False advertising or breach of contract?

Tim Robbins

Hi,
Say if you buy a ticket for a concert for 30 Euro and they won't let you unless you pay another 5 euro when you get to the concert, what is that called?

Also is it the same, if you receive a free ticket for a concert and when you turn up, you are not allowed in unless you pay 5 Euro?

Is this false advertising or breach of contract.
Any good links
Thanks

johnnyskeleton

Read the small print

Rhonda9000

Tim Robbins wrote:

Hi,
Say if you buy a ticket for a concert for 30 Euro and they won't let you unless you pay another 5 euro when you get to the concert, what is that called?

Also is it the same, if you receive a free ticket for a concert and when you turn up, you are not allowed in unless you pay 5 Euro?

Is this false advertising or breach of contract.
Any good links
Thanks

"False advertising or breach of contract?" My guess - neither.

I second the "read the small print" response...

I am open to correction on the technicalities.
* If you have bought a ticket, you have contracted on whatever terms are printed on the ticket (+ this that and the other implied terms not printed on the ticket). There will no doubt be a gate left open in these terms for surcharges / entrance levies / our-aircraft-concert-venue-can-only-have-one-blind-person-and-one-wheelchair-in-it-and-we-can-cancel-at-any-moment-and-you-cannot-catch-us-out etc.

* "Free" tickets these days are sure to have small print saving them from their less grateful clientelle. They're not stupid.

* So you buy / get a ticket and it's got the beloved small print incorporated, you've foolishly contracted on their terms - where's the breach? Later on, you tell your gullible friends the [false] "false advertising" story and conveniently neglect to mention the "small print" story as noone likes looking like a fool

* You see an advertisment to buy / get said tickets which mentions nothing of this surprise term. Before the enraged words "false advertising" can pass through your lips you must contemplate the obvious latitude advertisments are given these days - Bang! Is the dirt really gone? In any case, you don't contract with an advertisment - these are most times not offers capable of a contract-forming acceptance. Big Bad Acme Corp has no doubt used your friend small print again in the advertisment "terms and conditions apply", referring you to more small print on your contract [tickets].

Back in the real world, Big Bad Acme Concert Corporation knows that it can levy sneaky extra charges on its patrons with a bit of neck and tiny writing. While this gets everyone moaning at the bouncers for a few minutes, Acme Corp know that noone will seriously entertain doing anything over something as frivilous as a 5iver. 5,000 concert goers by 5euro each = 25,000 more and it's all forgotten about by the morning and only a few dozen catch wind of it on boards.ie and Joe Duffy.

Anyway, I would like to think we are getting value for money from the Director of Consumer Affairs so perhaps double check with them and make 'em work during lunch

Victor

Is it perhaps more an unfair term of contract?

What is the 5 euros for?

Rhonda9000

Victor wrote:

Is it perhaps more an unfair term of contract?

What is the 5 euros for?

I very much doubt a 5 euro charge is caught by unfair terms. The unfairness has to be much more substantial e.g. exclusion of liability for death of the customer.

9th

Rhonda9000 wrote:

"False advertising or breach of contract?" My guess - neither.

I second the "read the small print" response...

I am open to correction on the technicalities.
* If you have bought a ticket, you have contracted on whatever terms are printed on the ticket (+ this that and the other implied terms not printed on the ticket). There will no doubt be a gate left open in these terms for surcharges / entrance levies / our-aircraft-concert-venue-can-only-have-one-blind-person-and-one-wheelchair-in-it-and-we-can-cancel-at-any-moment-and-you-cannot-catch-us-out etc.

* "Free" tickets these days are sure to have small print saving them from their less grateful clientelle. They're not stupid.

* So you buy / get a ticket and it's got the beloved small print incorporated, you've foolishly contracted on their terms - where's the breach? Later on, you tell your gullible friends the [false] "false advertising" story and conveniently neglect to mention the "small print" story as noone likes looking like a fool

* You see an advertisment to buy / get said tickets which mentions nothing of this surprise term. Before the enraged words "false advertising" can pass through your lips you must contemplate the obvious latitude advertisments are given these days - Bang! Is the dirt really gone? In any case, you don't contract with an advertisment - these are most times not offers capable of a contract-forming acceptance. Big Bad Acme Corp has no doubt used your friend small print again in the advertisment "terms and conditions apply", referring you to more small print on your contract [tickets].

Back in the real world, Big Bad Acme Concert Corporation knows that it can levy sneaky extra charges on its patrons with a bit of neck and tiny writing. While this gets everyone moaning at the bouncers for a few minutes, Acme Corp know that noone will seriously entertain doing anything over something as frivilous as a 5iver. 5,000 concert goers by 5euro each = 25,000 more and it's all forgotten about by the morning and only a few dozen catch wind of it on boards.ie and Joe Duffy.

Anyway, I would like to think we are getting value for money from the Director of Consumer Affairs so perhaps double check with them and make 'em work during lunch

What in gods name are you saying. You sound like the terms and conditions on the back of tickets. Oh and BTW the goverment is talking about bring in legislation to specifically ban hidden charge, such as booking fees. Where have you been living under a rock?

johnnyskeleton

9th wrote:

Oh and BTW the goverment is talking about bring in legislation to specifically ban hidden charge, such as booking fees. Where have you been living under a rock?

Would that not alone suggest to you that it isn't false advertising or breach of contract. If it was, then there would be no need for new legislation.

Are you referring to the consumer protection act? If so it doesn't, on my reading of it, prohibit hidden charges but only that the consumer not be misled as to them.

But if, for example, there is nothing in the terms and conditions about an extra charge, then it could be breach of contract.

Tom Young

That piece of Consumer legislation is shocking. There is going to be a RIA - Reg. Impact Assessment on the Sections in question re: Surcharges. I believe Ss. 48/49 are questionable.

The fundamental thrust of what the legislative is proposing is consumer protection, but it fails to consider sector regulation and the need for diverse and cost based payment mechanisms.

My take is it would make Bangalore more attractive again. Further eroding Ireland's attractiveness.

One does need to read small print.

seamus

I would have an exception on printing "small print" on the back of tickets.

You cannot take possession of the tickets without having paid for them, and in some cases you don't even see the tickets until well after having paid for them.

You cannot agree to terms and conditions of which you aren't aware. So to say that by buying the ticket you have agreed to the terms, is a bit misleading. If you disagree with the terms, the vendor must refund the ticket (despite their plicy saying otherwise).

There would be a reasonable argument to say that if you take delivery of the tickets and then don't immediately (or soon after) raise your concerns about the terms, that you have in effect accepted them. The terms on the ticket constitute part of the contract. Not being aware of terms and not bothering to read them, are two different things. The latter won't save you

Receiving a "free" ticket may fall under a different heading entirely.

Victor

seamus, see Chapleton v Barry UDC [1940] 1 KB 532

seamus

Oh, but is the ticket a receipt, or is it the product that you bought? I haven't bought a ticket from a stand in a while, but as far as I remember, they issue a separate piece of card that consitutes a receipt don't they?

Edit:

Actually, although I can't find the full text of said case online, an interesting line is this:
"A document containing an exclusion clause given to a party after the contract had been concluded will not be incorporated into the contract and will not therefore by binding or enforceable."

So in essence, the terms and conditions printed on the back of the ticket are useless. Once the company has sold you a ticket (the definition of which is something else entirely), then terms & conditions on the back are effectively impotent because you weren't made aware of them beforehand.
Certain items printed on the ticket may still be enforceable however - the ticket only purchases your entrance to the event, it doesn't really confer any other rights on you, as best I understand.


Seeing however as this is case law, an aggrieved party would be required to bring the promoter to court in order to get satisfaction. So they probably rely on people being ignorant and unwilling to spend that much effort fighting it.

dermot_sheehan

Schedule 3 Unfair Terms in Contracts Regulations 1997:


( i ) irrevocably binding the consumer to terms with which he had no real opportunity of becoming acquainted before the conclusion of the contract;

---

( l ) providing for the price of goods to be determined at the time of delivery or allowing a seller of goods or supplier of services to increase their price without in both cases giving the consumer the corresponding right to cancel the contract if the final price is too high in relation to the price agreed when the contract was concluded;

Victor

seamus wrote:

"A document containing an exclusion clause given to a party after the contract had been concluded will not be incorporated into the contract and will not therefore by binding or enforceable."

Hence the emergence of "Terms and conditions apply" and "Travel is subject to the Conditions of Travel of the company"

Rhonda9000

While on the subject..

Does anybody know the Irish position on "shrink wrap" incorporation of contract terms? In cases where e.g. the licence for computer software was contained *inside* the CD package (and inaccessible to customer until software disks were purchased). In the US this has been controversially held to be OK. ProCD Inc v Zeidenberg 86 F.3d 1447 (7th Circuit 1996)..

Any ideas on any Irish or even English precedents?

Hobart

Rhonda9000 wrote:

While on the subject..

Does anybody know the Irish position on "shrink wrap" incorporation of contract terms? In cases where e.g. the licence for computer software was contained *inside* the CD package (and inaccessible to customer until software disks were purchased). In the US this has been controversially held to be OK. ProCD Inc v Zeidenberg 86 F.3d 1447 (7th Circuit 1996)..

Any ideas on any Irish or even English precedents?

My short answer is "not really", but any shrink wrapped software I am aware of, be it pre-installed or not, has an "opt-out" pre-use that specifically gives the user an option of not using/not installing the software if the user does not agree with the T&C's of the licence.

Rhonda9000

Hobart wrote:

My short answer is "not really", but any shrink wrapped software I am aware of, be it pre-installed or not, has an "opt-out" pre-use that specifically gives the user an option of not using/not installing the software if the user does not agree with the T&C's of the licence.

Presumably after they break the seal on the package... Was that opt-out doctrine introduced in case law or statute do you know Hobart?

seamus

Rhonda9000 wrote:

Presumably after they break the seal on the package... Was that opt-out doctrine introduced in case law or statute do you know Hobart?

Microsoft, for example, allow you to return the item to the vendor (even after having broken the seal) for a full refund, if you don't agree to the EULA.

I would imagine other vendors do the same.

I think the difference here is that they're not attempting to impose an agreement on the user after purchase - they're providing an option to cancel the contract.

The EULA and its validity however, has never been tested as best we know. There are few companies who would have pockets deep enough to take on Microsoft, and most of them would either be MS affiliates, or don't run any MS software.

Rhonda9000

Thanks Seamus.

I didn't realise that they were including it in the license agreement; surely this must have happened after a wrap on the knuckles (I cant imagine them being so generous to begin with!)