chris's scooby

A friend's just rung me up to say they've seen a holiday advertised on the 'net for £44. When they rang up the travel company they were told that someone had entered the price incorrectly and it should've been £440.

I thought company's had a duty to sell products at the advertised price when it's their error. Can anyone help please?

milo

afaik, any price is just a bargaining price.

there is no legal requirement for them to have to sell their goods at the listed price.

i mean, otherwise for example, what happens if a car is for sale at a dealer for £20000 and one of the "0"s falls off?

or what happens if they run out of stock?

*normally* a company will honor an incorrect price (assuming its not miles out), as the bad publicity is not usually particularly good.

NotoriousREV

Legally, if your friend had booked the holiday online with his credit/debit card and they'd actually taken the money then they would have to give it him at that price, otherwise they can change the price to anything they want.

GC8

Its correct that an advertised price, as the price on a sticker or shelf, is only an invitation to treat. Its also true that if they take the money then they make a contract with you, however: if there has been an obvious mistake then the contract cant be enforced. In this case Im confident that the vendor could argue that £44 instead of £440 was an obvious mistake.....

Simon

chris's scooby

Thanks for the replies guys. I wasn't 100% sure on where the law was on these things.

richardg

people usually caveat all ads by putting "E&OE" at the bottom, as they often do on invoices - errors and omissions excepted btw