Best Buy: Québec Consumer Protection Act Of 1978

When trying to purchase a video game console online, a few options were offered to me such as which console to purchase, with which company and at what price. After looking up a couple of websites, I concluded that Best Buy was the company that I would do business with. I therefore started to look at their website and found some elements that were inconsistent with the Québec Consumer Protection Act of 1978. The following report will make a few recommendations to Best Buy in order to be fully conform with the CPA.

The first inconsistencies of your website regarding the CPA could be found in the pre-contractual phase of the online purchasing process. First of all, article 54.4 of the CPA states a couple of information that must be found in the

However, in order to fully conform with the CPA, I would recommend that you also add the full shipping informations directly on the pre-contractual phase page. I was able to find this information under the ‘’terms and conditions’’ section of your website but the average consumer might have some issues finding it. The second element that was inconsistent with article 54.4 of the CPA was the fact that there was no currency specified when looking at the amount owed to the company. There was no way possible of knowing if the price displayed was in U.S. dollars or Canadian dollars. Since there is a huge difference of value between the two of them, it would be in your best interest to show it in order to prevent some bad surprises for your customers. The last element that you should change in your pre-contractual phase in order to be fully conform with the CPA would be to show the exchange, returns and refunds information directly on this part of the contract. Once again, in order to find these informations, I had to go under the ‘’terms and conditions’’ section of your website and browse a little bit to find it. As I said

First of all, according to articles 54.11, 54.12 and 54.13 of the CPA, for a consumer to cancel a contract, he or she has to sent a notice to the company. From the moment that the company has received the notice, it has 15 days to refund the customer entirely. However, in the post-contractual section of your website, there is no information whatsoever regarding refund procedures and chargebacks. It is easy to find information regarding how to send back an item to your locations but not in any way how exactly to send a notice regarding a refund procedure. This is why I would recommend that you put explicitly a section in the post-contractual page that explains precisely your refund policies and how to join you regarding the matter. As a consumer, it is important to know that you will see the colour of your money again and the lack of information regarding this issue could be alarming for potential customers. Another element that does not meet the requirements of CPA is the fact that in article 54.13 of it, it says that a company has 15 days to refund an article that has been returned. However, I cannot find any information regarding this issue. When browsing through your website, I was able to find that you have a 30 days period for returns and exchanges concerning video games console. Unfortunately, this section