I have been wanting to write about the very sticky topic of ‘refunds’ for a while and today personal experience gave me the right ammunition to tackle the subject. At Caradiaz we take customer service and Distance Selling Regulations (DSR) very seriously but sadly not all online retailers do. I was looking to buy some underwear earlier from a well-known online shop but, as I checked the company’s Returns and Refunds policies, I was shocked to see that they don’t refund the shipping charges. After the recent and much publicised case of Next getting caught not complying with the DSR, how can some companies think that they can get away with not refunding customers for shipping charges? I decided to called the company’s Customer Services number to double-check and when I asked the Sales Rep, he said ‘That is correct, we don’t refund shipping charges.’ to what I replied ‘And don’t you know that is actually illegal?’ The Sales Rep changed his tune completely and said that I could get the shipping charges refunded if I adhered to the DSR – funny the company expects me to do it when they don’t actually do it themselves, how ridiculous is that!!! – at which point he offered to email me a link to such DRS to check the criteria to get shipping charges back. Since I declined the offer, the Sales Rep went on to explain that, basically what the DSR say is that customers must let the company know, in writing and within seven working days of delivery, whether the customer was intending to keep the goods or not. Well, why isn’t that information written on the company’s website, under the Returns, Refunds and Cancellation headings? I really can't believe that, despite the Next story, some companies are still relying on the knowledge - or rather lack of it! - of statutory rights by customers and therefore trying to get away with such an illicit way of pocketing money – how shameful is that? Needless to say I left the website without placing any orders...

Excerpt from the UK Distance Selling Regulations Courtesy of the Office of Fair Trading