Activity 2: Online shopping rights
1. Tell students because buying online is getting more popular everyone should know what consumer rights they have when shopping online. Explain when you buy something online, there is a physical distance between you and the seller. This is different to buying something in a shop where you interact with someone face-to-face. If you have bought something from a business that is based in the EU, you are protected by EU law.
If it’s up to 14 calendar days since you received your purchase, you will be covered under the Consumer Rights Act by the cooling-off period and can return the goods and get a refund. However, if you are cancelling the order because you’ve changed your mind, you may have to pay for the cost of returning the goods.
2. Explain some things you buy online are not covered by the 14-day cooling-off period rule. E.g. perishable goods (goods which can go off, like frozen food or flowers).
3. Ask students to name other goods or services, which might not be covered by the 14-day cooling-off period.
Note:
Depending on your class you may wish to provide some of the following prompts:
- Customised goods, for example, a football shirt with your name printed on it
- Newspapers or magazines
- Audio or video recordings which have been unsealed or used by the consumer
- Computer software which has been unsealed or used by the consumer
- Gaming or lottery services
- Services which have already begun, with your consent, before the end of the cooling‑off period
- Concert/event ticket
4. Place a page with the word ‘True’ at one end of the classroom and a page with the word ‘False’ at the other end of the classroom.
Note: You might find it useful to make and laminate ‘True’, ‘False’ posters and keep them to use again.
5. Invite students to stand in the middle of the room.
6. Explain you are going to call out a series of statements relating to shopping online. If they think the statement is true they should move to stand beside the ‘True’ poster. If they think the statement is false they should move to stand beside the ‘False’ poster. They can also choose to stand at any point between the two posters, if they are unsure or think that there may be exceptions to the statement.
7. Call out each statement from Teacher resource sheet: Online shopping statements and invite a sample of students from each of the locations in the classroom to discuss their opinions on the statement. At the end of each discussion provide the correct answer for each statement using the information provided in Teacher resource sheet: Online shopping information.
8. Invite students to sit down.
9. Facilitate a brief class discussion using the following questions as prompts:
- Do you think the class was well-informed about their online shopping rights?
- Were you surprised by any of the information about online consumer rights?
10. Conclude by asking students to respond to the following statement:
- ‘Legal rights are only an advantage if you know about them.’
