A word of warning, was:- ER40 Backplate mounted chuck

Just for your future reference, it myself whom you spoke to, my name is Anthony.

I would first like to make the apology that when you called in January there was no one available but the sales team were all working away from home over the weekend in London supporting the Model Engineering Exhibition at Alexandra Palace. Secondly I would like to apologise that no one called you back upon our return but as other traders who may visit this forum would tell you, post show is a very very busy time sorting out orders, getting back organised, re-stocking, sorting out back logs of work which has generated in the 2 or 3 day absence from the office, as well as having skeleton staff for the most part of the week after with people trying to catch up on a bit of family time after being away from home for 4 days.

Recalling our conversation earlier in the week, you advised me that you had been over charged on the collet chucks as you had seen them advertised on the back of certain publications dated from December which are now no longer valid and were not vaild when your order was placed on the 6th February. You advised me that you had been verbally quoted alternative prices but upon receiving your invoice found that you had been over charged. I explained that, as the issues of the publications were no longer valid and you had no proof of being quoted these prices I was unable to re-credit your credit/debit card. I did explain though that as a goodwill gesture, even though you could not give proof of being quoted these prices, I would arrange for a credit note to be put on to your account, as explained by my colleague previously, which you refused to accept, or I presumed that was the case after having the phone put down on me and abruptly ended the call. This is after I had been given a verbal insult which has not been mentioned in any prior post. The other option I gave was to return the products to us and we will recredit your card minus a 10% handling fee.

We are not in the business of upsetting customers, over charging people and many other accusations which are occssionally thrown our way. Within this company, we are all working people, whom all have families and mortgages and other bills who come to work every day like everyone else to try to earn a living, believe it or not, we are all honest hard working people here.

I would like to make the offer still available to you, if you wish to contact me personally then please do not hesitate to do so and I will arrange for the credit note to be raised for you. Alternatively, as you are not located a million miles away from us, if you had the time or were in the area I would like to make it known that you are most welcome to visit our showroom where I will personally speak to you, over a coffee if required.

I would hope we can come to some amicable agreement as soon as possible.

Regards

Anthony Chester UK Limited

This is all well and good but it always surprises me why in the case of small amounts, negligible to their business in fact, that companies don't just sort things out as the customer wants and spread some goodwill rather than the reverse. I have no doubt that a district judge in a small claims court would find Tim's version of events entirely plausible and reasonable and supported by the price quoted in the magazine and that he would end up keeping both chucks and be awarded a refund of the overcharge plus costs. Offering credit notes when you've already made a mistake and pissed someone off is basically adding insult to injury in my book and a clear indication that the company is more interested in a few extra quid sales than its reputation.

I assumed that Chester's terms and conditions include a visible and available E&OE (errors and omissions excepted) clause - in which case the contract could or would be determined (ended) by the error.

Maybe not though.

-- Peter Fairbrother

Dave -

I couldn't agree more. Especially unwise to piss off someone that is well known and respected in the engineering community as well.

Regards, Tony

E&OE can protect a seller in respect of mistakes in a catalogue or advertisement which constitute an 'offer to treat' rather than any binding part of a contract. In other words the buyer phones up and says I want one of those at the offer price and the seller says sorry it was a misprint. However once the seller has entered into a contract, albeit at a mistaken price, then the deal is done.

The same applies for example to shelf prices in shops which only constitute an offer to treat until the employee has rung the price up on the till at which point it becomes an acceptance of the customer's offer to pay and binding.

What is actually happening in law in such cases is this. The seller's advertised price is not actually an offer to sell to any prospective customer or the world at large which they can be bound by simply by said customer saying yes I'll have one. It's what the law calls an 'offer to treat' which is an invitation to prospective customers to offer them either that, or any other amount, for their goods. The customer saying he wants one at the advertised price (or any other price) is actually the offer to buy and the seller is then the one who either accepts or declines that offer.

The case is differentiated from that of two people bargaining directly with each other when either can make the 'offer' - i.e. the seller saying I'll sell you one of these for £x and the purchaser accepting or equally it happening vice versa where the purchaser says I'll give you £y for one of those and the seller accepts.

The reason for the differentiation in law is actually simple and logical. A price list or advertisement, if considered in law to be a binding offer to sell to the whole world at large, could force the seller to accept every single acceptance he ever received from prospective customers despite the price list being in error. He could be forced into bankruptcy by a pricing error or simply be unable to supply as many goods as were requested.

In article , Dave Baker writes

It has certainly completely bolloxed up their chances of my buying anything from them, especially when added to the supporting tales from other group members. Mind you, had pretty well concluded Warco were a much better bet from previous discussions, this just reinforces it.

David

The filing fees in the small claims court are minimal (and recoverable if you win) and the matter would be decided on the balance of probability rather than proof beyond reasonable doubt as is the case in criminal matters. I know whose story I believe here and I have no doubt a DJ would decide likewise.

Indeed true but DJs have vast experience of deciding who is telling porkies and who isn't. Very few people go to the lengths of taking a case to court for a few quid unless they are clearly in the right.

Not, I think. The E&OE bit prevents them from being held to a price advertised in error. The leading case (IIRC called Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain v Boots the Chemist) held that advertising goods at a price was not a contractual offer, but only an invitation to the prospective purchaser to make an offer at that price, which would become a contract when (and only if) accepted by seller. However, if the seller confirms the "incorrect" price by accepting the offer, the contract is thenceforth valid at that price.

(For the curious, the case above involved Boots trying, successfully, to get off being prosecuted for displaying for sale certain pharmaceutical products which were by law only allowed to be sold when a qualified pharmacist was present. This fact may have had something to do with the way it went, since it looks slightly surprising by the standards of today's consumer-biased laws.)

In practice, getting redress for these small cases is likely to be more trouble than it is worth, though making a small claim in the courts is almost certain to succeed and carries little or no risk - in the (exceedingly unlikely) event that you lose, the defendant can't recover any legal costs, only modest travel etc. In practice most companies realise it will cost them 10 or 100 times the amount in issue to send a lawyer, so they cave at the last minute or don't turn up.

David

Assuming it's a consumer contract _only_ if the seller has complied with SI 2000 No. 2334 and told the customer beforehand that he will be responsible for return costs. If the supplier fails to provide _all_ the information required in S8 of SI2000 then the seller is responsible for collecting their goods at their cost, the buyer is not even under any obligation to return them.

In this case Chester have failed to supply the required information by attempting to charge an illegal restocking fee so all the cost are entirely down to them. In such a situation the buyer also has 3 months and seven days to cancel the contract, not just 7 working days from the day after receipt of the goods.

Actually Chester T'c&C's (assuming the pdf on their web site is the current version) are remarkably ineptly written and transgress the law for consumer contracts in several places. It's a long time since I've come across a company trying to disclaim responsibility for death or personal injury ("damages to the customer") something which has been explicitly banned since 1977. They also try to claim that their written specifications of the machine do not form part of the contract (Explicitly negated by SOGA S142(D)).

No it is the sellers responsibility. The buyer has only to take "reasonable care" to ensure they are not lost or damaged in transit so if they packed them reasonably and used a normal delivery means such as the Post Office risk passes to the seller as soon as they are given to the carrier. The buyer doesn't have to insure the package against loss.

(" if [the buyer] sends the goods in accordance with paragraph (5)(b) [by post], he shall be under a duty to take reasonable care to see that they are received by the supplier and not damaged in transit, but in other respects his duty to take care of the goods shall cease when he sends them.")

You would lose, just as others have lost when they tried.

There is no such sentence and no fee can be charged over and above the _direct_ cost of recovering the goods if the customer was contractually bound to return them and failed to do so. You are required to refund the full cost paid including outbound postage from you to the seller.

"14. - (1) On the cancellation of a contract under regulation 10, the supplier shall reimburse any sum paid by or on behalf of the consumer under or in relation to the contract to the person by whom it was made free of any charge, less any charge made in accordance with paragraph (5)."

(Paragraph 5 refers to the customer not returning the goods)

This is true, but a judge might also be prepared to accept as evidence any notes you might have made of the conversation on, say, a scribble pad. As an engineer I always maintain a log of phone conversations, with dates and significant figures in my engineers notebook. 'Tis true, I don't bother at home though...

What is your reason for not accepting the gentlemans' word ? Given the circumstance that the product had been advertised at the discount price I am much more inclined to take his word for it than yours.

This whole affair makes me more sceptical than before about doing business with Chester. I have heard many horror stories about your service, ranging from drivers leaving mills by the roadside to your misleading advertised equipment specifications. Jolly glad I am to have bought my mill from Warco who have prices just as good and outstanding service to boot.

Skeptical ? when you hide behind a silly alias and a defunct nospam address. Anything you say has no meaning. You could be our dog in disguise for all we know.

PR.

In article , P Riedie writes

Lots of people - self included - use fake addresses for posting to newsgroups - it dramatically reduces the amount of spam. This does not necessarily mean they are not genuine, and most such are prepared to give a clue to their real e-mail address if it becomes appropriate. Admittedly, using a fake name as well does not improve the picture...

David

P Riedie wrote: > Skeptical ? when you hide behind a silly alias and a defunct nospam > address. > Anything you say has no meaning. You could be our dog in disguise for > all we know.

This argument always puzzles me ? Why can you not evaluate a comment without a name being attached ? If "Boo" had been replaced by "Joe Blogs" then how does that change the value of a statement ?

Anonymity is good on usenet, because it means that it's possible to dis/agree without stereotypes like gender, race, height, occupation etc etc affecting the weight of the opinions.

My reason for not posting a useable email address in any form is because I want replies to be sent to the group and so to be available to all, not primarily as an anti-spam measure (though that does figure a bit).

Try again. You may notice that almost everyone on this newsgroup has got a real, genuine name, not a fake name. It does you no and your opinions no credit at all to be seen not to be honest enough to say who you are. We're people, not avatars.

Mark Rand RTFM

So being anonymous, not posting a usable email address, and in a previous post remarking about another seller, can we take from that you are one of Warco's dogs then, barking at Chester's heels in a single minded vain attempt at publicity ?

PR.

OK, what if he had typed "Bill Jenson" into the user name box, how does that make his/her posts any more 'genuine' than you, how do we know that "Mark Rand" is your real name?

Pot, kettle, black! Perhaps when you start posting via a proper nntp server, for all we know you could be the Pope...

Ye Gods, always wondered why I spent money on consulting lawyers before starting this mail order business. Reading all the comments, I could have had this information for free....well prepared for Small Claims Courts....and yes Mark, got your order ...and glad to read you wont be rejecting under DSL, SOG, Murphys Law, EU directive, EMC, CE...and any more to come from Brussels, and any other organizations one cares to add,,,,:-)

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When I read this thread it makes me wonder how many other people have also read it and judged Chester on the basis of it but remain silent and have quietly filed away the thought that they are to be avioded.

I think the truth is that Chester do have a poor reputation on here for customer service, I have just trawled back through 2 or 3 years of posts relating to Chester and their "customer service" it doesn't make good reading if you are looking to buy a machine from them.

How short this thread would have been if the story had gone along the lines of....I had a bit of a problem with Chester over the phone, but they sorted me out quickly and gave me all my money back....well done Chester.

Chester may win the battle in this case and force the buyer to take a credit note, but they will also have lost the war in the process.

We can banter about the legal position..but that the end of the day it's the real customer service that counts, yes it might cost them a few quid for return postage, but thet would have kept the customer for the future.

Once again Chester end up with egg on their face, dozens...perhaps hundreds of potential customers will have followed this thread and made a judgement about them.

I know that I have.

Richard McGee