Mistaken offers – cearta.ie

The legal effects of some butterfly-effect typos; including mistaken offers, and restitution of mistaken payments

21 August, 201910 September, 2019

| Contract, Mistaken offers, Mistaken payments, Restitution

The Book of Kells is one of the great treasures in the Old Library in Trinity College Dublin. It is a manuscript of the Four Gospels in Latin based on the Vulgate of St Jerome. It was written and illuminated in the ninth century, probably in part in a monastery on the island of Iona in Scotland, and in part in a monastery in Kells, Co Meath, Ireland. Though a great medieval treasure, it contains some typographical errors. For example, the Gospel of Luke has an extra ancestor in the genealogy of Jesus (Luke 3:26; pictured left). It seems that the scribe read “qui fuit mathathiae” as “qui fuit mathath | iae” and thus wrote “qui fuit mathath” (the first line in the picture on the left) and “qui fuit iae” (the second line in the picture). Even Homer nods.

I was reminded of this when I recently read an article by Tom Lamont about the effects of electronic typos: an SMS misdirected to a wrong mobile phone number (leading to a marriage!); a satnav directed to Rom (in Germany) rather than Rome (in Italy); a jet from Sydney directed to 15 degrees 19.8 minutes east (and landing in Melbourne) rather than 151 degrees 9.8 minutes east) (bound for Kuala Lumpur).…

Valentine’s Mistakes

8 March, 201620 August, 2019

| 1 Comment

| Consumer, Contract, Mistaken offers

Complicated blue valentine; heart via pixabay; complicated via facebook Last month, the Daily Mail website ran a story under the headline: Fury as Tesco offers large bottles of Budweiser for just 14p each on its website – only to cancel orders because the price was a mistake. The offer appeared as a Valentine’s Day special, for beer lovers everywhere. In another example, last Autumn, shoppers on Sears.com noticed that expensive toys (such as kids’ accessories and play sets that cost hundreds of dollars) were available for only $11.95. Nancy Kim on ContractsProf Blog explains many of the contract law consequences of this mistake.

This kind of mistake happens a lot. Sometimes, it’s human error; sometimes, it’s a misfiring algorithm – thus proving the old adage: to err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer (though, some of these errors could be maliciously caused by hacking). And these errors seem particularly headline-grabbing when they involve really cheap tvs or flights. I’ve looked at the legal issues in these situations several times on this blog: see here, here, here, here, here, here and here. …

If an offer looks too good to be true, it probably is

4 March, 201320 August, 2019

| 2 Comments

| Consumer, Contract, Mistaken offers

The image on the left is based on screen grabs taken by @jimboireland and @WayneDoyle___ (click through for a bigger size). It shows a ‘samsung 51″ series 4 3D plasma tv’ for sale on a retail website for “€6.49 plus VAT” (I’ve zoomed in on the price, just to make the point). This offer looked like it was too good to be true; and that’s exactly what it was – too good to be true. The €6.49 was a typo for €649. I have blogged about similar mistakes on the part of United Airlines, Aer Lingus, Dell, Best Buy, Arnotts, and Round Hall. This time, it was VikingDirect.ie – and, as the Irish Times and The Daily Edge are reporting, they have apologised to their customers, but are not going to honour the sale of the televisions at 1% of its retail price.

The customers will probably argue that they had contracts with the retailer, which the retailer must honour by selling the tvs at the knock-down prices. However, these contracts are subject to the website terms and conditions, section 5 of which details how the relevant contract is made: the customer’s order is an offer to purchase the goods on Viking’s conditions; and the offer is accepted, and the contract is made, when Viking send the customer an e-mail acknowledging the order.…

When an airline website makes a mistaken offer, do terms and conditions apply?

26 July, 201220 August, 2019

| 4 Comments

| Contract, Mistaken offers

When a website makes a mistaken offer which customers then accept, contracts may very well result. However, that is only a small part of the story. The mistake may mean that there really is no contract. Or the website’s terms and conditions may protect them (though there are some situations in which such terms might not be enforceable).

This kind of mistake is a pretty regular occurrence, and it happened to United Airlines over the weekend. Via the Gulliver blog on the Economist website, I learn of the following story in the Chicago Tribune:

United Airlines error sells Hong Kong flights for 4 miles

United Airlines customers with reward miles were able to book tickets over the weekend to Hong Kong for only four miles, plus taxes and fees, because of a programing error, according to the airline.

A round-trip flight from Los Angeles to Hong Kong typically starts around $1,800 or 60,000 reward miles under the MileagePlus reward program.

But because of a programing error, some United passengers who booked flights to, from or through Hong Kong were charged only four miles plus taxes and fees, which amount to about $35. …

United Airlines have cancelled the tickets, though it is not clear to me that this is permitted in Rule 5 of United’s Contract of Carriage (and it may run afoul of the US Department of Transportation rules).…

Is a newsletter deal to sell a €395 book for €136 too good to be true?

1 December, 201020 August, 2019

| 4 Comments

| Contract, Mistaken offers

By way of update on this morning’s post, here is an extract from an email I received today from the Irish publishers Round Hall (the local imprint of Thomson Reuters) which raises very similar issues:

Oops! Correction of Offer Price for The Criminal Process

Correction

Our E-newsletter distributed on 30 November 2010 contained a mistake in relation to the 20% savings advertised for The Criminal Process by Thomas O’Malley.

The correct offer price, valid until the 15 December 2010, is in fact €316, and not €136 as advertised in our latest e-newsletter. The list price is €395. I’m sure that you will agree that this is still an excellent offer for this particular title!

Our sincere apologies for any confusion caused. (Our marketing department is doing suitable penance at the moment, and is also paying a little visit to the optician…)

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Is an online deal for a €98 tv too good to be true?

1 December, 201020 August, 2019

| 7 Comments

| Contract, Mistaken offers

An item in the Readers’ Queries feature on the Consumer page in last week’s Irish Times caught my eye, not least because it raised very interesting issues about ordering goods online:

Online TV deal too good to be true

A reader was on the Arnotts website recently pricing televisions when he found a 42” model for €1,498. According to the site it had a discount of €1,400. “A TV for €98? Where could I go wrong? So I put in my Laser card details, expecting to be told the order could not be processed due to a pricing error but no, it went through. I got a confirmation e-mail a few minutes later with an order number,” he writes.

He “kept checking the tracking of the order on their web page and it said the order was processed and waiting for a delivery date. Later that evening I got an e-mail saying they had made an error in pricing and my order was cancelled.”

The incident has left him curious. “Since Arnotts never took any money from my account but did issue the order number, do they have to honour the order or are they completely within their rights to cancel it?

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A salutary tale of a mistaken price

4 September, 200920 August, 2019

| 8 Comments

| Contract, Mistaken offers

Via ContractsProf, I learn that US discount retailer Best Buy will not honour a $9.99 big-screen TV deal which it had offered for sale on its website, because the terms on the site reserved its right to revoke offers or correct errors even if a credit card has already been charged. This is just the latest example of a common phenomenon; the biggest Irish example was last year’s Aer Lingus mistakenly priced flights fiasco; and they are in good company: it has happened to Amazon (2003); Argos (1999 and 2005); Avon (2004); Buy.com (1998); Dell (several times: 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2008 – twice); Hoover (1992); Kodak (2002); Thai Airways (2003), Sony products in France (2004), and (hat tip Legal Eagle in the comments) JB Hi-Fi in Australia (2009).

Best Buy protected themselves against such errors by providing for them in their Conditions of Use:

Errors on Our Site
… Errors will be corrected where discovered, and Best Buy reserves the right to revoke any stated offer and to correct any errors, inaccuracies or omissions including after an order has been submitted and whether or not the order has been confirmed and your credit card charged.

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Dell’s Mistake

1 September, 200820 August, 2019

| 9 Comments

| advertising, Contract, Mistaken offers

It is the error everyone online dreams about – a full-price item for practically nothing; and it happened, in Chile. For those who remember the case of the mistaken flights last April, Andres Guadamuz tells us about a massive pricing error made by Dell on its Latin American website last June:

… One of Dell’s main features is the possibility of configuring computers by adding, removing or upgrading components. On 27 June 2008, this feature went wrong, and started subtracting money for an upgrade instead of adding it. … Apparently, some people in Chile found the mistake, and this being the Web 2.0 universe, left messages in Facebook and blogs advertising the gaffe, .. This resulted in an astounding 66 … times increase in sales in that day for Chile, and apparently thousands attempted to get the exploit (unofficially, 15 thousand laptops!). Needless to say, Dell did not fulfil the orders, and offered the affected customers a 15% discount in future sells. …

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