UK consumer law

[weirdid]

In the UK we have a regulation called;

The Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000.

http://www.hmso.gov.uk/si/si2000/20002334.htm

This gives a person, thats not "present" at the time of
purchase,a 7 day time slot in which that can change their
mind, and cancel the sale.This applies to sales by phone,
email, or letter post.

The purchase has to be made from a registered company, or
"trader", it does not apply when buying from an auction or
private person.

The definition of "trader" is, "a company or individual who
sells for profit".

If you have a sale and sell off all your old junk from
your garage, you are not a trader,but, if i buy your
goods, and then advertise and sell them at a profit, i am
classed as a trader.

On ebay there are many BIN (buy it now) sales, these
sales are at a fixed price and therefor are NOT an
auction, the contract is between buyer and seller.

If we take the case of a "pyramid/matrix link" BIN sale,
the seller is selling for a fixed price and pure profit,
so falls within the regulations, if they are uk based.

As a test, to see how ebay reacts,a friend has purchased
a "pyramid/matrix link" BIN, from a uk based seller on
ebay.uk, and has mailed the seller to cancel the
purchase, and enclosed a link to the regulations.

It will be interesting to see what action ebay takes when
the seller files a NPB (non paying bidder) complaint.

I will update this post when i get more news.

weird

[ycchen]

Very informative and interesting thread! Thanks for sharing.

If we can eliminate matrix-info auction through BIN on eBay, especially those from the U.K., it will be a big boost on our side.

Keep us posted on your friend's experiment :)

[MatrixWatch]

I moved this one into the "Legal Issues" sub-forum, but left a redirect in the general-discussion area. Excellent find weirdid! This would also be a good issue to post in our "Front Page News" section. It would need a catchy title, and I'm sure that the UK customers would love to hear this news!

You can post this in either the front-page news forum on the Forums page, or you can use the User's Login box on the home page where it says "Submit News"..

[mercinary]

I think this is a cool finding too. One thing I bet you will find is that ebay's terms of service some how get around this. When you bid on ebay, you are entering a contract with a US-based company.

But you never know!

-Merc

[weirdid]

ebay.co.uk are a uk registered company, so uk law supercedes any T&C that they try to impose.

As i said, i will update when i get any news, i know my friend will keep all documentation, with a view to sending it to the uk trading standards authority.



These are the company's ebay has registered in the UK;

02828488 EBAY LIMITED
05121923 EBAY-ADS.CO.UK LIMITED
04151418 EBAY KTA (UK) LTD
04285468 EBAY PROMOTIONS (UK) LIMITED
05122015 EBAY TRADING LIMITED
03726028 EBAY (UK) LIMITED

weird

[MatrixWatch]

Good idea. We have made a great deal of progress over here in the States, so if the UK officials were to know about our site then they would not need to start from ground zero when it comes to the matrix sites.

[weirdid]

Update;

I am sorry to report that the seller has been NARU'd befor he could start a NPB (non paying buyer) complaint.

My friend will not just give up, he will start again, it may take a few weeks but will get there in the end.

weird

[MatrixWatch]

Weirdid,
Do you have any more info on how the UK government is handling these matrix scams? It seems that more and more of them are cropping up in the UK.

[weirdid]

The new legislation is due out at the end of november. The uk parliment is on holiday right now, they start work again in a week.

The only infomation i have so far, is that they intend to make it a criminal offence to run a pyramid type MLM scheme, where the main business is not the goods they sell, but the items that are "free". It will also be an offence to
"aid and abet" the operation of such scheme's.

I hope they get the legislation correct first time, as it will mean the ISP's, web hosting companies, link sellers,and even an online venue, will have to comply as soon as they are informed of the offence.

As soon as i get more info, i will post it here.


weird