HTC: Fraudulent Practices

robojet

Hello,
The HTC 10 Lifestyle phone was advertised on the HTC website over a month ago, asking people to register their interest by entering their email address, which I did.

The day before Black Friday, HTC sent a push notification and email to me, saying that the phone was now on sale. I purchased it, paid for courier shipping, and when the phone arrived it was a 2GB model instead of the previously advertised 3GB.

1) There was no option to select a specific type of phone when purchasing (2GB or 3GB), which a HTC rep confirmed via email (and a second rep basically called me a liar on this today over the phone).

2) It's too late for me to buy another phone at this price, as Black Friday is over.

3) The phone rep tried to pressure me into getting it sent back within their 14 day window, on the condition that I pay for the courier again (and not get refunded for this, even though they admitted their deception previously).

4) They refused my request for a different model, and the rep told me that he had other people he needed to call who also have the same issue, and unless I paid to send their mistake back to them, that was it.

Isn't this fraudulent on their part? I have the emails from their side to prove my argument, so what should the next step be here?

coylemj

Did you check the specs. at the time you were placing the order? Substituting an inferior model for the one advertised is known as 'bait and switch' but if the specs. were correctly displayed on the webpage where you clicked to place the order then you won't have a leg to stand on and your only fallback will be to invoke the 14 day 'cooling off' period for online orders.

robojet

coylemj wrote: »

Did you check the specs. at the time you were placing the order? Substituting an inferior model for the one advertised is known as 'bait and switch' but if the specs. were correctly displayed on the webpage where you clicked to place the order then you won't have a leg to stand on and your only fallback will be to invoke the 14 day 'cooling off' period for online orders.

Yes, the specs were mysteriously absent during the Black Friday purchasing process. Also of note is that this phone is no longer available to buy on their website, which leads me to believe that this was deliberately misleading on their part. The first rep admitted that I wasn't given the option or notification to choose a model type.

coylemj

robojet wrote: »

Yes, the specs were mysteriously absent during the Black Friday purchasing process.

The earlier advertisement on the HTC website does not form part of the contract of sale you entered into. You effectively purchased blind so legally you're on rocky ground claiming that the sale was fraudulent.

If you clicked to purchase with no list of stated features then 'Caveat Emptor' applies.

P. Breathnach

What did the email say? You tell us that you were told that "the phone was now on sale". If the form of words used clearly links back to the advertised product in which you registered an interest, then I would say that there was deception.

robojet

P. Breathnach wrote: »

What did the email say? You tell us that you were told that "the phone was now on sale". If the form of words used clearly links back to the advertised product in which you registered an interest, then I would say that there was deception.

The email stated that Black Friday had begun, with a splash screen for the phone included. When I clicked on the link, I was taken to the purchase screen featuring several phones, which had a very simple layout. The phone was listed as HTC 10 Lifestyle, without any reference to specs. HTC had asked me to sign up for updates via email (which I did), and after that I was pretty much bombarded with push notifications and emails about BF, all showing and referencing the phone itself.

Weird thing is that, in addition to this link displaying the phone as "out of stock" for other people at the time, this 2gb phone seems to have completely disappeared from HTCs website after one day on sale. The only references and reviews on the 2GB model are on Indian websites/YouTube reviewers.

corglass

I think you're clutching at straws OP.

While the Black Friday transaction ID the basis of your sales contract.

Look at it another way, if black Friday the price had dropped by 50e when you clicked through would you expect the lower price?

AngryLips

They can't advertise a product as on sale if it wasn't sold at that price prior to the sale period. If the only product listed beforehand was the 3gb model then that's misleading advertising.

ohnonotgmail

Did the version you ordered come with 16GB or 32GB of storage? the 16GB versions seem to come with 2GB of ram, the 32GB versions with 3GB.