Cooling Down Period

[Guest]

Hi, does anyone known about a cooling down period contribution for OSC v2.2 or if such is in the pipe line...

 

EU is now enforcing such [at least 7 working days]

 

What would be required is that the customer upon checkout get's the order freezed [in case he/she changes his mind] until the 7 working days elaspe. The customer would be able to view the cart with some type of count-down for the cooling down period to expire, whilst in the process he could amend his cart to zero or add more quanties, etc. If no amendment is done, he receives an automatic email that the cooling down period has expired and that his order and card payement have been processed.

 

Posts and guidelines are welcome.

 

Regs Proimage

[Ben Nevis]

I don't believe that's what the cooling down period means. It can't be that a customer can't complete the purchase until seven days have expired. Provide a URL to a reliable source for this information if you still maintain that it does and have one.

[multimixer]

I found a related article here

[Guest]

Hi,

 

I am 100% sure on this as EU clamped down on e-stores selling electronic goods this summer already. I know people who went off-line completely as they didn't comply with the EU distance selling directive 97/7EC linked here. Legal action was also being taken by the Consumer Protection Division against those that didn't comply as well...

 

Actually there are two ways how to offer a cooling down period.

 

The manual way, i.e. that not to process the order until the seven working days [minimum amount allowed] are over and state such in your terms and conditions. A useful contrib is the Must Accept Terms and Conditions or similar, but what about having multiple orders per day and trying to keep track is quite hard.

 

A contribution that makes the process possible which will automatically inform the customer of his rights and when the order will be automatically processed, together with a possibility of having the customer accept to over-ride/bypass the cooling down period out of his own free will. I am not a legal person, but I guess it is a lawful way of going around this issue.

 

Comments and a contrib welcome :rolleyes:

[Ben Nevis]

The article you refer to says, in the relevant place:

 

The Distance Selling Directive applies to any consumer distance contract made under the law of an EU-Member State as well as the European Economic Area (EEA). It provides a number of fundamental legal rights for consumers in order to ensure a high level of consumer protection throughout the EU. These include:

 

Provision of comprehensive information before the purchase;

Confirmation of that information in a durable medium (such as written confirmation);

Consumer's right to cancel the contract within a minimum of 7 working days without giving any reason and without penalty, except the cost of returning the goods (right of withdrawal);

Where the consumer has cancelled the contract, the right to a refund within 30 days of cancellation;

... etc

 

This does NOT mean the goods have to remain in the shopping basket for seven days before shipping. It means that the customer has seven working days from the date of receipt of the goods to cancel if they are not satisfied (there are also exceptions). If you keep the goods in the shopping basket for seven days before shipping them all that will happen is the customer will probably be annoyed at the delay and they will still have the right to cancel for another seven working days after they do finally receive them. There is nothing new in this.

 

So far as a contribution is concerned, there are already ways to provide customers with information about terms and conditions of sale and shipping and returns information which I think could be adapted and worded to comply with providing the prescribed information. I already have DSR information in the shipping and returns box, I am, however, also considering providing a reference to it and a statement of agreement to it before the customer completes the order. I think that would do.

Edited November 11, 2009 by Ben Nevis

[Ben Nevis]

This is a leaflet from the OFT about the UK Distance Selling Regulations, which implement the EC Directive in the UK. It's a fairly long article, but reasonably clear about the various obligations of distance sellers and rights of consumers. It's clear that in most cases the contract will only be concluded when the customer receives the goods and has had a chance to inspect them, and that is therefore when the cooling off period begins. There are various exceptions as noted before. One thing it does say is that the OFT does not consider information on a web site as a 'durable medium' for the purposes of providing the customer with information about their rights, although an email is. This does suggest that if ecommerce sellers wish to minimise the cancellation period (which could otherwise potentially go on for up to three months plus seven days if the information is not provided) they will in most cases need to tell the customer the information the distance seller is obliged to give either by email or in some written form such as on an invoice when goods are sent. So it does seem that it would be useful to be able to modify the routine in osC that sends out the confirmation emails so that it contains the necessary information. Perhaps there is a contrib that allow custom text to go in the outgoing emails already? Haven't looked.

[Ben Nevis]

Looks perfect to me!