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Java-E UK - Consumer Rights (Exclusion Clauses)
Exclusion Clauses (even when written into a contract) which try to diminish or negate your ordinary/statutory legal rights as a consumer are always deemed legally irrelevant/invalid/void; the law is the law and no company can exclude themselves from a law simply by telling the consumer that they don't want to obey the law.
There is a well-known get-out clause for delivering faulty/mis-matching products/services which some sellers often try to use to avoid paying-up in a dispute with a customer, which is where a seller could tell you prior to your purchase that what you will get might not exactly match what they have advertised/described (for example in the case of hand-made goods where one item might be slightly different from another, or in an end-of-line sale where the goods may be of lesser quality than normal).
This difference is then judged to be part of the description/advertisement, and as such it's assumed that you legally agree to accepting it as part of your purchase contract. However, in that case, the difference that you might expect must be prominently displayed by the seller and your attention must be drawn to it explicitly by the seller before you make a purchase, and that difference must also be reasonable given the price that you are paying and the product concerned (a blanket exclusion clause/notice, or small print in a contract is not legally valid as a get-out clause in this instance).
Basically, if an Exclusion Clause has not been fully and explicitly explained to you and agreed by you prior to your purchase, then the Exclusion Clause is not legally valid and you would be entitled to a full refund if the product/service falls into that Exclusion Clause category.
It is a CRIMINAL OFFENCE for a seller to include a void/invalid Exclusion Clause into a contract (eg: "We are not liable for our own negligence") under The Consumer Transactions (Restrictions on Statements) Order 1976 as amended.
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