Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site peora.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!hjuxa!petsd!peora!jer From: jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) Newsgroups: net.rec.photo Subject: Re: mailorder firms Message-ID: <1936@peora.UUCP> Date: Tue, 28-Jan-86 09:10:29 EST Article-I.D.: peora.1936 Posted: Tue Jan 28 09:10:29 1986 Date-Received: Thu, 30-Jan-86 00:41:54 EST References: <716@decwrl.DEC.COM> Organization: Concurrent Computer Corporation, Orlando, Fl Lines: 72 > It may be legal to lie to your customers either in their advertizing or > over the phone, but that doesn't make it right. This isn't what I said, though... It is not legal to lie to customers, either in advertising or over the phone. This is especially true in the case of mail order, since it involves interstate commerce. The law provides that if you order something by mail, the mail order company must ship the item within 30 days. If they are unable to do so, they must (at the end of the 30 day period) give you the option of cancelling your order and receiving a refund. They may also give you the option of not cancelling your order, in which case they have to tell you how long (the maximum amount of time) it will be before they ship it; if that time elapses and they still haven't shipped it, the process repeats again. However, the law also provides that they may specify at the time you place your original order that some (lengthier) time is required; in that case, the time they specify replaces the default of 30 days. This is why some advertisers say "Allow 4-6 weeks for delivery". Nevertheless, if they don't specify a time interval, and 30 days pass, they are clearly in violation of the law. Any mail order firm that has been in business for any reasonable amount of time knows this, and if they know you know this, they will be considerably more likely to do something about it. The reason I emphasized this in my prior posting was that it is important to know exactly what rules exist, and to follow them. I think that a lot of the idea that "the law allows one to lie to the customer" derives from people not understanding what the law does provide. I can't profess to understand it all myself, not being a lawyer; however, I try to know as much as is possible, which is indeed possible since there is a lot of literature available on mail order regulations (ask at your post office). I am fairly convinced that a number of the mail-order firms (but by no means all of them) are not dishonest. Only a few companies now in existence have managed to stay in business while consistently defrauding the public (and those seem to be run by people whose peculiar means of entertainment is to see how well they can evade the law). The honest companies may, however, employ salespeople who tend to bend the truth; they should not do this, and I suspect that if the company finds out that they have done so, they will take action to correct it. The problem is that there are two sides to any story, and you have to see both sides if you are going to be reasonably equitable. I agree that certain companies are less scrupulous than others; each that I've had any experience with has had a distinct "style" to their mail-order business, which has to be borne in mind. Furthermore, some I would not do any business with at all. Nevertheless, I have considerable confidence in some, since I bought all the photographic equipment I now own (except my enlarger) by mail order. On the other hand, the mail-order stores pose significant competition to the local photo-store, especially the local camera store (which sells only cameras and lenses), and in such a case, a lot of mythology evolves; salesmen in such stores are not so well constrained as the mail order stores. I hear of many stories that just aren't true, and even accounts in here that I suspect have other sides to them. Thus, don't think that I was saying "all photo stores are trustworthy," or anything else that simple; only that you have to do business with them with the nature of mail order business, which is different from over-the-counter sales, in mind. -- UUCP: Ofc: jer@peora.UUCP Home: jer@jerpc.CCC.UUCP CCC DNS: peora, pesnta US Mail: MS 795; CONCURRENT Computer Corp. SDC; (A Perkin-Elmer Company) 2486 Sand Lake Road, Orlando, FL 32809-7642 LOTD(3)=m "I didn't watch the Super Bowl."