Are they allowed to do this?

[kelloggss]

A major retailer was offering 99% discount applied to all items of a particular brand in their online store, i purchased 20 of these items my order was accepted and payment.

I have a order confirmation email to confirm this.

Then i received a Email about 12hours after my purchase from the retailers Head Office informing me that my order has been cancelled due to one of our suppliers, Lands’ End, inadvertently applied a discount of 99% against their entire product range rather than the correct 20% sale discount and that they will refund the money back in to my bank account and some banks can take up to a few days.

 

Are they allowed to cancel my order just like that?

is the anything i can do about it?

 

I am not happy at all about this and wondered if anyone could please offer any advice.

 

Thanks.

[havinastella]

Yes they can do this. If it's a mistake they do not have to honor the transaction.

[biggeorge]

I always thought that once an order has been placed and excepted, payment taken and receipt provided the order was a binding contract.

A few years ago Kodak had a similar problem with a camera selling for under 50% of its retail price and they lost out on quite a few £s.

 

George

[Followme]

In the old days when the internet was young if a mistake like this was made it might have been honoured, but not these as the laws have now been clarified. Such instances will now also be covered in the sites T&C.

 

It is human nature to try and make money out of mistakes but it was quite obvious this was one.

[porkyp1g]

Yep t&cs on every online site allow them to back out of deals if they want to and can undo any transaction up until the point they have sent you the goods.

 

Some get honoured but most don't, especially ones like this where its such a clear mistake. I go on the avforums bargain forum a lot and you see some on there get honoured. Most posted on that forum are genuine bargains, have a look.