Time limit to deliver goods?

To cut a long story short, after repeated chasing, ignoring my e-mails
etc, and being told the delivery 'should be next week', the order has
been shown as being 'made' and awaiting shipment from the US for about
5 weeks, so I e-mailed them a week ago to say I wanted delivery by
today or I'd be cancelling.

Well, no delivery today, so I rang to cancel and I'm told that because
it's been made then I'll only get a 50% refund, as in their T&Cs
(Distance Selling Regulations don't apply because it's custom made).
The fact I've been waiting 11 weeks when they say it's typically 2-4
weeks cuts no ice ("well we do say it might be longer and sometimes
it's up to 3 months") - well thanks, you don't say that on your
website!

So, on Consumer Direct's advice I now have to send a recorded delivery
letter saying 'time is of the essence' and they'll be in breach of
contract if they don't deliver by a certain date, so I have to give
them another week to mess me around.

But I can't believe (morally) that companies can take orders on the
basis of claimed typical delivery times, not even get close to meeting
them, can't give a definite date when they'll be able to complete (they
seem to just react to when the US sends them and have no control over
orders once they're sent), and hold 50% of your money unless your
prepared to wait indefinitely for them to decide to complete the order.

My questions is, do I have any other recourse against them to get my
money back? In particular the DSR says the contract must be completed
within 30 days of ordering, unless otherwise agreed. Does this part of
the DSR still apply even for custom-made goods, and does their
open-ended statement about 'exact time can vary' count as an agreement
on my behalf that it can be more than 30 days? And, if the DSR doesn't
apply, is there any other legislation that puts reasonable limits on
when goods should be delivered, particularly when they can withold half
your money upon cancellation?

Thanks,

Stuart

You shouldn't use "morally" and "companies" in the same sentence. As Lord
Chancellor Thurlow pointed out in the eighteenth century, corporations have
neither bodies to be punished, nor souls to be damned. That isn't why we
have legal systems, but you can't have capitalism without the rule of law -
as Russia is discovering yet again.
--
John Briggs

Distance selling regulations may not apply, but I'm sure the good old
common law of contracts should. In this case they breached the
contract, and their consideration failed due to their fault. I should
think that you'd have the right to rescind and get all your money back
because it's their fault, not yours, that you cancelled the contract.

Stu

Thinking about this overnight, if the DSR 30 days doesn't apply, then
isn't this a flaw/loophold in the legislation for custom-made products?
Effectively, if someone says 'I estimate this long, but may be longer',
then they can take payment (I forgot to mention my CC was charged 5
weeks ago), make the goods but then have no duty to deliver them in a
reasonable time. If the consumer isn't prepared to wait as long as it
takes, then they can threaten to withold 50% of your money?

Stu - re: contract law, could you please clarify if I could use this as
a fall-back if there was no written agreed deadline (i.e. can I use
some sort of 'reasonable time' argument?), and if this would override
any T&Cs (however one-sided they are in hindsight) they have imposed as
part of the order? I tried to argue with the supplier that them setting
an expectation of 2-4 weeks was part of the contract at time of order,
but they just pointed me to their T&C's that 'it might take longer'.

Thanks again,

Stuart

I'm in the US, not the UK, so someone else here will be able to give
you a better answer than I did.

But it seems to me that even if they say "it might take longer" they
still are under a duty to deliver in a reasonable time. If they
estimate 2-4 weeks and it's been nearly three times as long as their
long estimate it seems to me they passed "reasonable time" a long
time ago.

My guess, though, is that you won't get anything out of them unless
you go to small claims court.

Stu

I think you will find that it is against the CC rules for your card to be
charged until the goods are ready for dispatch. In which case, "'made' and
awaiting shipment from the US" could be a fiction for this purpose. It
would be worth checking with your CC provider.
--
John Briggs