HOME BARGAINS and The Range are among 28 shops forced to change their online returns policy following a Martin Lewis investigation.
Back in July, the founder of Money Saving Expert (MSE) discovered some 28 shops and cafés’ policies suggest consumers have fewer rights than what the law entitles them to.
Under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, customers always have 14 days after the day of receiving a product to notify the retailer that they wish to make a return.
Shoppers then have a further 14 days after that to send the product back.
But it is important to note that this does not apply to certain goods such as perishable or personalised items, or sealed audio, video or computer software which has since been opened.
These can only be returned if they’re faulty, or if the retailer’s policy allows it.
Retailers must inform customers of their legal return rights before they make a purchase.
If shoppers are not informed of their return rights, for example not displaying information on the website, the window for a return is extended to 12 months.
These statutory rights overrule a retailer’s individual policy.
However, the investigation by the money guru found that a number of retailers did not make these polices clear.
Earlier this year, Home Bargains was found to have breached consumers rights as it said customers only had 14 days to return online orders.
At the time, MSE said this breaches shoppers rights as law states that online shoppers have 14 days to change their mind, and a further 14 days to return the item.
But this has now been updated to reflect that customers have 28 days to return an item.
The Range also previously stated that customers only have two weeks to return, when they should have up to 28 days.
The company’s online policy has now been updated to reflect this.
Monsoon was also found to have misled customers, but updated the language on its website in July, when the issue was first flagged by MSE.
New Look, which named by MSE earlier this year, said its policy has always been “fully compliant with statutory consumer rights“.
The retailer updated the wording to make it more understandable for shoppers seven months ago.
Your rights under the the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013
- Consumers always have 14 days from the day after receiving an item to notify the retailer of a return.
- They then have another 14 days after that to send the item back for a refund (so a maximum of 28 days in total).
- Receipt of goods happens when the consumer takes physical possession of them. In the case of delivered items, this means the day the item is delivered to the address or the person the buyer specifies.
- Stores must inform customers of their legal rights surrounding returns before they make a purchase.
- If shoppers aren’t informed of their cancellation (return) rights (for example, by the failure to display info on websites or on receipts), the return window is extended by 12 months.
- Some retailers may choose to go above and beyond this, which then forms part of your contractual rights.
- The most common errors retailers made were either stating that your retail rights start on dispatch (rather than receipt of goods) or that shoppers have only 14 days to return goods.
A spokesperson said: “To ensure our policies are as clear as possible for customers, we updated the wording on our website earlier this year, but there has been no change to our approach”.
Caffe Nero also updated wording, adding “there has been no change or impact for our customers, as we were already honouring the correct terms”.
Sustainable skin care brand Grüum’s co-founder sent an email to its customers, thanking MSE for informing it of the error, and admitting: “Martin Lewis alerted us to an issue in our FAQs relating to returning unwanted products.
“Our FAQs said that if you’re not completely happy with your Grüum products, you can return them in the package they arrive in within 14 days.
“According to the law, and Martin, we should have said you have 14 days to decide if you want to change your mind and then a further 14 days to return the product.”
HMV, which was named in the original report, said: “We responded to MoneySavingExpert at the time this was raised to explain that hmv.com customers have always had 14 days from the date of delivery to notify us of their intention to return any goods, followed by a further 14 days to complete the return.
“In response to the MoneySavingExpert enquiry we reviewed this stance and increased the time required to complete the return to 16 days (as long as we received notification within 14 days of receipt of goods), giving 30 days in total to make a return.”
It added: “In July this year we updated the wording on our website to ensure that our stated terms accurately reflect this policy.”
Selfridges said: “Our policy for customers shopping online has always been legally compliant, with the consumer returns rights correctly set out in the ‘cancellation’ section of our T&C’s.
“We have since updated and further clarified this information on our website FAQ’s and product pages to ensure it is clearer and more accessible for our customers.”
A total of 30 retailers were uncovered to have published incorrect information regarding their returns policy.
Since July, two of the firms have gone bust.
After publishing its findings over the summer, 24 businesses corrected their sites including Selfridges, Home Bargains, Benefit, and New Look.
Carluccio’s, Evans, Freemans and Joules – dragged their feet, prompting MSE to report them all to the Trading Standards.
When the remaining four were then asked for a ‘right of reply’ as Martin Lewis was preparing to name and shame them on his ITV show, the final outliers agreed to correct their websites.
All stores have since updated their policy to reflect the correct information.
You can check out the full list of retailers below:
- Benefit
- Boden
- Bondi Sands
- Caffè Nero
- Carluccio’s
- CeX
- ELC
- Evans
- Forbidden Planet
- Freemans
- Grüum
- Guinness
- Harvey Nichols
- HiPP Organic
- HMV
- Home Bargains
- Hotpod Yoga
- Hush
- Jessops
- Joules
- Monsoon
- New Look
- Perfect Draft
- Robert Dyas
- Ryman
- Selfridges
- The Range
- Victoria’s Secret
Martin Lewis, founder of MSE, said it was “beggars belief” that some of the nation’s big retailers and their lawyers or compliance officers didn’t spot that they were giving out ‘crap information’.
“The problem with incorrect information is that it risks being a deterrent to people legitimately returning online orders, as if they check a shop’s misleading websites, they’ll wrongly think they’re timed out and may not bother.”
All mentioned parties have been approached for comment.
YOUR RETURN RIGHTS EXPLAINED
THE SUN’S Head of Consumer, Tara Evans, explains your return rights:
YOUR right to return items depends on where you purchased it and why you want to return it.
If you bought an item online then you are covered by the Consumer Contracts Regulations, which means you can cancel an item 14 days from when you receive it.
You then have a further 14 days to return the item, once you’ve notified the retailer that you want to return it.
If an item is faulty – regardless of how you bought it – you are legally able to return it and get a full refund within 30 days of receiving it.
Most retailers have their own returns policies, offering an exchange, refund or credit.
Shops don’t have to have these policies by law, but if they do have one then they should stick to it.
