"Alias" wrote in message
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Daave wrote:
"Alias" wrote in message
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Daave wrote:
"M.I.5¾" wrote in message
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"Alias" wrote in message
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Yeah, the Catch 22 of shrink wrapped software where you don't get to
see the EULA until after you've opened the package and an opened
package --
per the vendor -- gets no refund.

There is no catch 22 at all. The European courts have actually ruled
on that point (and only reinforced what UK contract law already said).
The ruling was that any licence terms and conditions (EULA) that are
not visible to the purchaser, or drawn to his attention, before the
contract of sale is struck are not enforceable as they constitute an
unlawful unilateral variation to the established contract. In spite
of this Microsoft (and indeed other software vendors) continue to
insist that installing the software and checking the box that agrees
to the EULA as part of that process makes the EULA enforceable. This
usually forms the main plank of their litigation that never makes it
to court.
These are two separate issues. It is not Microsoft's position that once
the shrinkwrap has been opened, that the EULA has been agreed to. The
purchaser should be able to return the product for a full refund as
long as it hasn't been used (i.e., installed using the unique product
key). Now if there have been any documented cases of *this* occurrence
(where the consumer is unable to return the product for a full refund),
that would be a breach of the law in the consumer's favor. Can you
point me to any documented instances of these situations? I would like
to know if the individual vendors are wrongly unlitaterally refusing to
conduct the return or if Microsoft is pulling strings in the
background. If the latter is true, a class action suit would certainly
be warranted.
The vendors don't care what the EULA says. If you open it, it's yours.
This, I assume, is to prevent people from buying the software, copying
it, and then going in for a refund.

Do the vendors have this right? If they do (but I'm not sure they do),
then I can definitely see the Catch-22!

They put up little signs saying no software can be returned once opened in
their brick and mortar as well as their on line stores.


As long as they add the phrase "This does not affect your statutory rights".
That phrase, by the way, translates as, "The foregoing is probably a load of
********". Consumer law in the UK allows you to return software in exactly
the same way as hardware for the same reasons. You have to open the box to
discover that it doesn't do what it claims to do.