Should I Be Concerned About a Trading Standards Complaint?

[Jamie0]

Hi everyone,

I run a small Online Outlet e-commerce business (think Flannels meets Bicester Village), and I’m facing a situation with a customer who’s threatening to escalate things to Trading Standards. I’m hoping to get some advice on whether I should be concerned or how I should handle this, as I don’t have prior experience.

Here’s the background:

A customer purchased a t-shirt, which they claim has a minor print misalignment. The misalignment shown in their pictures is not clear, and we have told him even so, it may be a minor manufacturing defect - but the customer has escalated the situation immediately, claiming the item is fake.


The customer has already worn it, and despite this they rejected our offer of an exchange or store credit, claiming we sold them a fake item. They’ve told us they will report us to Trading Standards, despite our attempts to resolve the issue amicably, we even encouraged him to compare the wash tags in store - but they’re fixated on causing us problems, without a clear resolution in sight.


The problem is, as small resellers, we don’t have brand-approved paperwork for every item (like invoices for the specific t-shirt in question), but we’ve been operating with legitimate suppliers, and private vetted resellers and we’ve not had issues with authenticity before. The majority of our orders (5,000+ over the years) have been problem-free.


My question is:


• Should I be worried about Trading Standards taking this complaint seriously?


• What’s the likelihood that they’ll actually investigate or contact us based on a single, isolated complaint?, and what is the procedure if so?


Any advice or experiences would be greatly appreciated!


Thanks in advance!

 

[Chris Ashdown]

Don't worry about trading standards, they may well call on you and look at your stock, Just show them the invoice and they will go away. they are not after genuine sellers but crooks

make sure all your stock in genuine, Branded goods brought cheep can often be rip offs so only buy from reputable suppliers

 

[Jamie0]

Don't worry about trading standards, they may well call on you and look at your stock, Just show them the invoice and they will go away. they are not after genuine sellers but crooks

make sure all your stock in genuine, Branded goods brought cheep can often be rip offs so only buy from reputable suppliers

Appreciate the response. Unfortunately I’m quite disorganised and lacking invoices hence my concern. Therefore, my hopes are they wouldn’t take it that far.

 

[ctrlbrk]

Appreciate the response. Unfortunately I’m quite disorganised and lacking invoices hence my concern. Therefore, my hopes are they wouldn’t take it that far.

You can always tell Trading Standards that your dog ate those damn invoices.

 

[Newchodge]

Appreciate the response. Unfortunately I’m quite disorganised and lacking invoices hence my concern. Therefore, my hopes are they wouldn’t take it that far.

If you mean you cannot prove that your stock is genuine, then yes you should be extremely worried. But, apart from worrying, I cannot see you can do anything, unless you want to try to bribe your customer to keep quiet? That would be really stupid.

 

[fisicx]

Agree with @Newchodge, you need to have the license to hand for every single design. If Trading Standards do knock on the door they may well dig deeper than just this one t-shirt.

But hopefully it won’t come to this.

 

[MOIC]

Are you friendly with your supplier, and what have they said?

If Trading Standards do turn up, tell them who the supplier is and that you bought the products on good authority from the suppliers that the items were genuine . . . . . . . . . as long as the supplier is trustworthy and can provide evidence that their products are all genuine.

Explain your history of 5,000 items which have been problem free, as well as your offer to the irate customer.

Even if there is one item that has slipped from the net, it could be argued that it's your supplier's problem, and not yours.

In future ask your suppliers of brands to provide sanitised invoices.

 

[WaveJumper]

I would also add i think you biggest problem lies in the fact you don't have your invoices to hand how can you be selling 5000 plus t-shirts a year and not have adequate accounting practises in place.

Yes trading standards if minded can seize all your stock if you can't prove it's legit and yes they will want to know who your supplier is, hopefully you have not lost their name and address

 

[Mark T Jones]

Hopefully the main lesson you've learned is the importance of keeping good records.

With regards to Trading Standards, it's unlikely to bring you down - but in reality you will never actually know where things are going until they go there.

You will probably get a preliminary call or visit and they will go away. They won't tell you whether they plan to make further enquiries and they will never tell you that a case is closed- it will officially remain open, and will be brought out if there are further complains - or if there is a general purge on your type of business.

In a nutshell - learn the lesson and move on

 

[pentel]

Unfortunately I’m quite disorganised and lacking invoices

I would be more worried about HMRC and completing tax returns.

 

[AmazonGeek]

Nothing to worry about here. As long as you aren't actually selling fakes

 

[Paul Norman]

For many years I sold branded clothing and trainers, both online and offline.

From time to time, customers claim stuff is fake. Not frequently, but it used to happen.

Here is the key.

Never buy other than from the brands approved supply chains. Keep all documentation, and keep it in a decent filing system.

Having said all that, a claim relating to one tee shirt with a minor defect is not terribly likely to be taken that seriously by Trading Standards. But they are entitled to take it as seriously as they wish.

The main take away from this? Review your record keeping and bring it up to speed. It can literally save your business. Also, review your supply chains and make sure they are the real thing.

 

[antropy]

Any advice or experiences would be greatly appreciated!

Why not just accept the return and give a refund minus postage?

Paul.

 

[Newchodge]

Why not just accept the return and give a refund minus postage?

Paul.

Because the customer does not want that. Reading between the lines they are trying to blackmail the OP - they 'will report them to Trading Standards', or what? If they want to report to trading standards they can do that without contacting the OP. The last thing the OP should do is concede to the blackmail by making a compensation payment, which is akin to bribing the customer not to report them.

 

[AlanJ1]

Wouldn't worry, just make sure you can prove the source is legitimate.

Most of the time customers threaten this but won't do anything (from personal experience).

Just offer a refund and move on.

 

[antropy]

Because the customer does not want that.

What does the customer want then?

Paul.

 

[Newchodge]

What does the customer want then?

Paul.

I have no idea, but it sounds as if they are looking for some 'compensation' as I said in the rest of the post you quoted. My view is based on this:

The customer has already worn it, and despite this they rejected our offer of an exchange or store credit, claiming we sold them a fake item. They’ve told us they will report us to Trading Standards, despite our attempts to resolve the issue amicably

.

 

[antropy]

"they rejected our offer of an exchange or store credit"

Ok but they might simply want their money back, which is fair enough isn't it, providing they return the item?

Paul.

 

[DontAsk]

Ok but they might simply want their money back, which is fair enough isn't it, providing they return the item?

Sounds more like they are a trouble maker.

They can change their mind and get a full refund, for no reason at all, under distance selling rules. They don't need to escalate things by claiming the goods are fake.

On the other hand, I wonder if the OP understands their obligations under distance selling? If there's is a manufacturing defect then return for full refund or exchange should have been the first offer, not store credit.

 

[Mark T Jones]

Quite a lot of assumptions - and an OP hasn't been back since the day of their first post. Which hopefully means the matter is resolved. (But might mean they didn't get the answer they wanted, so went off in a huff)

Call me a miserable git, but my first assumption on any legal post is that poster has skewed events in their favour to 'sell' their case. Both inevitable and irrational.

In this case I'd also assume that they hadn't offered a cash refund?

 

[antropy]

They don't need to escalate things by claiming the goods are fake.

Sounds to me like the OP refused a refund.

Paul.

 

[fisicx]

Sounds to me like the OP refused a refund.

They said:

The customer has already worn it, and despite this they rejected our offer of an exchange or store credit, claiming we sold them a fake item.

Not quite a refund but halfway there.

 

[Newchodge]

They said:

Not quite a refund but halfway there.

They also said

They’ve told us they will report us to Trading Standards, despite our attempts to resolve the issue amicably,

I, possibly wrongly, assumed that would include a full refund.

 

[antropy]

Sounds very much to me like the OP only offered an exchange or store credit and that's where the threat of Trading Standards came from.

Paul.

 

[DontAsk]

The OP hasn't been back in a week, so i doubt we'll ever know.

 

[antropy]

The OP hasn't been back in a week, so i doubt we'll ever know.

I think that tells us all we need to know

Paul.