What are our rights for full refund with Hello Molly order?
Posted by Longjumping_Mood3729@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 32 comments
Hello everyone
Hopefully this will be a relatively straight forward issue to resolve. My wife bought a dress on Hello Molly for £68. Dress arrived and the quality wasn't an acceptable standard and so my wife wants to return it.
Hello Molly will allow us to return the item but they want to charge a £15 fee for the return. This isn't about the money as such but more the principle and seems to be in direct contradiction to consumer rights.
Doing a brief bit of looking at Consumer Rights Act I can see Section 20 paragraph 10 & 11 both state the consumer is entitled to recieve the same amount of money as what was paid/transferred. Additionally Section 20 Paragraph 17 clearly states that the trader must not impose any fees on the consumer in respect to the refund.
I am also aware that company policy is just that, company policy and does not supersede statutory law. Should I discuss this directly with Hello Molly?
riotofstars@reddit
I’m so glad I saw this post as I was about to begrudgingly pay £15 to return. My item isn’t faulty or low quality, it just doesn’t fit me well. Should I contact them prior to returning the item? I’m worried I will be outside of the returns policy if I do
Coley_@reddit
You’ve already done the legal legwork and you’re right. Section 20 is clear, they cannot deduct fees from a refund for faulty or substandard goods. Company policy is irrelevant. Skip the phone call and put it in writing. A formal Refund Dispute letter quoting the exact legislation tends to end these conversations quickly. PostRight has a template for exactly this, printed and posted via Royal Mail for a couple of quid: postright.co.uk
jiigglepuff@reddit
I was about to buy from this company so glad to see this before I did.
ts1xx@reddit
Contact the citizens advice consumer service and they’ll be able to help you (if the company is actually based in the UK but they can still help generally) There are a lot of companies posing as UK based but they’re based in the likes of china and people are asked to pay for return shipping when they get items that look nothing like the images advertised online. I didn’t think hello Molly was one of these companies but The £15 return fee could be their way of covering that
Organic-Wrangler1180@reddit
Really interested in any updates you had on this OP
Longjumping_Mood3729@reddit (OP)
So yeah we had an email back a couple of days ago, they're giving us a full refund and have said we can keep the dress to do with as we please, they will escalate the quality concerns to their supplier.
We didn't need to debate or argue our point with them, they were pretty forthcoming in offering the full refund. Still waiting on the refund now though
DeifniteProfessional@reddit
You are right. At most, they can ask you to pay the cost of the return. A lot of businesses make this easy by offering free returns. If a bigger retailer, they often have this as part of a large deal with a major logistics provider, so they can send you a label and be done with it, but they may also take the hit and pay for your postage out of pocket.
In some cases, they may send you a return address and expect you to box, print, and ship all by yourself.
The edge case is if the item is faulty or misdescribed, and you might have a case there if the quality is vastly different from what the website promised.
Anyway, I've just looked their returns policy:
This is fine
And then:
This is completely illegal.
Another part:
This is also illegal. Returns need to be notified within 14 days of delivery, but the return period is a further 14 days.
If you're feeling psyched up enough, you absolutely should contact them about this and make them fix it. In fact, if I remember later, I will do it also, out of principle!
Longjumping_Mood3729@reddit (OP)
We've opened a ticket to dispute the refund fee, waiting to hear back right now
Least_Actuator9022@reddit
If you paid for it by Credit Card, you can go by them to get your money back. Just show evidence that they are breaking UK Consumer Law with their returns process.
Another avenue is MCOL - first send a Letter Before Action outlining how their returns process breaches UK Consumer Law and give them a deadline to refund in full plus legal costs.
Note - businesses do this because it's cheaper for them to break the law than to refund everyone as they should. They assume that only a small fraction of people will bother contesting it. You should report it to Trading Standards also via Citizen's advice.
DeifniteProfessional@reddit
Report them anyway if you feel like it. This isn't just regulatory wrong, this is straight up illegal. Misrepresentation of consumer rights laws, plus actively acting on it by charging the £15 fee. They're not a small scammer, they're a legitimate business who should be doing legitimate business stuff.
No_Cartographer_523@reddit
Im so glad this has been posted. I bought two dresses £78 each and unsure what size i was, i was planning to keep one and return the one that didnt fit. So i started a return to be in utter shock of the returns fee!! Thanks for all the advice in the comments. Please let me know how those of you who challenged it got on. How do i dispute this?
Typical_Agent_4118@reddit
Apologies for hi jacking, can anyone advise on this ….. bought an expensive pair of earrings online, received them. Decided to return for a refund (earrings never worn and still in all packaging etc). Have been told by the online company that they don’t refund earrings because they can’t verify if they have been worn or not. Can they legally decline my return ?
a-hthy@reddit
Most if not all retailers who sell earrings usually stipulate you cannot return earrings for hygiene reasons. This will be on their website someone within the returns policy.
Longjumping_Mood3729@reddit (OP)
Thank you everyone for your advice and input around this, in the process of disputing this directly with them. Fortunately it was paid on cc so if disputing fails then we can go via the charge back route
Embarrassed_Park2212@reddit
It all looks a bit suspect. Has a uk address but the owners live in Australia with chinese names. It is in the terms and conditions that they charge £15 for a refund and £5 for store credit. A lot of reviews on trust pilot regarding the £15 return fee. So is it returned to a UK address or Australian address. Plus it said that the order is shipped from our Birmingham warehouse. Please tell me she didn't buy this through an ad on facebook or similar.
After a search on google maps the business address is a house. I don't know if you are going to get far with this. I'd probably suck up the £15 return and next time buy from genuine UK businesses.
DeifniteProfessional@reddit
Hello Molly is a genuine Australian business that's been around for well over a decade, they're just really scummy (and in this case, illegal) practices
Sharktistic@reddit
T&C's and company 'policy' are bollocks and not worth the paper they're written on.
Longjumping_Mood3729@reddit (OP)
No it was bought directly through the hello molly website, this isn't the first item she's bought from there and there's been no issues with previous orders quality or otherwise
AllThatIHaveDone@reddit
https://www.gov.uk/accepting-returns-and-giving-refunds
Boboshady@reddit
Would it be correct to say that the customer can be liable for the cost of return, unless the goods are actually faulty? In this case, they're most likely NOT faulty, just not acceptable.
AllThatIHaveDone@reddit
You don't need to give a reason provided you are within the returns period of 14 days for an online transaction.
Boboshady@reddit
I know that, I'm talking specifically around the return postage cost - I was reading something very recently that implied that the 14 day cooling off period covers the original cost of the item and the standard delivery shipping (unless that was used to also deliver something else that WASN'T being returned, as an aside), BUT the cost of RETURN shipping isn't covered by this.
It's the return shipping I'm talking about - the cost of OP returning the item to the store, to be completely clear :)
AllThatIHaveDone@reddit
No fees allowed.
Boboshady@reddit
I'm not talking about fees, I'm talking about return shipping costs.
AllThatIHaveDone@reddit
Another word for which would be a 'fee' 😅
Boboshady@reddit
OK, well I decided to go research it instead and as I thought, return fees are not included, and can be either deducted from the refund if pre-paid by the company, or be left for the customer to pay for themselves.
The exception is, if the item is not fit for purpose - faulty, not as described etc. Then the return cost should also be covered.
https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/advice/a-retailer-is-charging-for-a-return-do-i-have-to-pay-atS1g7a9Phub for reference.
In OP's case, they could argue that the quality is not as described, but it's much closer to subjective than say it being ripped etc.
AllThatIHaveDone@reddit
Per your own link, op can challenge the return fee in this instance. They even include a letter template.
Boboshady@reddit
Some constructive criticism, your comments prior to this strongly indicated you were taking about the general rights to return, NOT OP's case specifically.
If I were a more cynical person, I might suspect you've realised you were wrong on that matter, but saw a way out within my replies. Else, you just weren't explaining yourself very well.
But I am NOT that cynical...not on a Friday, anyway.
Regardless, the important thing is, through natural discourse, we've arrived at a solid answer for OP, with supporting evidence in which they can clearly state their case to the retailer.
Good work, everyone. Damned good work.
DeifniteProfessional@reddit
In this case, they are not the same
Longjumping_Mood3729@reddit (OP)
Yes the item was an online order delivered today so we are well within the 14 days.
Boboshady@reddit
They are obliged to give you a full refund for the item and the original shipping charge, minus any extras you paid for (next day delivery etc). If you had more items delivered and are not returning them all, then they can withhold refunding the shipping fee, but they must still refund you fully for the item you returned.
This does NOT include return shipping fees, unless the item is not fit for purpose. So, if it's damaged, not as described etc, you can also get your return shipping fee refunded. Otherwise, they can either insist you pay for it yourself, or pay for it via a prepaid method and then deduct that cost from your refund.
Whilst it's not a requirement that you give a reason for a return, obviously if you're returning it for a reason that would entitle you to a return shipping refund too, then you should highlight this.
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