8ft Bouncy Castle & slide 70p

[bubblerock]

I just saw this on MSE, it's 70p + £5.99 delivery - I'm not sure whether all orders will be honoured as the stock seems to be stuck at 3 available although you never know - worth a try!

LINK

Can they do this?

I thought they had to withdraw them totally from sale or sell them at the price they'd quoted, not just say "Oh, sorry, they're more expensive".

There T+C say they can

But T&C can't override statutory rights - is this one of those instances?

not sure hunker. suppose its a possibility.

just had cancellation email too

dh is a 2nd year business law student and he says..

when an amount is shown on an item that is for sale, it is not binding. it should be viewed as an "invitation to treat" which is the negotiation part of any contract. You get the automatic confirmation of order then the second email would be binding as an acceptance of your offer. as soon as an offer is accepted then both parties are legally bound.

my email confirming the order says:

Thank you for placing an order with Focus. Your order number is 67315.
Your order details are shown below. We can confirm that your order has now been sent to our warehouse and pending stock availability. You will receive an email once your order has been despatched. Once the order has been despatched you should receive your order within 3 working days.

For website and online order enquiries ONLY call: 0845 600 4244 Available Monday-Friday 9-5

You can track the progress of your order in the 'My Account' section of Focus

this says to me that (subject to availability) they will accept that order. there is an order number which means they have accepted the offer.

So is he saying it's OK for them to cancel?

The only thing that stopped them sending the items was that they wanted more money for them - they'd accepted the order with that email, surely? It was only pending stock availability, after all - not "we've got to check you've paid enough for it".

got cancellation

Lissie, I thought that if they made the invitation to treat, they could then only withdraw that if they took the product off sale altogether, they couldn't say "oh, actually, it's 10 times more expensive so we're cancelling it".

There's a consumer website that was set up a couple of years ago - will try to remember what it's called.

oh, dh was saying that legally, they are on very shaky ground.

I might look into our rights as consumers to see if they really can do this.

Their T&C are the same as most internet companies, only when the item is despatched is the contract formed - up until that point its still classed as an invitation to buy.

You cant blame them having water tight T&C's as its so easy to mis type a digit.

The MSE website is full of posts confirming they can legally cancel.

Would have loved for it to be honoured but the sheer number of orders meant the would be losing thousands and the company is already in difficulties.

How does it work if the money has already been taken out of your account by 10am then you get the cancellation email at 5-20pm?

1. Contract Formation

After placing an order through the Website you will receive an email from Us acknowledging that We have received your order. Please note that this does not mean that your order has been accepted. Your order constitutes an offer to Us to buy a product. All orders are subject to acceptance by Us.

We will confirm acceptance of your order by sending you by email an order preparation confirmation. The contract between you and Us will only be formed when we send you the order preparation confirmation.

The contract created by sending to you by email an order preparation confirmation will relate only to products whose dispatch we have confirmed in the order preparation confirmation. We will not be obliged to supply any other products which may have been part of your order until the dispatch of such products has been confirmed in a separate order preparation confirmation.

Definately only a contract upon confirmation that item has been despatched.

I would be very surprised if they had actually taken the payment, its probably just ring fenced upon the order like most companies do upon internet ordering and wont actually leave your account. If they do take payment, then they can still refund and are under no obligation to supply the goods. Their terms and conditions are very well worded but they are there to protect the company.

I will be watching to see if the payment appears on my credit card too but I dont expect it too.

shame had mine cancelled too. had the same before xmas with argos and the roborapter £7.00 (£70).
i believe they have every right to withdraw an item for sale.

You'd think they'd be more careful, wouldn't you. Still, they've got lots of free publicity out of it. one might even speculate that it was deliberate...

I'm wondering if it was deliberate. FOcus has been closing down a lot of stores lately, and need the extra publicity. Their terms a conditions mean that they can't be forced to honour it.

It's the ASA that you would contact to complain about them, but I don't think you would get anywhere.

Focus is making an invitation to treat, you make the offer then their terms and conditions state that the offer will be accepted by a second email. The money is consideration, essential for the formation of a contract, but you still don't have a contract until you get the acceptance. I'm a law student too.