[jaloos]

amwilkie you have some very interesting points.

I have a couple main points as well though.

Before they decided not to honor the sale the bank had already sent the email money transfer. It was already sitting there as full payment monday morning when they opened up. All they had to do was punch in the answer to the security question. The money was as good as theirs. They were sitting there with it when I was called and in his own words "you can pay the difference or we can refund your money" Money cannot be refunded if it was never accepted. If I had agreed to it they would have gladly typed in the 6 letter word and the money would have been instantly in their account. Furthermore if they did not want to honor the sale they also had an option to return or deny the transfer. They did nothing of the sort, they let the money sit in limbo for what would have been 30 days (bank default time out) if the boy had not done a stop payment on it at a cost of 3.50 to himself. Does Walmart make you wait up to 30 days to get your money back on a returned item or is your cash recieved on the spot.

Also the matter of due dilligence. In march we bought a 125cc dirt bike from them and noticed on the following day the price increased by 100 dollars. They did not pursue or back out of the sale at that point. I am not sure if this can be argued as precident or not. My point here is if 2 months ago an item was purchased and after the fact you noticed the price increase on the item is it not due dilligence to check the rest of you pricing.

Their website does not list any type of sales contrct, conditions of sale or any of the usual "fine print" that retailers use to enable them to cover themselves in multiple situations including this type of instance. There is absolutly nothing, not a word.

I have checked and the retailer is obligated to provide the customer with all pertinent information and for lack of a better word contracts.

Disclosure of information
46 (1) A supplier must disclose the following information to a consumer before the consumer enters into a distance sales contract:
(a) the information referred to in sections 19 (a) to (c), (f) to (j) and (n) [required contents of contract] and 23 (2) [required contents of future performance contract];
(b) if available, the supplier's electronic mail address;
(c) a detailed description of the goods or services to be supplied under the contract, including any relevant technical or system specifications;
(d) the currency in which amounts owing under the contract are payable;
(e) the supplier's delivery arrangements, including the identity of the shipper, the mode of transportation and the place of delivery to the consumer;
(f) the supplier's cancellation, return, exchange and refund policies, if any;
(g) any other prescribed information.
(2) The supplier must disclose the information required under subsection (1) in a clear and comprehensible manner.

Note section F. And section g where the simple addition of the term "we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone" would have more than covered the situation.

And as stated before the sale is a binding contract between 2 parties and is refered to as such in many many instances in the consumer protection act. If you go to an auction and bid on something you are obliged to pay for the item right? By raising your hand you and the seller have entered into a contract of sale. By letting my son go through the entire purchase, close the purchase and furnish information on how to make payment, they too have entered into the sales contract.

I managed a retail outlet and was forced to honor a mispriced item myself many many times.

It is not that I am bummed that my kid did not get an unreal steal of a deal on a bike. It is the fact that they feel they can do this sort of thing in the first place. It has gone far beyond a bike.

Either way this thing plays out the bad publicity will cost them many many times more than the simple 400 bucks extra profit they stood to lose. I am a member on several different forums (all dealing with china bikes)
and the majority of them have sections for retailer reviews. They will certainly not fare well in any of them.

They will still have to either answer the BBB or as they aparently have done in the past just ignore them. Either way its a long way to make up for their BBB rating of F

And I guess any legality issues will be taken care of by Consumer and Corporate Affairs Canada as a formal complaint had been filed against them as promised.