Is there such thing as reasonable expectation for delivery time? I ordered a chair from a store here in town. Delivery estimate according to the receipt is 10-12 weeks. The receipt says if I cancel the order I have to pay a 25% restocking fee. Twelve weeks has come and gone and the store doesn't know when the chair will arrive. Since 10-12 weeks is an estimate, I don't think I have a right to complain off the bat. But is there a reasonable, legal limit to how long I can be forced to wait before getting a full refund (or doing a charge-back and fighting in small claims court should they withhold the 25% restocking fee)? Obviously I can't be expected to wait forever (I've already paid) - how long should one be expected to wait before acting? Update: It is 1-2 weeks past the far end of the delivery time. I called the shop and they said that COVID has caused delays and they expect 4-6 weeks more &quot;If I need a number, but we can't really know&quot;. I asked them if they'd still charge the restocking fee if I canceled the order and they said yes, they would still charge the 25%. Not sure how this fits in with the definition of &quot;reasonable&quot; given in the answers; I appreciate any further comments.
Yes there is If no estimate is provided, the reasonable time is 30 days. Findlaw's page on Shipping Goods and the 30-Day Rule says: If the business is unable to ship within the promised time or within 30 days, the merchant must promptly tell the customer by mail, telephone or email, and give a new shipping estimate and give the customer a chance to cancel their order and receive a full refund. This offer to cancel or accept the new shipping date must give the customer sufficient time to make a decision. In other words, you can't call to inform a customer you can't make a shipping time and then demand an immediate answer. If the 10-12 estimate has passed, and the merchant has not notified the customer &quot;promptly&quot;, say withing a week, the customer is entitled to demand a full refund,m with no &quot;restocking fee&quot; and the FTC can enforce this. The FTC has wide ranging powers to enforce the 30-Day Rule. Businesses can be sued by the FTC for injunctive relief, damages of up to $16,000 per violation, and redress for the consumer. Additionally, state and local agencies can sue [a merchant] for violating consumer protection law And This FTC page says: The Rule requires that when you advertise merchandise, you must have a reasonable basis for stating or implying that you can ship within a certain time. If you make no shipment statement, you must have a reasonable basis for believing that you can ship within 30 days. That is why direct marketers sometimes call this the &quot;30-day Rule.&quot; If, after taking the customer’s order, you learn that you cannot ship within the time you stated or within 30 days, you must seek the customer’s consent to the delayed shipment. If you cannot obtain the customer’s consent to the delay -- either because it is not a situation in which you are permitted to treat the customer’s silence as consent and the customer has not expressly consented to the delay, or because the customer has expressly refused to consent -- you must, without being asked, promptly refund all the money the customer paid you for the unshipped merchandise. ... When you learn that you cannot ship on time, you must decide whether you will ever be able to ship the order. If you decide that you cannot, you must promptly cancel the order and make a full refund. If you decide you can ship the order later, you must seek the customer’s consent to the delay. You may use whatever means you wish to do this -- such as the telephone, fax, mail, or email -- as long as you notify the customer of the delay reasonably quickly. The customer must have sufficient advance notification to make a meaningful decision to consent to the delay or cancel the order. The page goes into significant further detail on a merchant's obligations. All of this applies to &quot;goods a customer orders from the seller by mail, telephone, fax, or on the Internet.&quot; It would not apply to goods ordered in person at the store.
If I understand your question correctly, you have some clients who have paid you for services that you have not yet provided and, indeed, they have not yet requested. Is this correct? The accounting term for this is a "prepayment". The correct accounting treatment is to increase an asset account (your bank account) and create a liability account (Prepayments or something similar). You need to talk to your accountant about how to treat these for consumption and income taxes. Legally, these people are now creditors of your business - just like all of your suppliers and employees. There is no legal requirement to escrow or otherwise treat this as trust money. Basically, if your business goes bust they will lose their money. This is something that you should have dealt with in your contract with your customers - if you are running an online business then you should get a lawyer to revise your terms of service to cover things like how they can ask for a refund (and how long you have to get it to them) and how long (or if) they forfeit the funds. As it stands the money effectively becomes yours after whatever time under a statute of limitation applies to transactions of this type and size (under whatever law applies to the contract) since after that time they cannot sue to get it back.
It may be illegal under product labelling regulations that apply to that kind of product (or under a general deceptive trade practices act), but even then, only if you are interpreting the numbers, whose meaning is not clearly spelled out, correctly. But, to be actionable as fraud it must, among other things, be a misrepresentation as to a material fact (which if the goods, such as cordless drills, are not perishable it probably isn't) and the recipient of the misrepresentation must have justifiably relied upon the misrepresentation (which is necessary not true in the case of a representation that it was made in December 2018 on a product sold no later than July of 2018). It is also not entirely clear that this is a "made on" date. It could refer, for example, to the the twelfth batch or lot or shipment of products made in 2018, and not to the month of December, or it could refer to a product made in 2018 at factory number 12. @NateEldredge in the comments also makes the plausible observation that it could be a week number which is a common system in manufacturing which would put it in a more reasonable March 2018 time frame. You probably shouldn't do anything, because you haven't been harmed by this cryptic string of numbers embossed on the product, and even if you were, your damages would not be worth the time or money involved to pursue it as anything other than part of a class action lawsuit.
He may be entitled to (part) of the deposit or he may owe you more money When you and he agreed you both entered a legally binding contract - you are obliged to sell the vehicle to him, he is obliged to buy the vehicle from you. The deposit is merely the first instalment of the payment for the vehicle with the balance being due on delivery. They are not refundable by default. He now wants to repudiate the contract and you have several options: you can refuse his repudiation and require him to complete the contract within a reasonable time. He probably won’t do this so when he doesn’t we move on to one of the other options. In essence, this is simply a warning shot that if he doesn’t complete the contract you will move on to item 2. you can accept the repudiation and sue for damages, these would include your lost rent, pro-rata of registration, insurance etc. from the time you would have sold to the time you do sell, any additional advertising, any difference in the price you ultimately get if it is lower than his offer etc. you can accept the repudiation in return for keeping the deposit in lieu of the actual damages. This in makes the deposit a liquidated damages amount and it must follow all the same rules, basically it must be a genuine pre-estimate of the damage you would suffer and not be so high that it amounts to a penalty. You can accept the repudiation and, as a gesture of goodwill, return some or all of the deposit.
Is there any consumer protection against the manufacturer repeatedly replacing items under warranty until the customer simply gives up? There are two implied warranties that people should knno about - fitness for a particular purpose and merchantabilty. You are concerned with merchantability. The implied warranty of merchantability basically says that goods are reasonably fit for the general purpose for which they are sold. If something keeps breaking it is not merchantable (generally). The warranty of merchantability is found in the Uniform Commerical Code and in Texas' Business and Commerce Code. Both at Section 2.314. You can read it, it is not very long, but one important part is, "fit for the ordinary purposes for which such goods are used." This is an implied warranty, which means it is automatic unless disclaimed. Some states prohibit sellers from disclaiming implied warranties; Texas is not one of them (no surprise there). 2.316 is where we find out how to disclaim the warranty. This is how to exclude or modify the implied warranty of merchantability or any part of it the language must mention merchantability and in case of a writing must be conspicuous 2.316 also says Language to exclude all implied warranties of fitness is sufficient if it states, for example, that "There are no warranties which extend beyond the description on the face hereof." So a buyer needs to see if the seller and the manufacturer both disclaimed the implied warranties. If so the buyer is going to be limited to the expressed warranties. If they did not disclaim then the remedy is to return the item and get the money back. So yeah, this is like a lemon law for stuff. There is a requirement that the seller be a "merchant with respect to goods of that kind." That just means that the buyer didn't buy shoes at a car dealer. That it was the seller's business to sell the thing. A last note on this. Implied warranties differ from state to state as to who they can be applied against. 2-318 offers three options. Texas chose option 3 - which means that the courts decide if the buck stops at the retailer or if it extends to the manufacturer. This chapter does not provide whether anyone other than a buyer may take advantage of an express or implied warranty of quality made to the buyer or whether the buyer or anyone entitled to take advantage of a warranty made to the buyer may sue a third party other than the immediate seller for deficiencies in the quality of the goods. These matters are left to the courts for their determination. In other words, unless the implied warranties were disclaimed by both the retailer and the manufacturer, the buyer can go after either for the refund. And what is cool1 is that a 2013 Texas Supreme Court case found that a buyer of a used engine has a claim against the manufacturer. MAN Engines &amp; Components, Inc. v. Shows. This is different because some states require privity of contract - meaning that only the original buyer can exercise the warranty and they can only exercise against the seller. EDIT 2.316(c)(2) says when the buyer before entering into the contract has examined the goods or the sample or model as fully as he desired or has refused to examine the goods there is no implied warranty with regard to defects which an examination ought in the circumstances to have revealed to him This basically says that if you know about the defect you waive the implied warranty. There are two ways to look at this. The first way is that the first defective item is the "the goods or the sample or model" that you have now inspected, so you now know about the defect, and if you buy another you are buying it with defects revealed which waives the warranty. The other way to look at it is that you do not know that the first one is representative of all the products so it is not until you get the second, or third, that the defect with the goods or the sample or model is representative of all the products, and that it is not until you have this knowledge that the defect is "revealed." In other words, it depends. 1Cool for consumers, not manufacturers.
Warranty is company policy. It could be considered part of the contract of sale, but it would still be what the company stated it - at time of purchase - to be. Unless the warranty lists accidental damage as being covered, it looks like the company are following their policy and fulfilling the contract. If you were looking for legal redress since accidental damage resulted from using the product as intended, you'd have more chance of success looking at unsatisfactory quality or the product being unsuitable for the intended purpose under Part 1 chapter 2 sections 9 and 10 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015. It's worth sticking to objective details (for example that the port broke, and that you had used the device as intended). The company are not assuming you broke it (anyone or anything could have caused the accidental damage), and they are not refusing a warranty repair as it appears that accidental damage is not covered by their warranty policy, so this is not one.
There is a reasonable chance that the amount that you are borrowing and paying interest on is through a third party, so the dealer can't just waive the interest for the period when they are fixing the car. Legal responses would include canceling the sale, and suing for damages. The problem with suing for damages is that this isn't costing you an extra $15/day (the loan gets paid off at a fixed time, regardless of how much you get to actually drive the car). It would be a considerable stretch to argue that you were deprived of a week's worth of enjoyment for the car because of the wrongful acts of the dealer, and should be compensated. Your attorney would be in a good position to tell you, based on the facts and Texas law, whether that approach would be futile. The legality of the situation primarily depends on what the contract says. It is likely that the contract has clauses that maximally disclaim responsibility to the maximum extent allowed by law. There will be some clause that says something about taking delivery of the car, so you can check whether they have breached the contract on that point: it is possible that there is some escape hatch like "as soon as possible, upon receipt of payment". It seems pretty clear that they concealed a material fact, in order to induce you to buy the car. For example, the manufacturer may have installed a defective veblitzer which had to be replaced, and a reasonable person would not buy a car with a defective veblitzer, thus the veblitzer is a material fact. Or: the veblitzer may have been damaged in a flood. The fact that the car is, by their representation, not safe to drive in its current state, the mind of fact that would push most people into the "no thanks" category. To pursue the fraud angle, you need to be more specific about the defective part in your complaint. The only way to force them to reveal the nature of the missing part is to sue them and compel disclosure of the relevant facts during discovery. Again, your attorney would deal with this. You should bear in mind that if the sale is simply cancelled, you may not be able to recover the loan application or processing fee, and the trade-in will no doubt have been sold, so you can't get the old car back. There are laws against deceptive trade practices which might be applicable, depending on whether they said anything deceptive in their disseminated advertising. Section 17.46 may be applicable, if they patched the car together temporarily with a counterfeit veblitzer.
You have an agreement with the store that allows you to use scan and go technology. Part of that agreement a bit that says we may ask you to help us confirm that the service is working effectively by allowing us to check your goods against the scanner or to re-scan your shopping They also say that they are entitled to withdraw your right to use the Scan and Go service at any time if you do not comply with these Terms and Conditions. If we do that, the legal agreement created between ASDA and you under these Terms and Conditions will come to an end immediately, although any relevant statutory rights that you may have will not be affected. More generally, ASDA reserves the right to withdraw the Scan and Go Service at any time, at its sole discretion You have implicitly consented to a brief stop for a rescan. I don't see any implication that they assert a right to search your person. You can refuse a re-scan and they can process you like an ordinary customer. As for shoplifting, as this article summarizes, security can make a citizen's arrest if they suspect that you have committed a crime (theft). They have to have reasonable grounds for thinking that an arrest is necessary to prevent the loss. Hence they can detain you until the constable arrives.