[Ecommerce] Right to withdraw from a contract?

[Manon Ress]

Is that true for the US?
Manon
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Consumers buying products on eBay have a right to withdraw from the contract

According to a decision the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) took
yesterday consumers who buy goods from commercial sellers on eBay may
return these products within a 14 day period and get their money back.
The right to withdraw from a contract was established by the EU-Distance
Selling Directive. For auctions however this right is not applicable
according to the Directive. The German court clarified now, that e-bay
"auctions" are not "auctions" as defined under the distance selling
directive. The legal grounds of a contract between the seller and the
buyer are that of a normal act of sale. In an "auction" in the sense of
the distance selling directive the contract results from the acceptance
of a bid by the seller. With e-bay the contract results from a binding
offer of the seller and the acceptance of this offer through the winning
bid of the buyer.

As a result the right of return for 14 days applies to e-bay contracts
when the seller is not a private person but a commercial salesman.

This was the case in the BGH ruling: The seller was a jeweler, who sold
a bracelet on e-bay. The buyer who gave the winning bid returned the
bracelet as he thought the quality was bad and refused to pay. The
jeweler sued him for payment but lost the case.

On e-bay auctions approximately one third of the offerers are commercial
salesmen. They will now have to inform customers about their right to
withdraw from the contract within 14 days after they receive the
product. The problem for consumers in the future will be to identify
commercial sellers pretending to be private sellers.


Patrick von Braunmuehl
Head of Department Economic and Legal Affairs

Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband e.V. (vzbv)
Federation of German Consumer Organisations
Markgrafenstrasse 66
D-10969 Berlin, Visitors: Kochstrasse 22
Tel.: +49-30/25 800-121
Fax: +49-30/25 800-118
E-Mail: braunmuehl@vzbv.de; Internet: www.vzbv.de


--
Manon Anne Ress
manon.ress@cptech.org,
www.cptech.org

Consumer Project on Technology in Washington, DC
PO Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036, USA
Tel.:  1.202.387.8030, fax: 1.202.234.5176

Consumer Project on Technology in Geneva
1 Route des  Morillons, CP 2100, 1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 791 6727