered, called me today (Boxing day which is strange) to say pricing error so I can either pay the extra £700 or cancel...

Are you absolutely certain it was the actual retailer you purchased from that contacted you?

Most likely it was but I get twitchy about queries 'after the fact'. I would double-check to be certain that I'm speaking/online with the genuine people.

I'd ring the company directly just in case it's scam

x-posted with Hawkins001

It’s always amusing (slash slightly frustrating) to watch non-lawyers playing “guess the law”.

Here is an article by some actual lawyers which accurately summarises the position- it does depend on the small print on the retailer’s website and also what their automated email to OP said.
www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/guides/online-contract-formation

What would the scam be?

Apologies @Spoonfulofgin - I missed that.

I think you either pay what they've asked or get a refund. It's not worth taking them to court for £700 and they're probably covered in their T&Cs

Scammers phish for customer information. It would be quite easy for somebody to get hold of order and contact details and get in touch with OP (by e-mail) pretending to be the company itself (some are quite convincing and that's what they bank on) - coercing OP to 'pay the difference'. That money then goes straight to scammer... and they they have more financial information again.

It is frightening and all banks suggest the 'stop and think' approach to responding to e-mails/calls.

Better slow (and safe) than sorry.

Clymene

Where does it say she has had confirmation

In her second post, on page 1.

I'm quite surprised at the number of people saying that she has no rights; they obviously haven't looked at the CAB website, linked to in a number of posts.

And the ones saying that she knew it was wrong all along, when she said that she only found out, when they sent an email.

It is not Oak Furniture Land and you end up paying £700 to the scammer. Very unlikely though that a scammer would know who had bought what from Oak Furniture Land and was ringing round everyone who’d bought that specific sofa.

So the scammer has hacked into the oak furnitureland computer system, changed prices and waited for people to buy the item so they can ring them up and offer them a refund or ask for more money?

That has got to be spectacularly unlikely although quite ingenious I guess

Or nefarious employee, but yes, unlikely.