[jambutty]

Originally Posted by entwisi

Never changed but it is not the case. Until the vendor accepts money no contract exists. Therefore no contract, no legal standing on either side. Equally you can withdraw your offer of money at any point up to the point of a contract being in place.

e.g.

I come to buy a car from you. I look around said car and think its wonderful, I verbally offer (lets imagine a real value) £2000. you accept but no money changes hands. I go off to get a loan, its refused, You have no contract with me so I can pull out. or say its agreed but I find another car better suited for less, again I can pull out as no contract is in place. Equally, you agree a price with me, then 10 minutes later someone turns up and offers £3K. You are quite in your rights legally to take that money. (Morally you stink but hey thats not what we are discussing here).

Equally with ASDA, they put things on the shelf and you are 'invited to treat'. Untill they take your money from you they can pull out at any time without reason. Even after money has changed hands, if it can be proven by ASDA that the price was erroneous and it is clearly an error they can cancel teh contract(it is up to them to prove that the purchaser would have 'known' teh price was erroneous but thats a different discussion again).

e.g. a website advertises an item and instead of it being £999.00 its incorrectly priced at £9.99. even if they have taken your order, accepted money and provided a receipt they can cancel the contract as it is clearly an error. In a relatively recent case Kodak advertised a camera which retailed at that time at £249 for £99. Lots of people bought one(me included). Kodak had taken our money in that they had provided an email saying this is your receipt. The website had also done a credit 'hold' on our debit/credit cards. 2 days later they sent an email saying it wouldn't be honoured. however when pressed in law the reasoning was that this was a model that was a)due for replacement in 2 months (end of line) b) had reported battery life issues and c) had one or 2 spuriously bad reviews it was deemd that teh price could legitimately considered a 'normal' discount in order to clear stocks of an unpopular model. Kodak capitulated before it went to court as they didn't want a precedent to be set. The key things taht won for teh consumers was that we had a 'contract' as Kodak had accepted our money by processing the payments, had given a receipt and as described above it was deemed a fair bargain.

Just what are the facts governing sales of good in shops? They are like I stated at the outset with a proviso of “Or has that changed too?”

No one has come back with evidence that my opinion is wrong. Examples are not evidence.

But I can give examples as well, although not evidence it backs up my belief.

Several years ago on a Saturday my old telly died in a puff of smoke. I went to Comet, choose the set that I wanted to buy but was told that none were in stock. The shop assistant rang another branch in Wigan and came back to say that they had some in stock and they would send one over on Monday. That was no good to me ‘cos it was a Saturday and Match of the Day was on in the evening and an FA cup game on the Sunday so I selected another TV paid for it and took it home. Take note that they were prepared to send a set from another branch.

A couple of years or so later I was back in Comet looking for a replacement to my 20+ years old Pioneer separates HiFi system. The cost of separates was prohibitive so I opted for the modern stereo systems with CD player, cassette, turntable etc. I found just what I was looking for at £231.xx.

I called an assistant over told her I would like one of those please. She took the card, went to a computer terminal and after a short while came back to say they had no more in stock and the display was not for sale. I wouldn’t have bought it anyway. Another similar system was £340 and lesser ones were in the £250 range at the time I thought that £340 was too much. Whilst I pondered the assistant went back to the computer terminal and came back to inform me that they had some in stock at the Rochdale branch.

“I’ll pay for it now and you can ask Rochdale to send one over and I will come and collect it tomorrow” I volunteered.
“Sorry sir we don’t transfer stock between branches. You can always go to Rochdale and get one for yourself” she added brightly.

So I drove over to Rochdale located the same model and was astounded to discover that it was £321.xx.
“This same model is £231.xx at the Blackburn branch” I informed the salesperson.
“No sir all prices are the same in Comet unless they are manager’s specials or ex-display”

I bought the system and went home.

Next day I went back to Comet and lo and behold the system that I had wanted to buy was now priced at £321.xx.

I left with the thought in my mind that the salesgirl in Blackburn had been quick witted enough to spot that the price on the ticket was different to that on the computer and came up with the none in stock excuse as a means of not having to sell the goods at the £231.xx price because I had offered to buy it and had the cash in hand. Meaning that once I had offered to buy it and produced the cash in my hand to enable me to do so, which I did, Comet would have been obliged to sell me the unit at that price.

I accept if the ticket had stated something ridiculous like £95 that would have been obvious that it had been priced wrongly and they could have stated so and withdrew it on the grounds that it was obvious that the price was wrong. But priced at £231.xx it was similar to other models so to me the price seemed to be about right for that one.

A year or so later I was back in Comet wanting to buy a vacuum cleaner because mine had given up the ghost.

I choose a Henry one but sadly they had none in stock. They were very popular at the time. You’ll never guess what the assistant told me.

“Would you like to pay for it now and we will have one sent over from Wigan and you can collect it tomorrow.”

All that points to the fact that once a customer has indicated that he wants to buy a particular item and produces the money to do so, the sale is clinched except for exceptional circumstances like an obvious wrong price.

But then again wasn’t there something many years ago when Hoover were offering something at a ridiculously low price and thousands of people applied to buy it? When Hoover tried to get out of making the sale, the court judgement was that they had to honour the offer. It cost Hoover millions and some high up’s job. Or in other words once the customer had indicated that he wanted to buy the item and produced the cash to do so, the sale had to go through.

I notice that your last paragraph bears out what I have stated. In that once an offer has been made and intent to pay established the deal must go through.