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the orders
OK, but then they take a risk for the ones that they ship the wrong thing too. They still should make good, and they should calculate the price of making good along with the savings of not asking first for those who *are* satisfied.
They ask now for home phone and work phone, and everyone has an answering service of some sort. So it should only add another day at most. If they answer the phone it might only add another hour, which will sometimes mean anothr day.
So you say they are trying to manipulate him into taking something he wouldn't want if it weren't already there. Well that's a risk they are taking and when he doesn't want it even after it is t here, HD should make good, even if they have to pick up the bad machine and even if they also lose the sale because they no longer have what he wants.
He didn't put the order on hold. He cancelled the order, but then then he allowed them to reproduce it by finding the previous order slip**. If they didn't have what was on t hat order slip, they should have told him. **How often does that happen? When they do reproduce nad order, and the they can't fulfill the order, they should call him.
Now there might be things he hasn't said that change things, but based on what we're discussing, he's right.
Who gives a damn what they hate. They chose to go into business. They can't use inconvencence of their hates to to justify palming off something that the customer didn't order.
They didn't deliver what was ordered. The law covers that and supercedes their self-centered return policy.
He didn't know he didn't like it until now.
Their policies are superceded by the law.
He either did or didn't have to, because he said he was assured they had the same features.
It doesn't say how long after the machine was delivered that he complained. I'm not sure how long could be considered too long. But we also have no evidence he waited more than an hour.
He's only right if the store did something NOT stated in it's policies. It is the customers obligation to know return polices BEFORE they buy.
Good point. And maybe they could charge for the extra unproductive delivery if the buyer made it so hard to reach him as you have.
I bought one there and it mounted in my dashboard.
Couldn't they just connect it to the car's heater?
Nonsense. If a store has a policy that states they sub and the customers has an obligation to REFUSE delivery if they don't want the item that is well within the law.
Nope. No such law.
One of the nice things about the Internet is you don't have to trust what you are told by an employee earning $12 an hour. Would you trust them?
It takes longer than that to uncrate it and hook it up. Once it's uncrated it's considered a used demo.
The law is not a jackass. It recognizes the reality of situations.
One can't reject a substitution by looking at the crate. And if the truck driver opened the crate and installed the washer, and the customer called to say it's not a valid substitution, within a reasonable time, he will win in court. Assuming the rest of the facts are pretty much like he said, and you're not saying they're not.
I don't what the law says about charging him a (second, I think) delivery charge for having to come and pick up the washer to remove it. If he had rejected it immediately, they could have taken it with them, but otoh, the whole problem flows out of their sending a substitute which the manager told him had the same features as the one he ordered. It didn't. It was the store's mistake, and he's not going to have to pay for or keep the washer. Although he will have to keep it in the same condition as when delivered.
I'm not at all sure they can't recrate it. If the original crate is ruined or thrown away, they can be careful with the next washer and preserve that crate and use it. But if the washer is now a "demonstator" or floor model, and they lose money on it, it all flows out of hte store's mistake.
While people have the image that the law very often causes injustices, and that people have to be perfect in their behaviour, the only sometimes causes injustices, and people don't have to be perfect. They often just have to be more right than the other side.
There used to be courts of law and courts of equity. (There used to be "attorneys at law" and "attorneys at equity".) They were merged a couple hundred years ago, more or less, and all civil courts are supposed to do equity in places and cases where equity is appropriate. Equity is basically equivalent to fairness. The law is not a jackass.
Again you are not a slave to their policies if their policies are contradicted by the law. For example, they can't have an enforceable policy that says their products don't have a warranty of merchantability or fitness for use.
People who think they are subject to policies of stores that are contradicted by the law frequently tolerate things that the law doesn't require them to tolerate.
If they deliver a tv, a portable which requires no installation, and you sign for it before you turn it on, and it doesn't work, they have to take it back and replace it with a good one or give you your money back. They can't enforce a policy which says, We're not responsible for appliances that don't work. Because the law overrides such a policy.
If they do have a policy about substitutions, it is probably written carefully so that it doesn't actually apply here, but whoever the OP called wanted it to apply. Or it is ambiguous because it is in fact very hard to write a policy that foresees every situation (although this one seems forseeable). But my point is that I'm not claiming they intentinoally wrote a terrible policy like "not responsible for appliances that don't work." I expect their policy is reasonable and fair, but either clear or ambiguous as applied here and either way,doesn't apply in this case though someone thinks it does.
And it is the store's obligation to know what the law is BEFORE they sell.
If they know it and intend to abide by it, they won't have so many problems with customers who also know the law. Although if they don't intend to abide by it, or they just can't manage to unless they are forced, they will get over on customers who don't know the law and who don't complain.
The OP had already talked to customer service about the substitution BEFORE it was shipped. Why not cancel then? Sure they told him it was virtually an identical machine but it's up to him to check that. He could have easily checked the features of the machine on the manufacturers website. He didn't need to accept delivery and rip open the crate. He KNEW he was getting a sub. Why didn't he check out the model BEFORE accepting delivery?
I left enough for context. Quit whining.
he f***ed up.
You jerk them around, then complain when they do something wrong and you forget to backcheck on time? Correct?
There is NO contradiction. Sears subs millions of items a year.
He was told IN ADVANCE about the substitution before HD shipped it. He took them at their word it had identical features. It's up to the customer to check if that's true. Who trusts a salesman and accepts delivery sight unseen. The customer could have told them to delay shipping until he check out the machine for himself.
You're right there is no such law that says a store can't make substitutions.
There are innumerable situations, and more created every day, where people disagree and it's not possible to itemize every one of them in the statute books. There are a lot more examples in the reported case law, but still nowhere near all the situations.
But there is a law that covers this. What the law in every state's statutes says is that when there is a contract, both sides have to fulfill the promises they made in the contract. The customer promised to pay and the store promised to deliver a certain washing machine. The store then assured the customer that the substitution had the same features as the model ordered. If this had been true, they would have had an accord and satisfaction. Since it doesn't have the same features, they have not fulfilled the original contract or the accord. The customer has a reasonable time to determine that the accord has not been satisified. He went back to the store the very same day it was delivered. That is certainly within a reasonable time.
This is not the kind of situation that contractors among others face sometimes. They find out after work is done that the client and the contractor were thinking of different things, BUT the contractor has already done valuable work. In that case, the contractor is, if not payable according to the terms of the contract, at least owed quantum meruit, how much he merited, the reasonable value of the work he did that the customer wanted or decided to use. But in this case here the work part is only the delivery and that can be undone easily. So the remedy is to remove the washer and refund the money, minus perhaps one extra pickup or delivery charge. If the customer says, I"ll keep this one if you refund this many dollars, and they reach an agreement, that is fine too, but it is the customer's option, and I don't think he'll do it in this case.
More below.
Because he was told it had the same features. He's allowed to rely on the word of an employee. The employee is an agent or at least the apparent agent** of the principal. The principal is the store.
**That is, maybe this particular employee doesn't have the authority to answer questions that customers ask. But the customer doesnt' know that. All he knows is that he answered the phone or appeared in the department and answered his questions. The employee has apparent authority from the customer's pov. He probably also had real authority to answer questions as the agent of the store. Agency is rarely even an issue when someone is an employee.No, it isn't. He's allowed to rely on the word of an employee, especially one who works in the appliance department. If you could show that the guy worked in the garden department and it was apparent he worked in the garden department and not the appliance department, and he didnt' ask anyone or look up the two model numbers and compare the features, and said, "Well, I suppose the features are the same", that the customer cannot rely on that. But that was not the case here.
He relied on the word of a company employee who knew or should have known if it had the same features. That is good enough. He has NO obligation to go to the maker's website. It might have saved him inconvenience, but he has no obligation to the store to have better information than the store does. The store is responsible for fulfilling its side of the contract.
If you own a store, maybe you wouldn't like the law some time. If otoh you are a customer who would tolerate this, I guess it is good for the rest of us that the store doesn't lose any money on you which they would try to make up on the rest of the customers.
The law does not place horrible burdens on commerce, it does not depend on people's reaction always being perfect. Stores and various parties might have you believe that that is the case, so that you won't complain, but it isn't so.
(In another post I said "[the law] only sometimes causes injustices, and people don't have to be perfect. They often just have to be more right than the other side." There are not merely imperfect but bad things that one side can do that will preclude its recovering on the basis of equity. The plaintiff has to have "clean hands". If he was breaking the law, he's unlikely to be able to win. If one was cheated buying illegal drugs, the court won't hear the case, even if the plaintfif is more right than the other side. But the OP here didnt' do anything to give himself unclean hands, and I think this is a straightforward case in law anyhow. I don't think it is required to bring equity into it.)
In this case it doesn't matter. The OP AGREED to the substitution BEFORE the washer was shipped. He will have to prove the sales person LIED/ or was in error about the machines features and I doubt even that would matter to a judge.
Good luck with that. I doubt he even knows the name of the person to whom he was speaking.
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