Kinda legal question.........

[AlexS]

A completely non-legal suggestion, since I'm not a lawyer.

Trot along to the chemist, commiserate with him over his loss, explain that you won't be paying for all the above reasons, but you'd like to help him get his money back via the PBS or whatever, ands offer to help him however you can. If he accepts your offer, well & good. If not, see Driver's plan B.

[rrich]

I'm uncertain of your laws, however if you driving and purchased petrol at $.35 per liter, you'ld fill your tank and be off. If the next week, at the same filling station you stopped to fill up and were told that the petrol was $1.35 per liter, you would still fill up. But then the attendent says, 'I saw you last week when we made the mistake in the pricing. You owe us $100. for the 100 liters that you purchased."

Would you pay, or just laugh, pay for your current petrol purchase and drive off. Two contracts of offering for sale. Two different prices. Some establishments sell for less in the hopes that the volume of business will take care of profits. Also it shouldn't be against the law to sell a product for less than you paid for it.

[dazzler]

I can't believe that anyone here actually thinks the chemist has a case!!!

If you go to the supermarket and put something in your trolley that has the wrong price on it, they HAVE to sell it to you at that price. They can't later realise their mistake and send you an invoice for the difference! Come on, get real...

hi Silent

That would be me then I suppose.

Lets keep in mind that we are talking about a chemist. Now perhaps my experience with chemists is different to everyone elses but I have always found them to be helpful people who genuinely care about my family.

I have had them open up on a weekend when a family member needed a course of medication, had advice when I couldnt get to the doctor and seem to be full of dinky di aussie values.

Perhaps this chemist was different. maybe he had his dick darstadly black cape and tophat on, greased up his moustache and patted mutly his dog.
Time to put his darstedly plan to work.

Here comes our poor friend, wha ha ha, this is really expensive medicine so I will trick him by making him pay 10% value of the product a couple of times till hes hooked and then screw him......wha ha ha.....

Get a life.

He made a mistake.

What appears to be a fair dinkum, aussie, bloody hell I made a mistake sorry mate is viewed as some master plan to rip our friend off.

Ever made a mistake people?

So Landseka, hypothetically, lets keep our great aussie traditions of a fair go and at least meet him halfway.

[Driver]

What appears to be a fair dinkum, aussie, bloody hell I made a mistake sorry mate.....

Which is normally followed by a fair dinkum Aussie "bloody hell I'll have to swallow it" not, as in this hypothetical case: "it's my mistake but someone else will have to pay, because I'm buggered if I will."

[silkwood]

This post is full of opinions and short on facts, so I'll add my opinion .

Firstly, Silent, I'm sorry but the reason they charge you the lower price (on the first item) is a code of practice, not the law. Secondly, against the law to profit from another's mistake?!! Lets see the reference for that one! There are laws regarding unconscionable conduct but they don't quite cover such a broad stement.

As for the asking of reimbursement fro previous purchases, I can confidently tell you in retail and wholesale this is not allowable (notwithstanding charges of unconscionable conduct etc.). If you go into a store and a saw is labelled $40, but at the counter they tell you it's really $80, well, bad luck, until money changes hands (a contract for all intents and purposes) there is no "offer of trade/contract". If a retailer/wholesaler does this regularly or, even worse, as a matter of policy, then they are trading against the law.

So this would suggest your chemist has to wear the cost. With one caveat.. I know absolutely nothing about the chemist business or the PBS .

Check with your regional Office of Consumer & Business Affairs, an easy and free process. Hypothetically, I agree there's always another side to a story and we've only heard one.

Cheers,

Mark

[Landseka]

Thank you all for taking the time to ponder my dilemma and to make suggestions. I can now see there are a few options open to me and several courses of action to take.

A contract requires three elements: offer, acceptance and consideration. In the case of a retail purchase, the offer is you offering to buy something; the acceptance is the retailer being prepared to supply and the consideration is the agreed amount of (usually) money that changes hands (ie, the price). All three elements have to be present or no contract exists. An agreed price is part of the contract.

To me in a nutshell this is how a sale should work.

You obviously needed the medicine so I spose what its worth is what its worth.

Unfortunatly the script was for one of those "let's try these & see if they help" type drugs. A 3 month course of them at the full price would be $2600 which is way more than I would be prepared to pay for an experiment which may or may not work.

What was the drug? That will let us work out if there has beed a recent PBS change.

Cheers Pulse

I doubt the drug in question has had any change recently, it is called Thalidomide, it is very hard to get now as any of you old enough to remember it will understand why.

Plan B

Squeal like a stuck pig to the media. They love a story about the big end of town ganging up on the individual. This one's a ripper!

Big Pharma Monsters Bunbury Battler!

Callous Chemist Kicks Man When He's Down!

I like this Driver though it would be a last resort.

Get a life.

He made a mistake.

What appears to be a fair dinkum, aussie, bloody hell I made a mistake sorry mate is viewed as some master plan to rip our friend off.

Ever made a mistake people?

So Landseka, hypothetically, lets keep our great aussie traditions of a fair go and at least meet him halfway.

The thing is I also don't believe the chemist should be out of pocket over this, maybe he should have some recourse to HIS supplier. Obviously a mistake has been made by someone.....but should I have to pay for that mistake? As I said, had I known in the first place how much these tabs would cost I never would have accepted them.

Thanks again for all comments, I have looked very closely at yours too Peter, a letter is being drafted now to the Pharmacy Guild as suggested by the Dept of Fair Trading.

I will keep you updated as to any progress in this matter.

[DavidG]

Sorry to throw a spanner into the works but Thalidomide was added to the PBS on 1st FEB 2006. but dependent on what it is used for.
Landseka - I have PMed you a link for you to read.

[ozwinner]

Just done a google on the new uses for Thalidomide, I hope you are alright, and or not pregnant.

Al

[Landseka]

Just done a google on the new uses for Thalidomide, I hope you are alright, and or not pregnant.

Al

Do I look it?????

[ozwinner]

Not from here, but you bum looks big though!!

Al

[sea dragon]

Do I look it?????

No, you do not look pregnant, but neither do you look 58 years.
I see the good side is the drug's Fountain of Youth effect.
The bad side is the gender change (but if it turns out as it did for you, maybe that should be added to the good side, too.
Seriously, you have been given a lot of sensible propositions and also some accurate legal advice.

Hypothetically, were I a lawyer, I would be considering Driver's initial propisition about offer, acceptance and consideration and then thinking that the first two transactions were completed.
The idea of "mistake" means that you cannot wrongly profit by someone's error when you know they have acted on a wrong basis, even moreso if you have encouraged their erroneous opinion. Akin to that is the story of a Queensland lawyer being fined $20,000 by not revealing that his client had a reduced life expectancy because of cancer that was unrelated to his claim. The "silence" should have been bad enough for the lawyer to be wrong, but he went further and was stating that his client would have been fine, but for what had given rise to his claim.

Assuming you had no knowledge of what the correctprice shouls have been and/or assumed it was at the usual sort of PBS price, you had no problem and the chemist would not entitled to attempt to charge after the event, i.e. after the contract had been completed and you had consumed the supply.
There should be a professional body that "polices" the conduct of pharmacists in your state. The Guild is more a voluntary but (I think) national association as I recall their role. If you need to write to a body, it should be to your state's pharmacy policing body because of its role in maintaining professional standards.

BTW, there are diffferent regimes by which non-PBS drugs are sometimes available. If we are talking about a small community, your GP should separately speak to the pharmacist to assist; obviously, big city folk are not as kindly disposed, usually.

Lastly, as an aside on the consumer purchases issue, the goods displayed in the shop are not necessarily said to be offered to the customer. The "offer" is more usually when the customer seeks to purchase them. Of course, the Trade Practices Act and the ACCC have put refinements on these situations. If a store advertises specific goods for sale at a price (without saying that perhaps only a few are available), when they do not have enough to satisfy consumer demand, they can be potentially fined for what is called "bait advertising".
Hope some of this is of benefit.

[boban]

SeaDragon,

I was fortunate enough to know another lawyer who lived in Cremorne and had a home in the mountains. Unfortunately he passed away last year and will be missed my many.

I would hypothetically agree with you. However, I cant see why Landseka would be commencing the action as suggested by someone. The onus is clearly on the chemist.

[Rossluck]

hi Silent

Get a life.

He made a mistake.

What appears to be a fair dinkum, aussie, bloody hell I made a mistake sorry mate is viewed as some master plan to rip our friend off.

Ever made a mistake people?

So Landseka, hypothetically, lets keep our great aussie traditions of a fair go and at least meet him halfway.

My view is right in the middle of Dazzler's and Silent's. It's true that the chemist can't brow beat you into paying for his mistake. The fact that he tried to invoice you into submission loses him some brownie points.

On the other hand, if he is a decent person, maybe you should talk with him about some reasonable compromise, where he gets some (there should be no profit for him!) of his money and you give the drugs the flick.

Just remember, anyone in business cops some bad debts, it's just life. We had a letter this week from some receivers saying that $3,500 we are owed by a building company is a component of around $2,000,000 the now bankrupt company owes in total.:mad: It's gone.

[dazzler]

Which is normally followed by a fair dinkum Aussie "bloody hell I'll have to swallow it" not, as in this hypothetical case: "it's my mistake but someone else will have to pay, because I'm buggered if I will."

no worries driver, as long as we remember when the shoe is on the other foot of course...

[Driver]

no worries driver, as long as we remember when the shoe is on the other foot of course...

Absolutely right. It has to work both ways. Now we are in agreement.