ABCs of suing online retailers
Nov. 29, 2005. 07:17 AM
JAMES DAW


Provincial laws will protect you when dealing with online and conventional retailers, if you are prepared to sue in court and the company has a local office.

Our family's experience with suing a marketer of used computers may be instructive. A deputy judge recently awarded us a full refund, but not our costs to pursue the claim in small claims court. So, while it was satisfying to win, we might have recovered as much by selling the computer sooner at a loss.

The outcome would have been even less satisfactory if the retailer had not paid the judgment as soon as we returned the computer. Not all businesses are as forthcoming.

Our little saga began a year ago when we paid $1,506 for a used laptop computer, including taxes and the cost of an extended warranty. The computer worked reasonably well, if you didn't rely on the battery for long, but it would not write compact disks as advertised.

The CD-write function was important for our son to submit assignments to a disabled professor. Unfortunately, Michael did not discover the deficiency until the 30-day period had expired during which the retailer claimed it would gladly take back defective products.

So the customer service department referred us to the extended warranty company, which had us ship the computer to Montreal. We were told the original disk drive had been replaced with one that could not write CDs.

After several calls, my wife finally found someone at the retailer's Canadian offices who would listen to her. The employee made a couple of offers that we rejected — an external disk drive, or an upgraded computer for an additional $300. Finally, he told me we could have our money back.

He said he would send instructions for returning the machine later that day. On the strength of that assurance, my son and I bought a replacement computer so that he could copy his files and complete his assignments without interruption. The next day, we received an email message that repeated the earlier two offers, but made no mention of a refund offer.

When I called Toronto lawyer Jeffrey Gray about the cost of legal advice, he simply urged me to write a registered letter to an officer of the company to rescind our purchase contract, and to refer to Ontario's Business Practices Act.

This handy piece of legislation has since been replaced with a comprehensive statute called the Consumer Protection Act, 2002, which came into force on July 1 this year.

Under both acts, it would be an unfair business practice to claim that a good or service has the \"sponsorship, approval, performance characteristics, accessories, uses, ingredients, benefits or quantities they do not have.\" Any agreement, whether written, oral or implied, may be rescinded in writing within six months (one year under the new act) if the consumer was induced to enter the agreement by such an unfair practice.

The former six-months deadline had almost passed by the time we got Gray's free advice. If we had missed the deadline, we would not have been in a position to sue successfully.

On the other hand, if we had known to rescind the contract sooner, the company might have paid the refund, or the judge might have ordered the retailer to pay us our court costs.

The retailer did not attempt to defend itself. But I had to attend an assessment hearing in Richmond Hill to tell our story and present copies of the sales invoice, return policy and our correspondence as evidence.

The deputy judge asked some pointed questions that tested my knowledge of the legislation, but did not accept as relevant a 1987 case I had discovered in a library by using the Quicklaw database of LexisNexis Canada.

Frankly, I did not understand why the judge said our case was somewhat different from that of a Mrs. Lasby, who rescinded a sales contract and later recovered the $10,906 cost of a 1983 Dodge 600 from Royal City Chrysler Plymouth on the grounds a salesman had misrepresented the size of engine. She drove the car for 22 months and 40,000 kilometres.

Even so, the judge agreed we were entitled to a full refund. He said he did award us more than $300 in costs for court fees, postage and photocopying, noting we had used the computer for nearly six months before rescinding the deal.

Gray says a consumer would have difficulty suing an online retailer that does not have a local office, but most big-name retailers are sensitive to consumer complaints.

If you ever encounter similar difficulties to ours, you can get a corporation profile report with the address and names of officers by using the Internet. The fee is $40 at oncorp.com and $32.08 at cyberbaun.ca.

Step-by-step instructions on how to sue in small claims court to recover up to $10,000, plus costs, are also available online at attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca. You can print the forms you will need to mail to the court nearest to the retailer's head office. Look for the Consumer Protection Act at e-laws.gov.on.ca.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1133219409813&call_pageid=970599109774&col=Columnist969907615738

you paid 1500$ for a \"used\" laptop??
Why??

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Orginally posted by zCool

you paid 1500$ for a \\\"used\\\" laptop??
Why??

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