Legality of a B2B contract

[BuildMan]

Hi, and I hope I'm posting this in the right place. I'm in a bit of a bind that I need some kind of guidance regarding a service that I apparently signed up for. I am a builder and I was cold called by people that operate a software business that is meant to help me with planning applications. The person that called me said they partner with the councils and have access to all their planning data. For context, I typically would go to these same council portals and search for opportunities that I would want to work on but what I was being told in this call was that it was a simpler way to do it by way of this platform they made.

I got onto a video call with the guy, and he was a nice bloke. He ran me through the platform and everything. Now he tells me that there will be a link sent to me where I would put in my banking information and accept the terms of the agreement, and that the first month's payment would go through and my account would be active. I asked if this was a monthly thing and he states that the first month's payment would be taken and that would set me up, so I go with that. He also pressured me into accepting these terms on the call. After the call I then get an email to say that my account is active, but the email says that I have activated a 12 month subscription, but there was never a mention of that in the call.

I then try to call this guy but his phone would just ring endlessly, and soon after, I get a call from the company's customer service to say that they want to onboard me given that my contract is active. I say to them that I didn't sign anything and that I would like to cancel. I then get told that I entered into a B2B contract that is active for 12 months and I cannot cancel it. Bear in mind that I haven't even used this service yet. They tell me that if I cancel the monthly payment with the bank (which I said I would do), that they would take me to the CCJ. We're talking £3000 when all is said and done.

Do I have any recourse here? Is this even legal?

 

[japancool]

I would put in my banking information and accept the terms of the agreement,

Were the terms available on the page where you filled in your details? Did you read the terms?

 

[fisicx]

They can try and take legal action but probably won’t. You would argue your case if it ever came to court and they would probably loose.

Ask to see the contract to agreed to.

And tell you bank to hold payment pending investigation.

That being said, the way you described it you did agree to monthly payments.

 

[Mark T Jones]

Unfortunately you're very much in the murky 'who said what?' zone here.

Big question - can you produce any solid evidence that they misled you over the nature of the contract?

You could take a chance on telling them you won't pay - and see what happens.

They will definitely shout he odds over going legal - it's 50/50 whether they actually will.

 

[Newchodge]

Unfortunately you're very much in the murky 'who said what?' zone here.

Big question - can you produce any solid evidence that they misled you over the nature of the contract?

You could take a chance on telling them you won't pay - and see what happens.

They will definitely shout he odds over going legal - it's 50/50 whether they actually will.

Can they produce solid evidence that the OP knew (or was able to find out) that he had agreed to a 12 month subscription?

 

[IanSuth]

From the point of view of contract law.

The only terms that apply are ones that you were made aware of before the point you signed up/agreed to the terms.

For example if you were emailed something and it said you agree to xyz (click here for full terms) by typing your details in below - then it is your fault for not clicking and reading the info

If However you got an email saying we need these details with no mention anywhere of the 12 mth term or link to their terms of business etc then you are not bound by them.

So as others have said, the crux of it is if you look through all correspondence you were sent is there in anything before you signed on the dotted line/paid any reference or link to a reference of the 12 mths term

 

[WaveJumper]

Not unknown for these types of calls to have been recorded and with a very clever script have you agree to all sorts of things which then get played back to you when you complain, have known a few managers to get caught out like this back in the day.

Personally I would stop any payments and wait and see what transpires

 

[BuildMan]

Were the terms available on the page where you filled in your details? Did you read the terms?

I believe they might have been there but the guy was quite reassuring that I would just need to click on accept terms, but since there was no actual signing of a document I didn't think it would lead to this. They have since sent me a document that they say is what I accepted in the call but I can't know for sure if what they sent me is what was on the screen during that call. In short, I only read a document after the fact, but not during or before.

 

[BuildMan]

Not unknown for these types of calls to have been recorded and with a very clever script have you agree to all sorts of things which then get played back to you when you complain, have known a few managers to get caught out like this back in the day.

Personally I would stop any payments and wait and see what transpires

Thank you. I plan on doing this and seeing what happens

 

[japancool]

I believe they might have been there but the guy was quite reassuring that I would just need to click on accept terms, but since there was no actual signing of a document I didn't think it would lead to this. They have since sent me a document that they say is what I accepted in the call but I can't know for sure if what they sent me is what was on the screen during that call. In short, I only read a document after the fact, but not during or before.

If you clicked "accept terms" without reading it, and you *could* have done so before accepting it, then I'm afraid that's entirely on you. Never, ever, accept something without reading it first in B2B - you'd don't have the protection a consumer contract does. I think you're on the hook for this.

 

[White Collar Legal]

We've had this before with one of our clients in a similar situation where they were sold some billboard advertising.

The advertiser did start a Court case and we prepared a defence for them on the basis of no contract. The matter is still ongoing.

We could do an initial free review to advise further.