Welcome to the Consumer Contracts
Regulations Training number 3
Regulations Training number 3
Welcome to this training on the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 that came in effect 13th of June 2014 and hopefully by now you’ve had the chance to watch the first video which was all about the right to cancel and the 2nd video which was about the information requirements.
Additional Charges
This is video 3 and in this video we’re going to talk about additional charges.
2 Main Areas
Now there’s 2 main areas that are covered in this video. The first is express consent for additional payment, and the 2nd is that the telephone help lines must be charged at a basic rate.
Suzanne Dibble Introduction
Just want to remind you of who I am, my name is Suzanne Dibble and I’m an award-winning business law expert. I am Richard Branson’s former lawyer and I've worked at the world’s largest law firm doing multi-million pound global mergers and acquisitions. Now I exclusively help small business owners with practical, relevant and affordable legal advice.
Obtain Express Consent To Any Additional Payment
The first point is you must obtain express consent to any additional payments and that means no pre-ticked boxes. So that’s for things like faster delivery, insurance, gift wrapping if perhaps you have a 3 pounds for extra gift wrapping and have it pre-ticked on your order form, that would be in breach of the legislation. You can have a tick box but it needs to be not pre-ticked so there has to be express consent shown from the customer for those additional payments. If you don’t get the express consent from the customer then you must reimburse the customer.
Pre-Ticked Box For Newsletters Or Other Free Items
If you have a pre-ticked box for your newsletters, that’s still okay because a free newsletter, well assuming it’s free, a free newsletter is fine – if there’s a payment these regulations come into play.
Telephone Help Lines
For telephone help lines you must not charge more than the simple cost of connection and if you do, then you must refund the difference in price to the customer.
What is a Help Line?
What is a help line? The guidance says that when you offer a telephone line that allows a customer to contact you if there is a problem with a product that is already purchased or to exercise cancellation rights then it must be a basic rate and basic rate includes UK geographic numbers that begin with 01, 02, 03 etc., free numbers such as 0800 numbers and 0808 numbers and it also includes UK mobile numbers. It does not include premium rate numbers that begin with 09, revenue sharing numbers such as 084, 0871, 0872 or 0870 numbers. You don’t have to provide a help line, but if you do, then it needs to comply with these regulations.
Technical Support Line
If you offer technical support lines, you can still charge more than the simple cost of connection provided that it is a discreet service and provided that you make it clear that there is an additional payment.
If You Don’t Comply
If you don’t comply with the law, then you can be on the receiving end of a private action for breach of contract or you can face an investigation and then possible enforcement by the regulatory authority, so do be wary of that and put in all the protections that you need into place.
What To Do Now?
So what can you do now? There are three things that you can do:
- the hard option – watch all the videos again and try to work out what you should do next; or
- the easy option – which is to buy the template terms that I’m making available with these training videos. For more details on how to purchase the templates click here; or
- Have me draft bespoke terms for you, that are customised exactly for your business. You might opt for this if you have a business that has quite specific circumstances or unusual items that you are selling and you want to know that you are 100% protected.
If you have any questions at all about this content then please do, just contact me and I’ll be very pleased to help you. Hope this video series has been useful, all the very very best.
