united-kingdom european-union consumer-protection customer-service
UK: Returning damaged items without option for free replacement?
<p>I live outside of the UK, not a UK citizen or resident (I am also not a resident of the European Union), but I bought several items in the online store of a large UK department store chain.
The transaction price made me eligible for free shipping.</p>

<p>Many of the items arrived damaged, I took photos and got a refund for the items' value, not for the shipping, as shipping was free.</p>

<p>On its web site, the store declares that damaged items of orders placed by customers located outside of the UK will not be replaced, only refunded.</p>

<p>(Hence if I want a replacement, I will have to place a new order for the damaged items).</p>

<p>However, in the time interval between the time when I placed the original order, and the time when the damaged items were delivered, the online store bumped up the prices of the damaged items.</p>

<p>Also, since now I have less items to order, I will not be eligible for free shipping (unless I choose to add some items which are not really necessary to me, just to reach the threshold required for free shipping).</p>

<p>I wrote to their customer service about these two problems. However their response was that they do not send replacements to customers who are outside of the UK, and I will have to place a new order, with the new prices, as well as pay the shipping fee.</p>

<p><strong>Is this legal according to the UK law, even when I am not a UK citizen?</strong></p>

<p>Yes, it's absolutely legal.</p>

<p>It turns out that UK retailers offer replacement out of their own politeness and are not required to do so by law. If they gave you refund then that's all they need to do.</p>
