Abuses and inefficiencies in Carrefour’s online grocery shopping with home delivery. Unacceptable practices for consumers. This is the complaint of the Égalité association, which is reporting the case to the Antitrust Authority.
Carrefour, obstacle shopping
Accessing carrefour.co.uk is a frustrating experience in itself. The test was conducted on 8.4.20. Long waits to access the product list in a system that-in the two months since the surge in online food sales, in Italy-still does not seem to be able to withstand the traffic of visits. And the supply is drastically limited, in a kind of rationing that has nothing to do with availability in physical stores.
Fresh produce such as meat, seasonal fruits and vegetables are almost absent. It proceeds anyway, in the discomfort of restrictions. If you want to order the food you need, in fact, you have to give up choices about origin, ingredients, and sustainability.
Midnight spending
Order completed but unfulfilled. Because there is a lack of delivery bands available in the next two days, we learn after the patient adventure, it is impossible to finalize the order and proceed with payment. The site suggests logging on after midnight to complete the task.
The midnight shopping, however, is feverish. Having retrieved the ‘window’ left open on the computer, you try again to complete the transaction, pay and book the delivery. But the system crashes. ‘Warning. A problem occurred in the product controls‘. Some products are missing but you don’t know which ones, the list doesn’t update, and the order doesn’t proceed. Rien à faire.
The abuse of power
New day, new attempt. The product that was missing at midnight is finally indicated. You proceed to replace it with another-in the skimpy choice of alternatives-and complete the order.
Carrefour’s abuse emerges in the order confirmation email. A mockery, all the more odious in the social as well as health emergency that Italy is experiencing. The French giant reports that prices may change after purchase. And so the total amount of the credit card charge could change.
‘Because our prices change every day, the total amount spent may vary depending on the day of delivery/pickup.’
Report to the Antitrust Authority
Consumers buy in the supermarket, physical or online, based on the prices displayed. And the contract is concluded with the confirmation of the order under the specified conditions.
Changing the price of a good that has already been purchased and paid for is definitely unlawful. As Professor Philipp Fabbio, professor of business law at the Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria, explains, ‘for the general rules of contracts, unilateral modification of contract conditions is not allowed. If post-purchase price variability were provided for in the general terms and conditions of sale, one would still have to check the compatibility of such a clause with the Consumer Code. And in any case, the possible deceptiveness of business practices’ will have to be checked.
Égalité onlus therefore reports the matter to the Antitrust Authority, in order to obtain consumer rights protection as soon as possible.
Without water
Although the vicissitudes of finishing the order are over, there is little to rest easy. At the time of delivery, in fact, the most important product in the case is missing: water. In a home without drinking water, the damage is enormous. And the 6.90 euros paid to shop online at Carrefour seems an unaffordable price.
Professional journalist since January 1995, he has worked for newspapers (Il Messaggero, Paese Sera, La Stampa) and periodicals (NumeroUno, Il Salvagente). She is the author of journalistic surveys on food, she has published the book "Reading labels to know what we eat".