Quick question for legal types

[judas]

Just trying to settle an argument here.

If a company supplies a service for a price, and as part of the package you get access to another service at no extra cost for a limted amount of time (say, as an incentive to order in advance of the main service being available), if the 'free' service is not made available or withdrawn without recompense would it be a breach of contract?

[Parrot of doom]

That depends, sometimes they can get out of that by stating the service is provided by a 3rd party and they offer no guarantees as to its availability.

[judas]

In this case it's all provided by the same company and was sold as a package that contains certain benefits, which cannot be obtained without access to the 'free' service.

>> Edited by judas on Monday 12th December 13:39

[judas]

Anyone?

[Kiwi XTR2]

It would depend whether the 'free' service was part of the 'contract' or part of an 'offer to treat' which did not ultimately become part of the contract.

What does the documentation say or is this a verbal contact ?

[judas]

Kiwi XTR2 said:

What does the documentation say or is this a verbal contact ?

Neither - internet sale.

Basically, the offer was a pre-order incentive and limited to a fixed number of customers on a first come first served basis where payment is made upfront and consisted of:
1. Access to main service from April 2006
2. Benefits that will carry over into the main service from the preview service
3. Guaranteed access to limited functionality preview service up until the launch of main service, with access to preview also being granted for free to a limited number of other people on a first come first served basis *but without the benefits in point 2*.

The way I see it is that the benefits carried over differentiate is enough to be considered an overall package that is being bought and therefore if access is denied to the preview service then a breach of contract has occured.

At the end of the day it doesn't really matter - I just want to see if I'm right and if so put some loud-mouthed, obnoxious know-it-all in their place

[Nevin]

The exact wording of what was said at the time on the web page will constitute your contract, along with your responses. Without exact details of this (as opposed to generalities) it is difficult to know.

[Kiwi XTR2]

I think you could be in the right here.

If there is any reasonable ambiguity in the 'contract' then the contra proferentum principle would also apply. Which in overly simplistic terms means any reasonable ambiguity should be interpreted against the author or the party who was in the best position to have prevented that ambiguity. In either case that would be the vendor here.

[judas]

Thanks - that should be enough to shut them up

[Kiwi XTR2]

Righto. Off to bed, it's 4:21 am here . . .