Accessories and jewellery

Online, telephone or mail purchases

• Introduction
• Description of merchant's offer
• Consumer's consent
• Transmission of written contract

• Conditions for cancelling a purchase
• Consumer's responsibility
• New recourse
• Cancelling a remote-parties contract

 

Introduction

Retail remote-parties sales give us access to a multitude of products and services the world over. Telephone, mail and online purchases are remote-parties contracts under the Consumer Protection Act.

• These are contracts concluded when the merchant and consumer are not in one another's presence and are preceded by the merchant's offer to conclude a remote-parties contract.
• These rules apply to all purchases made with a merchant in Québec, Canada or abroad.

 

Description of merchant's offer

When a merchant offers to sell goods or services at a distance, the law requires that he supply you with a detailed description of his offer, which must contain the following information:

• merchant's name, address, telephone number, fax number and e-mail address;
• detailed description of each good and service offered for sale;
• total amount of purchase, including cost of good or service, related fees and taxes;
• description of potential additional costs, i.e. customs tariffs, broker's fees, etc.;
• transaction currency (Euro, USF, etc.);
• if applicable, delivery date, means, time and carrier;
• in-house policies for cancelling a purchase, returning merchandise, exchanges or refunds.

 

Consumer's consent

This information must be clearly visible on the merchant's website or, if the transaction occurred by telephone, it must be given to you verbally. The information supplied by the merchant must be easy to understand in order to allow you to accept or refuse the offer made.

 

Transmission of written contract

The merchant has 15 days to send the written contract. It must be presented so that you can keep and print a copy. This way, you can check to ensure that the contract's content corresponds to the merchant's offer.

 

Conditions for cancelling a purchase

The law allows you to cancel a purchase when the merchant fails to respect one or more of his obligations:

• the merchant has not respected his primary obligation to deliver within 30 days of the date indicated in the contract or another date agreed to in writing with you. If no date is indicated in the contract, you can cancel within 30 days of the date of purchase;
• the documents are not delivered in time to allow you to use the services or attend an event, in the case of transportation, lodging, restaurant services, events or shows;
• if the merchant has sent you the contract but you cannot print and keep it, the contract can be cancelled within 7 days of receiving it;
• if you have not received a copy of the contract within 15 days of the transaction, the cancellation deadline is 30 days after the transaction date.

You are legally entitled to cancel your contract any time before it is executed if:

• the merchant did not give you the compulsory information;
• the merchant did not give you an opportunity to accept, refuse or correct the information concerning your purchase before concluding the contract ;
• the merchant did not transmit the information indicated in the offer so as to guarantee that you can print and keep it;
• the contract does not respect legal requirements.

 

Consumer's responsibility

A merchant is deemed to perform his/her primary obligation to deliver if he tries to do so on the date indicated in the contract, at a later moment agreed to with you in writing or on the date indicated in a notice transmitted within a reasonable time frame if he/she was unable to deliver due to your actions or negligence?for example, if the delivery was made but you did not take possession of your package and it had to be returned to the merchant.

 

New recourse

The law offers a recourse, the chargeback, allowing you to ask the company with whose credit card you paid for your purchase to credit your account in the amount of your purchase and all related costs in an incidental contract. This recourse consists in crediting your account for the amount owing to the merchant, within 60 days of the latter's refusal to refund your money.

You must make a written request to your credit card company and include the following information:

• credit card holder's name;
• card number of expiry date;
• merchant's name;
• date of the transaction (signing of contract);
• amount charged to credit card;
• detailed description of goods or services purchased;
• reason for cancelling the purchase;
• date the purchase was cancelled and means used to transmit cancellation notice.

The credit card company must send you a notice of receipt within 30 days of receiving your request. It must credit all of the sums owing to your account, i.e. cancel the fees charged to your credit card account for the transaction plus those for any incidental contract, by the closest deadline:

• no later than 90 days after receiving the request;
• or within a period representing two account statements issued by the credit card company.

 

Cancelling a remote-parties contract

You must send a notice of cancellation to the merchant. The law requires no specific model for the notice of cancellation or particular means of transmitting it. The cancellation takes effect the date the notice is transmitted. We recommend that you keep proof that you sent the notice.

• The merchant must refund your money within 15 days of the date the notice was sent.
• You must return the goods in their original condition within 15 days of sending the notice or 15 days after delivering it if you sent it after the purchase was cancelled.