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Anyone got some business/consumer legal advice please? (Read 3715 times)

crimpingandy

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Shiv here posting under Andy's account. I work for a climbing company and have a question for any legal people. We shipped a pair of jeans to a customer and due to an oversight didn’t process the Paypal payment within the 30 day window. The following is the email conversation that followed (all names etc removed). I was wondering if anyone could offer some advice on where we stand in relation to this? The jeans were delivered and we have POD. Any advice much appreciated. Cheers.


Our Company:

You placed an order with us on the 11th September for jeans.  I'm afraid we didn't process your Paypal payment at the time and now the payment has expired.

Please could you either send the payment by Bank transfer if I send you our details or could you place the order again via our website so that we can process the payment and apply it to your previous order?

Please let me know which you would prefer to do.

Customer:

Paypal provides sellers 30 days to capture the payment from buyers. As you have missed that deadline and not processed my payment, this is not my fault.

I have experience working in finance processing these types of payments and also have contacted Paypal themselves, they assured me that I am under no obligation to pay this amount as it is your fault for not processing the payment within the deadline and now it is void.

Our Company

We understand that it is not your fault and that it is an error on our part.  It was an honest mistake made by a member of staff in her first few months of training.

As a climber I'm sure you are aware that we are a small climbing business and as an owner of a clothing company yourself that mistakes are made.

Your Paypal payment may have expired but the invoice for the jeans is still outstanding.  If you don't want to pay the outstanding invoice there is an option to return the jeans to us.

We have provided goods in good faith and as an owner of a clothing company yourself we can't imagine that you wouldn't want to pay for clothing that you have ordered and kept.

Customer:

As stated in my previous email, PayPal have said that I am under no legal obligation to pay the amount as you have not processed it within time, due to this mistake you will have to write off the invoice as the payment is now void.

Our Company:

The attached invoice is outstanding for the jeans you ordered and received.


Customer:

As stated previously I am under no legal obligation to pay for the invoice as you didn’t process the PayPal order. Do you have a delivery note or any proof that I actually received the jeans as you so claim?



crzylgs

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You might like to try posting to:

https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/

Very active sub, with numerous qualified regulars.

I'm no expert but I'm pretty sure UK law is on you / the companies side in that it is not reasonable for the customer to expect free shit off the back of an honest (payment processing) mistake.

GL

Will Hunt

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Regardless of what the legalities and moralities are, if this is a one-off then is it really worth pursuing? I could understand taking a stand if somebody had taken the jeans and attempted to not pay at all, but given that the customer attempted to make payment and the mistake was on your side, is it really worth getting into any sort of legal fight over?

guypercival

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You are owed the money, as simple as that. You can threaten an online claim. They are very easy to make. The issue fee would be £25 (if the order was less than £300) The question is whether you are throwing good money after bad.
Probably worth the threat though it may result in payment.

Johnny Brown

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Quote
as an owner of a clothing company yourself

I would name and shame them. What a prick.

SA Chris

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what JB said.

Adam Lincoln

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Name and shame the arsehole.

Climbers should stick together. I am happy to split the amount of the trousers between a few members on here, who i am sure would be happy to help.

Will Hunt

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Good podcast here for the flaming pitch fork wavers.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07h3hhp/episodes/downloads


Disclosure: I would have paid for the jeans.

andy popp

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When PayPal say he is "under no legal obligation to pay the amount" they clearly mean no longer obliged to pay through PayPal. I would pay for the jeans. I don't know if there would be potentially ugly ramifications from naming and shaming.

Footwork

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I wouldn't name and shame. What's the point? Given the correspondence they seem the kind of person to make a fuss if they found out and they clearly know their rights...

PayPal's terms and conditions are not your terms and conditions for payment. If you haven't been paid you haven't been paid.

As others have said though, is it worth the hassle? I'll try this next time I'm at the depot, leave a tenner on the counter and when no one picks it up in 30 seconds shout HAH, YOU'VE HAD YOUR CHANCE. I'll then have a brilliant session, on the house, and crush all the oranges.

tommytwotone

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I am in no way legally qualified - but stumbled over a similar(ish) issue years back.

Isn't this essentially pretty basic contract law? - i.e. you have an offer and a consideration, the exchange of which effects the contract.

You made the offer of a pair of jeans, for a consideration of £x (or in this case a promise to pay £x). The placing of the order would I assume form the contract, as it makes clear the terms of such.

If you fulfilled your side of the contract by giving the jeans, and your buyer didn't complete their end by giving you the consideration, effectively they're in breach of the contract you agreed.



crimpingandy

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So in a strange twist of fate, I recognised he of the unpaid jeans at the climbing wall this eve. I introduced myself very nicely to him. He was immediately 100% apologetic for the tone of his emails, and told me that he thought someone had been trying to scam him and that PayPal had advised him to pay nothing. Then today he'd checked his account, realised the money really hadn't gone out of his account and was going to email us tomorrow to sort out payment.
As it turns out he's a big fan and we're all great friends now. I ended up feeling quite sorry for him he was so completely mortified.
Thanks all for your input. My faith in the climbing community has been restored.

andy popp

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A happy ending; excellent.

kingholmesy

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Sounds like a perfect example of people acting in ways when they have the anonymity of the internet that they would dream of when called out one person.  :wank:

Will Hunt

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So in a strange twist of fate, I recognised he of the unpaid jeans at the climbing wall this eve. I introduced myself very nicely to him. He was immediately 100% apologetic for the tone of his emails, and told me that he thought someone had been trying to scam him and that PayPal had advised him to pay nothing. Then today he'd checked his account, realised the money really hadn't gone out of his account and was going to email us tomorrow to sort out payment.
As it turns out he's a big fan and we're all great friends now. I ended up feeling quite sorry for him he was so completely mortified.
Thanks all for your input. My faith in the climbing community has been restored.

Glad that all got sorted. While I've the chance, I'm going to take great pleasure in self-righteously pointing out that this is exactly why online shamings of the type advocated by some above are a shit idea most of the time.

36chambers

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So in a strange twist of fate, I recognised he of the unpaid jeans at the climbing wall this eve. I introduced myself very nicely to him. He was immediately 100% apologetic for the tone of his emails, and told me that he thought someone had been trying to scam him and that PayPal had advised him to pay nothing. Then today he'd checked his account, realised the money really hadn't gone out of his account and was going to email us tomorrow to sort out payment.
As it turns out he's a big fan and we're all great friends now. I ended up feeling quite sorry for him he was so completely mortified.
Thanks all for your input. My faith in the climbing community has been restored.

Glad that all got sorted. While I've the chance, I'm going to take great pleasure in self-righteously pointing out that this is exactly why online shamings of the type advocated by some above are a shit idea most of the time.

Well done Will, you're the hero we all need.

teestub

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Glad that all got sorted. While I've the chance, I'm going to take great pleasure in self-righteously pointing out that this is exactly why online shamings of the type advocated by some above are a shit idea most of the time.

Just pay for the jeans straight away next time eh Will!  :lol:

tomtom

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Well done for paying up will! 😃

Were they extra long?

crzylgs

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Sounds like a perfect example of people acting in ways when they have the anonymity of the internet that they would dream of when called out one person.  :wank:

Winner winner, chicken dinner.

lagerstarfish

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I was going to offer my amateur debt recovery services, but looks like I'm not needed now

Wil

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The part that confuses me is that he knows your company isn't a scam. If he thought the emails were a scam why would he reply to them?

Still, all's well that ends well...

crzylgs

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The part that confuses me is that he knows your company isn't a scam. If he thought the emails were a scam why would he reply to them?

Still, all's well that ends well...

Refer to the comment above by kingholmesy re: people acting differently when behind the veil of anonymity. Aka he got caught out in person and lied through his teeth to save face. Agree it seems about as good an ending to events as possible.

 

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