What Can I Do When Goods I've Ordered Don't Arrive?

“I ordered a laptop online, from a well known retailer. I paid on my credit card, and it was due to be delivered two weeks ago. It didn’t arrive on the day I expected it, so I e-mailed the company and asked them where it was.

“They told me that the model I’d ordered was currently out of stock, and that there should be more coming in later that week. I didn’t hear any more from them so after another week I called again, and was told that they still didn’t have any of that model in stock, and I should be getting my delivery as soon as they got more of them in. Apparently because it was such a good deal, there was a run on them, and they’ve been hard to get hold of.

“I still haven’t had anything, and I really wanted that deal. Can I force them to deliver the laptop?”

Advice

Well, if they don’t have any of them in stock, you can’t make them deliver, but this puts them in breach of their contract to you under the Sale and Supply of Goods Act, and so entitles you to ‘Make time of the essence’.

Making Time of the Essence

You must write to the company (but you can e-mail the letter, even though it’s a good idea to send a hard copy by recorded delivery too.) Explain that you ordered and paid for the laptop, and give the date, and that you paid for it at the time, but that they have failed to complete the contract, so you are now ‘making time of the essence.’

Add that you require your laptop to be delivered by a date in the future that you believe to be reasonable. You set this date, but you have to be realistic, because if you tell them you want it by tomorrow, it’s just not going to happen. Ideally, you probably need to give the company a week at least to come up with the goods, and you need to make this clear in writing.

Making time of the essence is legally inserting a condition into your contract under the Sale and Supply of Goods Act. This also gives you the right to terminate your contract if they don’t supply you with your goods by the time that you set out in your letter, so you can add that if the laptop isn’t with you by a certain date, you will have no option but to request a refund so that you can purchase the goods elsewhere.

Unfortunately, this may mean that you don’t get the same great deal that the company are currently offering, and there isn’t much you can do about that. You can’t force them to deliver goods if they genuinely don’t have any, but their breach of contract does mean that you’re entitled to a full refund of anything you’ve paid them.

If they refuse to give you a refund, then you can take the issue up in the courts. Usually a sternly worded letter, warning them that if you don’t have a refund within 14 days you will be taking legal action tends to make them pay up swiftly.

The Next Step

Now that you have read through the advice above, you might want to put it into practice. Our Faulty Goods Rights Checker lets you find out your legal rights on a faulty product in less than a minute. Try it now →