One of the biggest issues for retailers and customers alike from a legal perspective is when the latter has the right to a refund from the former.
If there is a disagreement, then a retailer may need to speak to a shop solicitor to consider their options in the event of a legal challenge.
There are a few places that can get confusing when it comes to refunds; many retailers go above and beyond the right to a refund and thus have the right to add conditions to those extra rights, and online/mail-order purchases have different rights to purchases bought in a shop.
What Are Consumer Statutory Rights?
Typically a store is legally required to give refunds if a purchase breaches the customer’s satisfactory rights. These are covered at length in the Consumer Rights Act 2015, but typically there are four main situations where a customer has the right to a refund if:
• An item is faulty, broken, or does not work,
• An item is not as it was described,
• An item works but is not fit for a particular purpose,
• An item was not installed correctly if the installation was part of the contract, or,
• The store did not have the legal right to sell the item.
In these cases, you must offer a full refund, although you can offer a replacement or repair instead.
Are There Any Exceptions?
Some stores will go further than these rights, but there are a few cases where the conditions above do not apply and a store may not have to offer a refund.
These include:
• Buying damaged or faulty goods, providing the customer has full knowledge of the risk they are taking.
• A customer damaging an item because they tried to repair it themselves or hire someone else to repair it, although they may still have the right to a partial refund, repair or replacement.
• Do not want an item anymore, unless they bought it sight-unseen.
• Certain items such as perishables, newspapers, magazines, unwrapped optical disks and items made to order can only be returned if they are faulty.
However, items bought online can be returned for a full refund for any reason if they tell you within 14 days of receiving their goods that they want to return them, and they have another 14 days to send the goods back.