I’ve recently been looking to purchase a piece of equipment online which is not available from big-name suppliers, only from a limited number lesser-known websites. Having no reputation upon which to base a purchasing decision, a viable method to choose between a reliable site and a potentially bad site could be to see how well each site’s Terms & Conditions comply with the legal requirements of the UK Distance Selling regulations – legal requirements which either seem to be frequently misunderstood by legitimate sellers or frequently mis-quoted by sellers who seemingly wish to shirk their responsibilities in an attempt to force unlawful terms onto unwitting customers.
For reference, the Office of Fair Trading‘s guide on distance selling is available in this PDF document.
Please note that these regulations only apply when goods are purchased remotely, without having viewed the goods prior to purchase. They in fact give consumers many more rights when making purchases via the internet than if they purchased from a shop – to the point where it in many cases no longer makes sense to purchase big-ticket items from a bricks-and-mortar shop at all!