My rights to a refund? UK

Valhalla

Ueber Meister
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Jan 17, 2014
Location
Northern Ireland
Since there are a lot of knowledgeable UK members, I thought I'd ask your opinion.

This is the story:

I'm having my garden refurbished at the minute, and last month ordered (and paid in full) a John Deere tractor lawnmower, from a dealer about 1 mile from my home.
They told me to give them a shout once I'm ready and they will build it for me and deliver it within a few days.

Anyway, I've decided that I'm going to put my house on the market once the garden is refurbished as I want to move back into town.
Can I simply bring my invoice back to the dealer and get a full refund by cancelling my order? I've never actually owned the mower, it's just paid for and awaiting my instruction to build. I won't need it as I'm moving into town and won't have a large garden.
If this was a £30 shirt or something I would have no issue going and getting a refund, but it's £3400 so I feel kinda awkward.

My only reassurance is this is a dealer who sell enormous farm machinery worth hundreds of thousands I'm sure, so my wee mower is nothing to them. I just hate doing this :oops:

So what are my rights before I go see them in the morning and embarrass myself?
Can someone reassure me?
 
I think that unless it is faulty or is not as described you can't return the item.

You may ask for say £3,200 to be refunded so it softens the blow a little. If the dealer knows he can sell it quick it is an extra £200 in his pocket.
 
I think that unless it is faulty or is not as described you can't return the item.

You may ask for say £3,200 to be refunded so it softens the blow a little. If the dealer knows he can sell it quick it is an extra £200 in his pocket.

But I've never actually owned the mower, which is my point. I've ordered it but never taken delivery.
It's not even built yet :oops:
 
I don't live in UK, but why don't you give the call to store right away to explain the situation. The refund might be difficult, if they have ordered the parts to build the mower or they have started building, so why don't you call them first and see what they will respond?

By the way, if you paid in full in advance, normally people write a contract in a written form? Especially it is something with a big money like a few k? The refund policy should be written on that contract, or if you got the receipt for the mower, the refund policy should be written on the receipt?
 
The receipt is out in my car at the minute and since I'm locked up for the night I'll check in the morning before I ring them.
I don't mind if I have to take a hit on it, I just would hate them to say that I have to take it no matter what. So I'm left with an expensive mower while moving house and having no need for it; selling second hand will barely get me half the money back :rolleyes:
 
According to EU law you can always cancel an order or return a purchased item in still packed condition with no explanation within 2 or 4 weeks. Not sure what it is today.
 
As it's being made to order you have in the UK the right to cancel within 14 days irrespective of the proportion you paid, and get a full refund. This would explain why they didn't start assembling it for a few weeks. Now, they are a decent firm and would abide by the law no worries there. It's even better if you paid just one penny of the amount on a credit card as you then get full Section 75 protection on the WHOLE amount - this basically means regardless of JD's response the card company would have to compensate you the whole amount.

The issue is obviously time passed, read the contract and you're likely outside your statutory refund period. In this case it's a goodwill response required, i.e. if they haven't started making it yet, they refund you in part or in full. It's likely they would do this and charge a fee specified or not in the contract along the lines mentioned in the posts above. That's what I'd go for. In the worst-case scenario if it was brand new and unused you'd get huge majority of the price if you sold it, maybe nearly all. :thumbsup:
 
@OP I don't know the answer to your question and I would be very interested to know the answer and the reasoning behind it.
If I were in your shoes I would just explain your situation and ask if you can have your money back. But, I understand this may be uncomfortable.
Believe it or not, I was in a very similar situation myself recently. I just asked the retailer for a refund and they didn't even ask me why and gave me a full refund.


Slightly off topic
I have been thinking about these "expert" consumer topics myself lately.
One realisation I had is that when there's something wrong with the product (it's faulty, not as described etc.) you must be entitled to a full cash refund; regardless.
Many offer a replacement but some things are time sensitive and so a replacement would not be suitable.
Along with this, there's no way for retailers to know whether or not, what you bought it for is time sensitive. So, they should offer you an option of a full refund 100% of the time.
I'd be very surprised if consumer laws differed on this matter.
 
So just to update -

Visited the shop this morning and briefly explained my position. The guy went into the back room and phoned head office, came out all smiles and gave me a full refund direct to card (that was used to pay to begin with). No fuss, no problem.
That's a big weight off my mind, almost owned a £3400 white elephant :oops:

Well, green. It is John Deere after all ;)
 
If this is true, you should be glad that Brexit hasn't come into effect yet :D

Er...what has Brexit got to do with this? Sale Of Goods Acts, Limitations Act, Distance Selling regs. and most of your consumer legislation in the UK was developed in the UK. The only thing the E-USSR did was make it possible to enforce UK and other county court judgements enforceable EU-wide. For example M&S were renowned for giving no-quibble refunds before the UK even joined the EEC back in 1973. :)

You can see why the leave side won the referendum.

We had consumer rights, workers rights, a health service and Civil Courts when most of the rest of Europe were still living under tin-pot dictators.
 
Er...what has Brexit got to do with this? Sale Of Goods Acts, Limitations Act, Distance Selling regs. and most of your consumer legislation in the UK was developed in the UK. The only thing the E-USSR did was make it possible to enforce UK and other county court judgements enforceable EU-wide. For example M&S were renowned for giving no-quibble refunds before the UK even joined the EEC back in 1973. :)

You can see why the leave side won the referendum.

We had consumer rights, workers rights, a health service and Civil Courts when most of the rest of Europe were still living under tin-pot dictators.

Sorry, it was just a joke aimed towards the "EU law" that got mentioned. Don't mean anything serious by it ;).

You are completely right, the UK has had very good regulations in place well before the EU.
 

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