Three men, a bracelet and an imbroglio
I’ve spent years fighting for the rights of consumers, but what happened to this retailer troubles me
This is the story of a R236,000 tennis bracelet, and the three men brought together in a dispute over it — a Spanish architect on a visit to South Africa, a prominent Johannesburg-based jeweller, and a high-ranking employee of the National Consumer Commission (NCC).
The tourist bought the bracelet from the jeweller’s store shortly before Christmas. But a few days later he had a change of heart, prompting him to return it and ask for a refund. The jeweller refused, as he was legally entitled to.
If you buy something from a store, you have no legal right to return it, not unless it proves to be defective in some way within six months. Only then, according to the Consumer Protection Act (CPA), can a refund be demanded.
Many retailers choose to take back “change-ofheart” purchases for a credit or exchange and that has caused some confusion among consumers about their rights, understandably.
Adding to the confusion is that online purchases do have the benefit of a seven-day cooling-off period
— we can simply change our minds and return the unwanted product for a full refund.
If you work for the NCC, which is mandated to mediate CPA-related disputes between companies and their customers, all of this should be crystal clear. So when the tourist approached the NCC for help in getting the refund he insisted he was legally entitled to, he ought to have been told immediately that the law was not on his side.
But that does not appear to have been the case.
The jeweller contacted me recently to say that the NCC higher-up had phoned him, saying that the bracelet buyer had approached that office “to try and resolve things”.
“He said the client had a seven-day cooling off period in which to return the bracelet and get a refund, and he made it clear that I needed to come to an amicable solution,” he said.
“At no point did he say I wasn’t obligated to refund because the bracelet wasn’t bought online. Had I known that, I definitely would not have refunded him, as the bracelet wasn’t defective.”
On investigating the case, NCC officials told me their colleague emphatically denied making mention of a cooling-off period. Sadly, neither party has a recording of that call. What we do have, as evidence of the “three men and a tennis bracelet” saga, is an email exchange between them.
Several options were being negotiated around that refund — mainly how much the jeweller would deduct as a cancellation fee — but not once did that NCC official mention that a refund was not a legal obligation. Not even when the tourist got very stroppy indeed.
“I thought this was not a negotiation,” he raged in an email to the NCC. “Under the consumer protect act (sic) I have the right to claim my refund, not to be ripped off ... In my country it’s called bad faith practice, and is punishable. They are a step away from fraud.
“[The jeweller] has been presented with an offer from a law enforcement agency, and now he is not only trying to bypass and trample on my rights, but trying to ‘earn’ R36,000.”
The NCC official didn’t correct him on any of that, at least not in that email trail, which is unfortunate, because not only did the tourist misrepresent the CPA, he claimed consumer protections that don’t exist in his own country.
A quick Google search led me to the website of the directorate-general of public governance in Spain, which essentially reveals that the legal position is pretty much the same in that country as it is here.
“Unless they are defective, there is generally no statutory right to return products (to exchange them for others or to obtain a refund of the amount paid) bought in a commercial outlet.”
I’ve spent years fighting for the rights of consumers, but what happened to this jewellery retailer troubles me. The tourist had buyer’s remorse and sought the help of what he saw as a South
African “law enforcement agency” to get a refund he wasn’t legally entitled to. In the end, feeling pressured, the jeweller refunded the tourist in full.
NCC spokesperson Phetho Ntaba told me the Spanish citizen had approached the commission when communication between him and the jeweller broke down.
“The commission’s intervention in this regard was not based on having established prohibited conduct, but to get the parties to communicate and resolve the complaint. Our last communication to the parties was that they finalise the matter on their own because communication lines were then open.”
With no record of that NCC official having told the jeweller that the tourist had a week’s cooling-off period in which to return that bracelet for a refund, Ntaba said, it was a classic “he said, he said” situation.
“With hindsight, all three parties erred in some way,” she added.
The jeweller paid the price: a lost sale, lost bank fees, salesperson’s commission and so on.
Are consumers and the retailers they support ever going to get properly clued up on when they can and can’t demand a refund?