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E-Commerce Invoicing, Billing and then...Cancellation?

Posted by Cliff on from the watch-where-you-spend-your-emoney dept.

This understandably irate Anonymous Coward asks: "I recently ordered some memory from an on-line retailer for an insanely good price. It turns out that the price was *too* good -- claiming ' a mistake' they backed out of the order (I had assumed 'crazy promotion' and ended up buying other stuff as part of the order). However, not only did their cancellation come after I'd received a full invoice AND receipt, but my credit card had already been billed. Adding insult-to-injury, since I live in Canada, once they had refunded my CC amount, I was out a few bucks on exchange rates and fees! This isn't the first case of this I've seen - buy.com seems to get into price 'mistake' fiascos all the time, and Argos in the UK had a TV-for-3-pounds gong show last year. But where does the responsibility lie? In my case, I'd been fully invoiced, charged, and receipted before the cancellation. IANAL, but isn't there some point at which the invoice becomes legally binding? I do know the old bit about 'if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is' but I also know that if I sign an invoice or click that 'I Agree' button, I'm in a contract. Shouldn't the other party be, too?"

4 of 8 comments (clear)

  1. Did the order ship? by Psycho+S.+Illusion · · Score: 3

    Thats interesting that they charged your credit card -- merchant policy about this is fairly clear: the seller cannot "settle" on your card until the merchandise has shipped. To settle on the card before the goods have been shipped is a fairly major breach of their merchant agreement.

    I'm assuming one of two things: 1. the seller is a US Corp or has a merchant account based in the US, or that the credit card policies are similar world-wide. (Yeah, big assumption, I know, so you can skip the US-centric flames...)

    It'd be interesting to mention that bit to your issuing bank and see what they do...

    IANAL or anything, I just write software that processes credit cards...
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    1. Re:Did the order ship? by Elvis+Maximus · · Score: 2
      merchant policy about this is fairly clear: the seller cannot "settle" on your card until the merchandise has shipped.

      I think the key words there are "merchant policy." If I'm not mistaken, this is a policy matter that differs from merchant to merchant. If anybody knows otherwise, I would love some details.

      I took particular interest in this recently because Amazon.com charged my credit card for a significant amount about three weeks before shipping an order I made (and when they said they shipped it, they were lying, which I found pretty shocking). I looked around, but I could not find anything to cite that said they didn't have the right to do this. The ABA runs a pretty helpful shoppers' rights site, but it did not speak to this issue.

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      Give me liberty or give me something of equal or lesser value from your glossy 32-page catalog.

  2. Buy.com by NetJunkie · · Score: 2

    Everyone sure does come down on buy.com for that monitor mistake. I thought they did a great thing when they fullfilled as many orders as they could. Get over it. I buy stuff from them a LOT, and have had nothing but good service.

  3. talk to your credit card company by scotpurl · · Score: 2

    Get your credit card company involved. How is it you're out money when you didn't get _anything_ from them?

    Even if the exchange rate did vary widely, and in your favor, you don't think they'd suddenly refund you more than what they billed you?

    Me smell rat.