22 May 2008
In December last year a web sweep of the 530 top UK retail websites was carried out to ensure that they complied with key e-tailing laws.
The web sweep carried out by Office of Fair trading (OFT) in partnership with the local Authority Trading Standards Services shows that although key protection requirements are being complied with, improvements still need to be made. For example, retail websites are not providing adequate contact details and the cancellation and refund rights are not transparent enough.
14% of sites did not comply with regulations by not providing a physical address or they just provided a PO Box number.
15% did no provide information to enable shoppers to cancel their order within seven working days.
31% did not meet the requirements by not refunding full costs of the goods and 56% of these excluded the cost of the original delivery from refunds. 40% did also not indicate the compulsory charges when the price was first shown to customers but included these charges at the checkout stage.
Heather Clayton, OFT Senior Director Markets said:
We encourage all online retailers to check their sites to ensure they comply with regulations, so shoppers can be confident that their rights are respected when they shop online.
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