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A long time waiting

The contract

On 7 September 2013 William signed a contract to purchase a television along with a free phone, tablet and memory card from a door to door salesperson working for Goods To You Limited.

 

The agreement William signed said that the goods would be delivered after William had made 18 weekly payments of $32. The total number of payments to be made was 52 weekly payments. A letter given to William by the salesperson said that the goods would be delivered 10-15 working days (that is, 3 weeks) after the 18 weekly payments had been made. This meant that delivery would actually occur after 21 weekly payments had been made by William.

 

Payments

William made his 21st weekly payment on 12 February 2014. By 20 March 2014 William had not received the goods and wrote to Goods To You and said he wanted to cancel the contract because he had been waiting too long for the goods. William also told Goods To You that the non-delivery of the goods had caused him stress as he had stayed home in the afternoons awaiting delivery. William said Goods To You had lied to him about the delivery and had ‘ripped him off’.

 

William made his last payment to Goods To You on 19 March 2014. By this time he had paid a total amount of $873.25 to Goods To You.

 

The cancellation fee

Goods To You contacted William and said he would be charged a cancellation fee of $362.58. William complained to FSCL that Goods To You could not charge the cancellation fee because Goods To You had breached the contract by not delivering the goods on time.

 

FSCL investigates

We asked Goods To You for a report and file on the complaint, to be received 10 working days later (26 June 2014). By 7 July 2014 the report had not been received, with no explanation as to why, and we issued our decision on William’s complaint without any information from Goods To You.

 

Based on the information provided by William, we found the complaint should be upheld because Goods To You had breached the contract by not delivering the goods in the time stated. We suggested that Goods To You refund William the total amount he had paid ($873.25), or tell us why it did not agree with the preliminary view.

 

Goods To You finally replied and offered to refund William the total amount he had paid, less $92.25 in fees, a sum of $781. William accepted the offer and signed a settlement form.

 

A week later William had still not received the funds from Goods To You and we wrote to Goods To You outlining that this was a breach of our  terms of reference (paragraph 20.1).

 

Eventually William received the funds a week later, and the complaint was resolved.