Who protects a business from being mis-sold a product by another business ?

[Olizoo]

Hi All, new to this site so excuse me if I get anything wrong ! I tearing my hair out and need some help please . . .

I have a sports shop and employ 8 people so I'm not big but I'm not tiny, this is my first venture into retail but it seemed like a good idea at the time

This is my problem . . . I've recently tried to upgrade my epos system with what was described to me as an all singing all dancing cloud based product from a company called epos now. I trawled the main review sites like Trust Pilot, which I now know to be part of the marketing depts of their subscribers, and thought I'd found the right product. I asked detailed questions and explained exactly what I was looking for and was told by the salesman that the system ticked all the boxes, I even asked what would happen if I needed to return the product and the answer I got was that we just needed to avoid that scenario. I know, it seemed ok at the time and the sales people were better at selling than I was at buying and I really needed to sort it out.

When the product came we gave it a quick look but it was very complicated and setting it up relied on an implementation manager who was ok for a couple of days but then completely disappeared despite numerous attempts to communicate. We tried communicating with several other people but got nowhere and had to give up. We complained to the company and got a lot of apologetic messages back from various people and then even had the Service Director come down with a technician on the basis that we would have another look at trying to set it up properly before deciding if it was suitable for our requirements. I was told that we would deal with a return if we found the product to be unusable for us. At this point we cancelled the monthly subscription for the support service as we'd received none in the 2 months we'd been trying to work it out.

I was connected by the service director to a 'senior support technician' who was to work with us in trying to get the system implemented however, after a single conversation, he became unreachable as well. I did eventually find an alternative technician who spent some time helping me understand how the system worked but in doing this it became immediately apparent that it was not what we had been told and would not do the one thing we specified we needed it to do at which point we informed the company that we couldn't use it and requested a refund.

At this point epos now became aggressive, defensive and impossible to deal with, I've had a dozen different people from their customer services initiate communication before again disappearing and have now followed the companies complaints procedure to officially lodge the complaint but have had no further response despite being beyond the timelines laid out in their t's & c's. In the auto response I got immediately following my complaint they were very keen to point out that customers should be aware that they are not covered by the Consumer Rights Act as it was a B2B sale and clearly this was pretty scary as they obviously deal with this kind of situation on a regular basis.

This company have a reputation for this kind of behaviour and spend a huge amount of time and effort managing their online reputation and reviews.

Can anyone tell me what my rights are and who I can turn to for the right advice in taking this further please ?

Thanks

 

[ethical PR]

The devil will be in the detail. Your rights and responsibilities will be contained in your contract. Normally with a commercial contract - it's buyer beware and you don't have the same rights as consumers. However if the product is not fit for purpose and you can demonstrate that you purchased the product based on the fact it could do ABCDE etc and that you have this in writing and that once installed it was clear that it couldn't this will help your case.

The person best place to help you in taking this further is a commercial solicitor who can provide you with professional advice that takes into account your contract and subsequent correspondence and activity post installation.

 

[bovine]

Not uncommon and I have heard bad reviews do disappear quite quickly.
By stopping the support, my understanding of that system it will not work.
Returning it is probably not easy, but you can reuse the hardware with other software if necessary.

What was the one thing you wanted to be able to do?

I do work in the epos industry, if you need any help with replacing/reusing please let me know whereabouts you are and i will see if I know anyone near you who can help.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

Sale of goods act should cover you but you need to make full notes of what was said when who visited and when to be able to make a case, the more information including emails & phone calls the better

What sort of costs are involved here

One point with cloud for this sort of service is that your shop is basically closed if the line goes down or the site is off air, is the risk worth it when there are plenty of stand alone systems, only you can judge

 

[The Byre]

On a B2B deal, it is up to you to protect yourself. It is called, exercising care, common sense and due diligence.

Care - you check with other users/customers.
Common sense - you ensure that the product is what you want and need and you only pay anything when supplied and satisfied.
Due diligence - you check the suppliers credit record and the record of the directors for previous company or personal failures.

Quite honestly, the system you bought fails on all three counts. Real reviews that are obviously not bogus postings are mostly as poor as can be, nobody should use a cloud-based epos system and the owner-manger seems to open and close companies as they fail and fold on an almost regular basis (one closed in 2010, another down the tubes 2013, a bar opened and enforced closure just two months later in 2012!)

At least you have only lost between £1k and £2k, so your rights are to take these suckers to court. In the mean time, I am sure that the folks here can point you at an epos system that actually works!

And this time, pay when the system is installed and working!

 

[Olizoo]

Thanks for the info, I did everything I could at the time to protect myself but without payment you get no product and only when the product arrived could we see if it worked as described so it was a bit catch 22. I've reviewed the recordings of the phone calls with their sales dept and I asked very specifically a number of times what I could do if the system was not what we wanted and I was told it would be and that they 'guaranteed' it, does that get me anything ?

I also asked specific questions about the particular feature I needed and was told it would work however it doesn't so it wasn't what I asked for.

Surely, even with a business purchase, if I ask for an apple and I get sent an orange there must be some comeback no ?

 

[bovine]

Of course, but unfortunately you will have to take them to court. Small claims should be able to handle it, but then it's a case of proving it.
All of which take time, and you still won't have a pos system.

What was the feature?

 

[Olizoo]

I even have the email from the 'Implementation' technician telling me . . .

"I am your Implementation Manager and will be supporting you from now until you are operational and satisfied with our product and service." . . he then vanished never to return and didn't help at all !

 

[The Byre]

without payment you get no product and only when the product arrived could we see if it worked as described so it was a bit catch 22.

When someone demands payment in advance, that is a sure sign that they expect you to be dissatisfied with the final result.

We provide a package that is far, far more costly than a epos system and we require nothing in advance and the customer only pays when they are satisfied with the final result. In the past 15 years, we have had ONE dissatisfied customer and they paid anyway, as their dissatisfaction was not with us, but with others associated with the project.

I can go along with a 10% deposit on a piece of expensive machinery that has to be built to order, but that is about as far up that ladder as I would be prepared to go.

 

[Olizoo]

I explained that I needed a system to simplify and speed up my stock entry as my current system is useless and time consuming. I was told that the new system had a 'bulk import' feature that meant I could enter all my products in one go. I spent weeks sourcing the csv files I needed to import from my suppliers only for the techs I had to rely on at epos now to enter all the info incorrectly. I then spent another week deleting it all to start again. Once I started again I managed to get hold of another tech who then explained that this bulk import service only allowed for an import of 2000 items at a time but even just a single one of our suppliers has over 20,000 stock items I might order so I spent 5 hours cutting and pasting data from one form to another just to get them all entered.

Once I entered them, and despite discussing the importance of 'Categories' specifically, the system immediately made each individual item its own category and we were right back to square one ! I will also have to manually delete each item as we run out of stock to make room for new products as they come out, this happens every quarter.

This is a million miles from making my stock entry process any easier but I had to have the system itself and enough support to understand that feature to know this !

 

[Olizoo]

I think my main question is whether, if a company has described a product as one thing and it turns out to be another, I can hold them to account for the deception if I can prove they misled me and I couldn't know about the problem without them disclosing it to me in the implementation process ?

 

[bovine]

Its proving deception that is tricky. They could argue that it is down to you to check the system does exactly what you want. Did you say you wanted to import 20,000 lines per supplier? Did you supply the import in the correct format?
If you go down that route, you need to convince a county court judge that they have deceived you. Might be worth talking to a legal professional to clarify the basis of your claim. And do bear in mind that this probably isnt the first time theyve had this happen, so may have some experience defending their t&cs.

As an aside, I wouldnt recommend importing all the products from all suppliers. You would end up with a huge database full of mostly junk. Having a cloud based pos system with tens of thousands of items probably wont lead to a quick or useable system. It can be a time consuming process setting up a retail system from scratch, but it leads to a better system in my opinion.
I think the largest one ive done was 30k items, for the same reason as you. The customer got the data file from their supplier and imported them all in. I think realistically they only used about 5k items.

 

[The Byre]

If it is any consolation to you, we all make these mistakes, above all, when we step outside our core competence and allow somebody to sell us something that is not what we really want/need/can use. I hate to think how many thousands upon thousands I have personally wasted in IT systems that were pants, machines with special features that never got used and all sots of other stuff that just was a total waste of time, effort and money.

If they really did the dirty on you and the system just is not what they described and you can prove that, by all means sue them until they squeak. But the problem with systems, is that they often compartmentalise the sale. I bought an IT system based on Macs. Did they supply the Macs? Yes. Did they supply the software? Yes. Did they supply the hub? Yes. Did they supply the server? Yes. Did they supply the access codes and dongles and other security devices? Yes.

Did we ever get it to work? Did we F**k! What a load of rubbish that was!

Sometimes, I think these mistakes are there, just to warn us that we are about to make an even bigger mistake. A bit like having a minor fender-bender because you were driving too fast, as a warning that the next mistake might be fatal!

 

[Olizoo]

Al of this is helpful, thanks for bothering. Part of this is the principal of the matter, I have the call recording in which they're guaranteeing me the system will be what I want which it isnt but I couldn't have known that without first getting it in my hands to test it and there must be something to protect the customer from this type of issue, I can't be the first person to buy something on trust only to find its not what they asked for !

Also, is the fact that I HAVE to work with them to use the system(being cloud based) a factor when the support system I've been paying for is useless ? If they fail in supporting the system they sold mecan I not claim that it is unrealistic to expect a reasonable working relationship with them now ? I have acknowledgement of the failure of the support and now a refusal to communicate at all so how can I use the system ?

 

[bovine]

Unfortunately this often happens when sales people are selling technical solutions. Sales may promise something the techs cannot deliver because they dont know the system well enough or they dont know enough to ask the correct questions of the customer. And the fact they need to hit targets means they are trying to get you to sign, no matter what.
I've been involved in epos systems for about 20 years or so. Mid range stuff. Started as a tech, moved in sales. All for a small company. If i sold it, sometimes I had to install it. So you made sure you didnt over promise what it could do. Sometimes you have to say to people that a system isnt right for them. I memorably did that years ago part way through pre-install setup. It became obvious based on what they gave us it was going to cause issues for that machine (it was a bit slow and got really slow with their setup). I told them, suggested a better option (it was more expensive) and went with that. I forget how many years I've dealt with them now, about 10 i think!
This company is a volume business, they really need a high number of sales and have aggressive sales tactics. Some of the things I have heard about them are quite unbelievable.

Anyway, back to subject. There is a discrepancy between your expectation and what has been delivered. Maybe book a consultation with a solicitor, take their t&cs and discuss if you have a valid, provable claim. Then go from there. Gut feeling is although morally you are of course right, legally they will have fulfilled their side of it.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

In your position I would just accept I made a mistake, stop payments and inform them why. then get on with getting a system that does what you want. and they can pick up any equipment at your office giving 48 hours notice

Leave it to them to take you to court if they feel strong enough but you have the ammunition to defend yourself

Going after them will be a waste of time and effort, just write it off as well earned experience.

about the database, I agree limit it to the actual items you actually sell it does not take much time to add single products when required and a small database normally mean's better speed and better reliability

 

[Jay Bhalani]

Olizoo, did you manage to get refund from Eposnow? I am in the same boat. Only difference is, i figured out that system was no use for our business, before they delivered. I was told by implementation manager that she will arrange refund. She contacted after a month Only to tell me that I can't get refund as it was my responsibility to check before buying!

 

[The Resolver]

What hasn't been mentioned is that they may be committing an offence under the Business Protection From Misleading Marketing Regulations 2008.

 

[Airpos]

Interested to know if you ever got your refund Bovine? Or if you'd like to talk about a cloud POS that can handle categories without issue?