TSUM will have to pay for the price mistake

The Supreme Court allowed a citizen to pay 846 times less for a purchase. The store’s arguments that the price was set by mistake were rejected by the court, ruling: it is the responsibility of the seller, not the buyer, to ensure that the price is indicated correctly.

Two years ago, Stanislav Anokhin, a resident of Volgograd, decided to dress up. Going to the website of the Moscow Central Department Store, he began to choose things for himself, when he suddenly saw that they cost literally a penny – from 19 to 129 rubles. As a result, a whole bunch of new clothes, consisting exclusively of luxury brands, cost him only 2,787 rubles. However, the store refused to send purchases, arguing that there was a technical error on the site, and the real value of the purchased items is 2.3 million rubles. And in general, what nonsense – is it not clear that a thing from Dior or Balenciaga, by definition, cannot cost so cheap? So here’s your money, we wish you happy shopping…

However, the Volgograd citizen reasoned that other people’s problems did not concern him, after which he went to court, demanding to oblige the store to send the purchased items. Having considered the case, the court sided with him. In TSUM, they decided to sue further, eventually reaching the Supreme Court. But he also confirmed that the store’s mistakes should not worry the buyer. “Price fixing occurs at the time of the conclusion of the contract between the buyer and the online store, which is determined by the moment the order is placed with the assignment of a number to it, which allows the consumer to receive information about the concluded retail sale contract and its conditions. The seller is not entitled to unilaterally change the price announced at the time of placing the order,” the Supreme Court decided, sending the case for review to the court of first instance.

As lawyers are now explaining, winning the lawsuit from Anokhin is practically in his pocket. But here’s the most interesting thing: if TSUM refuses to send things (two years have passed and they are most likely gone), he will have to compensate for their cost. And not the one that the Volgograd citizen paid for the purchases, but the real, market one – that is, over 2 million rubles.

This is not the first time that the courts take the side of buyers who took advantage of the technical errors of stores. So, in February 2021, the same Supreme Court upheld a resident of Ufa who bought an LG TV on the Svyaznoy website for only 480 rubles, which in reality costs 80 times more. The store also tried to terminate the contract and return the money. The courts also dismissed a lawsuit filed by Tinkoff against Bank, which complained that its clients, due to an error, were able to buy currency below the real rate, thereby causing damage to the bank by $7 million. After that, Tinkoff decided to unilaterally write off money from customers’ accounts, leaving some of them in the red. Citizens went to court and won. “The bank first referred to the vulnerability of the algorithm, and then stated that the employee made a mistake when setting the exchange rates. It turns out that a professional market participant (the bank) himself made and admitted his mistake, but wants to make the weak side of the relationship pay for it – the client, who acted strictly within the framework of the law, the agreement with the bank and the opportunities and restrictions that the bank itself provides, ” – noted at the end of the review hzikhidtidekrt affairs.

In fact, lawyers say, the number of such cases in the courts could be in the hundreds, or even thousands, if all the buyers faced with such cases decided to protect their rights. Price errors are especially common on marketplaces. At the same time, the reason for this is not always a technical failure or oversight. In November 2021, Rospotrebnadzor even issued a special statement on this matter. Then, on the Ozon website, prices for goods fell sharply, for some the discount reached 98%. Naturally, buyers reacted by starting to place orders. After that, Ozon said that the price change was due to a technical failure, refused to send the purchased goods and promised to return the money. However, as emphasized in Rospotrebnadzor, “if the goods are ordered under the terms of a special promotion, then the seller must fulfill such an agreement. At the same time, the fact of paying for the goods does not play a significant role, the fact that the consumer responded to the public offer of the seller is important in itself. And low prices cannot unequivocally indicate a technical failure, since “sales for 1 ruble is a common practice of drawing attention to a particular product or brand.” Indeed, are there rare cases when stores place extremely cheap goods that are obviously not available, only for the buyer to become interested and call or place an order, so that later they can sell him the same product, but more expensive? So they can only blame themselves. And if they do not want to fulfill their obligations, then they must go to court, and nothing else – all refusals to provide the purchased goods are illegal.