Most of us have, at some time in our adult lives have experienced poor quality, suffered economic loss, been injured or generally felt aggrieved by the attitude of powerful retailers. You may choose to do nothing and learn from the experience, or you may decide to take action against the offending party by investigating your consumer rights and remedies.
Understanding your consumer rights is complex and at times confusing, but What Consumer is here to help, by showing you whether you have a valid complaint under UK law and what remedies you can rely on to put the situation right. There are several sections to this site:
- Consumer Rights explains how various acts of UK legislation and European Regulations affect you. Among many others, you can find information on Sale of Goods, Supply of Services, Consumer Credit, Data Protection, Misdescription and Travel.
- Consumer Guides contains more information on specific scenarios such as buying mobile phones, new homes, second hand cars, clothing and footwear. It also deals with thorny issues such as returning damaged or faulty goods, cooling off periods, dealing with dodgy tradesmen, buying online or making a small claim.
- Consumer News keeps you updated on aspects of consumer news and how legislative changes affect you.
- Consumer Forum: It goes without saying that you, the consumer, are a central feature of our site. As such we’d love you to share your views and experiences and offer advice on the forums to your fellow consumers.
Important points to understand
- In order to invoke your consumer rights under UK law you must be acting as a consumer – seems an obvious point, but you must be trying to acquire goods for personal use rather than business use.
- The first thing to be aware of is the difference between civil law and criminal law with regard to what has occurred. You may have been the subject of a civil wrong and only able to take action (sue) on your own initiative in order to have the matter put right to your satisfaction. This usually involves being awarded damages to compensate you for your losses. On the other hand, your complaint may be due to the organisation or supplier having committed a criminal offence, which is altogether much more serious and usually taken out of your hands by the enforcement authorities in the form of prosecution. Unlike civil action, criminal offences do not usually result in any benefit to you beyond the knowledge that whoever it was is now being punished. The majority of consumer law is civil law.
- Just because you are dealing with a large powerful retailer, it does not necessarily mean that they will always act in a lawful or an honourable way. This may be because the individual you are dealing with or the business as a whole is not aware of your consumer rights. In any event, arm yourself with a basic understanding of your consumer rights in order to get what you want and hold your own against unscrupulous or misinformed traders.
- A useful starting point in anyone’s general understanding of consumer rights is an understanding of the basic principles of contract law. Put simply this relates to whether a legally binding contract exists – because without one you are unlikely to succeed in any claim.
- Consumer legislation does not contain definitive descriptions or specific standards in terms of what you should expect. Instead it relies on concepts of ‘satisfactory’, ‘reasonable’ and ‘significant’ which can make it rather subjective. However, judgements will always be based on principles of reasonableness and proportionality in regard to whether you have a case and what you can expect in damages as a result.
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We purchased decorative stones for our garden, on two occasions from B&q.
1st delivery of 2tone the stones are fine, 2nd delivery the stones are a different colour. We went to the store to be told they are the same and the 1st batch must have been bleeched with the sun. One stone has white chalk the other has a red chalk, totally different….what are my rights. Thanks ks
I want to register the dissatisfaction around Build It hardware stores in buffalo street in east London. They are liars who a greedy form money not customer care in particular their sales person known as Quintin, he is a blue liar who is fooling customers on a daily basis and one can conclude to say is he is doing this because of racial attitude. You will buy spot cash and wait for almost weeks which lead to months in order to get your staff. Recently this Quintin made me to wait for almost 3 months for plumbing material as well as the cement . On the 18th June 2015 as I always keep on going to enquire about the material he would keep on saying goods has been delivered, this date he was saying same thing as above regarding plumbing material and cement. I then phone the plumber who is staying in Zwelitsha based on the statement of Quintin. On his arrival in East London we then go straight to Build It to take material on hand so that he can go with it, to our surprise Quintin told us that material has already gone out with a truck to the place where plumber is to do this plumbing work I hired him for. The point I want to make is the way Build It is dealing with us as customers there as I am not the only customer not being satisfied with the service , as they are causing a lot of inconvenience as well as burden they took our money but material no where to be delivered on time. This also cause cost constraints as my plumber travelled afar using his money only to find no material to work as promised by this Quintin of Build It .
Dear Sir or Madam please could you warn people about a scam on the unternet by a clairvoyant calling himself “THE Extraordinary Chris” This is a big scam where he is taking people for as much as he can con out of them. I am afraid I fell for his lies and paid a lot of money to him. I reported this to the Hing Kong police where his premises are and they are looking into his activities. He is still advertising as I just looked now. Too late for me but can you spread this all round please. Check the Internet what people have found him out to be. Thank you. Frank Kennedy. No 3 la58dj.
Hi. Need some advise. I recently joined a gym and after 4 months I wanted to cancel my membership but I was told that i am on a 12 month contract. I was not made aware about the 12 month contract nor did i sign anything agreeing to such terms. I was also not given any email or letter about the terms and conditions. Am i still in the right position to cancel my membership?
Bought a second hand watch from a very well know shop. It has been back to the shop twice for repair know needs to go back again as it has stopped again it was not a cheap watch cost over £1700 pounds they have had the watch longer than we have in repair I purchased it last sept and it was back in there shop within a month this is an on going problem what are my rites am I entitled to a full refund
we have had our Tunisian holiday cancelled and the travel agent has refunded our money but it is yet to show in our bank account after 15 WORKING days. The travel agent has shown us documents that confirm they had sent the money to our bank and our account yet the bank have said they have not received it and any complaint will take 3 weeks to process. What are my rights to getting our money from the bank as I have been told they are keeping it to earn the interest on it until they wish to free it up to put our account.
Hi.I bought a kitchen with intergrated fridge from BQ Blackby
Blackburn Lancs .It was on buy later scheme . i will pay for itin October .The fridge is broke i am 55 days without a fridge. The engineers appt is 24th Aug. i have been given number after number rin g.please advice me i am so fed up.
My 78 mother took out a phone contract 3 years ago with 02 for my nephew. In fen she rang and cancelled it at the end of the term . They then tried to charge her another month so she wrote and informed them she’d cancelled then the same thing happened the following month. By the third month they said she owed 2000 pounds for a whole contract. They won’t acknowledge that she terminated it and have now passed it to a debt agency.
Can they do this?
Apparently the debt agency are charging compound interest now while she waits for an ombudsman decision.
I was showering and pulled the curtain to find there was a dirty condom above me on the rail. What is my rights as a hotel guest? This was an hotel in england and in British.
Dear Sir/Madam
I am Group Captain Punpakdee Pattanakul
Thai Air Attaché Royal Thai Embassy
My Foreign&Commonwealth office diplomatic identity card number is 17855
The case has been happened with the easyjet airline since 30 March 15 (Reference ID: 108115787
We are thai people and my office is in the embassy I work as the Thai Air Attaché. We hold the Diplomatic passport.
We plan to visit Prague, Czech Republic with the family of 5 people. Just a day before I had an urgent duty to Vienna Austria I do need to leave my wife and 3 children travel alone. I had already booked flight and Hotel via easyjet with confidence in secure the family.
My family arrived the Gatwick Airport very eary in the morning.
Unfortunately, easyjet staffs refused my family to board the airplane with the reason is we have no schengen visa. I printed out the visa exemption countries to them but they all ignored and not event tried to check from another sources until the plane got airborne . My wife had to find the transportation back to London with 3 children(16,13,12)
I try to contact easyjet customer service many time and they just change the person to response and asking me to pass the agreement for visa exemption between thai Diplomatic passport and Czech Republic I send to them all of documents they need. I paid £ 840.9 for the ticket annd £ 270.58 for the hotel. The easyjet accept their mistake and refund me only £165 (£100 for a gesture of a goodwill and unused air passenger duty £65)
I am very disappointed and my diplomat family was very upset not only at the airport with many people my kids also afraid of travelling with bad experience.
The easyjet has already transferred money £165 to my acc but I am not happy with unfair from the airline.
Please tell the easyjet to do the right and fair to the customer.
In any details I can pass them to you if you need.
Best regards
P. Pattanakul
Thai Air Attaché
Royal thai embassy
Dear Sir or Madam,
I am a support worker in a hostel for women with a background of homelessness and mental health issues.
One of my clients has sometime in August, signed for a contract with EE.
The contract included 10 GB internet, a new Samsung telephone and a tablet. At the shop my client had been told that the internet would last the whole month.
(Please bear in mind that my client comes from Iran and her English is not very good)
Anyway after 4 days the internet finished and when my client went back to the shop, a shop assistant suggested her to buy unlimited internet for an additional price of £25 monthly.
Being my client on benefit, you can imagine her distress. Client uses internet daily to communicate with her daughters who live in Iran.
My client decided to go back home, take her phone, tablet and new contract, return to the shop and leave the whole lot there.
Now EE does not have a change of mind policy and it took me lots of persuasion to convince them to close the contract.
In the meantime, EE sent the items (phone and tablet) back to an old address where Maria, my client, was living 9 years ago.
Client is adamant in saying that she informed the shop of her new address (the hostel where she currently lives).
Besides this last particular, by your point of view, does EE have any right to send things back to their current or ex clients?
The account is finally closed but EE will keep charging (I do not know for how long) Maria for the items which have been delivered special delivery and signed for.
I will be on annual leave from Tuesday 29th September to the 6th October.
On Monday I will be working 1-9 pm if you wish to contact me, otherwise I hope to hear from you when I return from my holiday.
Kind regards
Stefania Vinci
Support worker at Queen Mary’s Hostel
28 Greencoat Place
London SW1P 1DX
Tel 020 7976 6338
I bought a Ford Kuga brand new 2 years ago with a 3 year warranty, now the alloy wheels are bubbling up. I have spoken to Ford and they tell me the wheels are only guaranteed for 12 months. How can this be right surely the wheels should last more than 12 months. How do I stand in taking this further because when I spoke to Ford Customer Care they were not interested.
Martin
If when ordering goods and signing that says up to 20 week delivery time but the retailer tells you verbally don’t worry the item will come much quicker, it won’t take long at all because they know you need the item ASAP ..are their verbal promises part of the contract ?
Hi I bought a sofa at Argos 6 days ago ,it looks nice and comfortable but no its hard and very uncomfortable, got all the recits ,called customer service and I wanted to return the sofa ,they said I can return just if I have the original packaging, but I don’t have it anymore what can I do????
I left my job this month and didn’t get paid. Mortified a month b4 Xmas. Said was owed in holiday which is fair enough but can they take whole wage and leave me broke. Been there 12 years!
My 16 yr old son bought a nest of tables on my instructions from Oak Furniture Land online on 5 February 2016. OFL advertised as free express delivery and said they will contact 2/3 days before delivery. They wrote and informed my son of a delivery date of 10th February, which he could not make because of school. He promptly called to say he wouldn’t be able to accept delivery on the date. They said they would try to fit his delivery first thing in the morning. When they did not deliver by 9am, he left for school. They contacted him later to say that since he was not there to grant access he would have to pay £39 if he wants it to be redelivered. He said no, that they should refund his money. He was then told that they could do so, however, the refund would be less £65 as they would charge for the attempted delivery and administrative costs. I called to complain and I was told that these conditions were in pages 8 and 25 of their terms of conditions which he had accepted. Surely there must be a regulation or law against such repulsive behaviour by a big retailer. None of this delivery/ refund implications is given in the order pages of the website nor was he informed when he called to say that he could not make the scheduled delivery date. They have put me in a catch 22 situation. Which way out please?
I have a windows which is still in warrantee and is not closing but I accidentky put the guarantee in our fire ! Is it still covered ? It was a local business
Hi,
What is the law regarding opening times? My local McDonald’sonlt has a license until 11pm but on their window state they are open until 12am. This has cause inconvenience to me and many other people I know. Surely this is some sort of false advertising?
Recently bought a sofabed from DFS, on the receipt I noticed that the cream sofa was called silver but thought due to fancy names for colours it was correct. The swatch I saw was cream. They were extremely busy and was passed on to order. I did sign the order.
On delivery it was grey not matching my cream three piece suite. I am an artist with a good eye for colour. I truly believe that it must have beeen a mistake on their part, but am afraid I have little chance of correcting this. I did complain to their head office and was refused acess to their CEO
Do I have any hope in correcting this?
We live in a council bungalow and they have got some contractors replaceing facies around the bungalow they have had a asbestos firm in to move it before the guys cans tart but we have a set off patio doors and when they pulled the asbestos of it has loosened our doors and the seal round them they have Saide they will get some one in to sort them out but I’m worried if another person dose the work that our Garuntee what we have will be void could you tell me if I’m right in thinking this