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It worries me that neither the advertisement, the catalog, or the order form would constitute an offer. I do understand that the harrier jet did not exist in th

It worries me that neither the advertisement, the catalog, or the order form would constitute an offer. I do understand that the harrier jet did not exist in the catalog or offer form, but the general point is what scares me What would a consumer have to verify when they are placing an order to ensure they are not submitting to a practical joke? If they can't be held liable for false advertising, would they have a case for a civil suit around lost opportunities or something? I'm not sure how this individual came up with 7,000,000 pepsis worth of points; maybe that's not worth a harrier jet, but surely this individual wouldn't have bothered gathering them if not for the commercial.

vidarh 7y ago
Any of them can constitute an offer. The point is that they don't automatically constitute an offer. For there to be a contract there needs to be a meeting of minds. To rely on a unilateral offer then, the terms stated needs to be such that there is no need for negotiating unstated terms - e.g. the other side has stated a sufficiently complete set of terms so that it is only down to accepting or rejecting it on your side. When an offer is made in an open ended way like that, the court points out that in past cases leaving out things like what will happen if you run out of stock makes the "offer" sufficiently indeterminate that it is not reasonable to consider it binding. You can solve that by adding a statement such as "first come, first serve" or "as long as stocks last" or similar. The point being that until you have confirmed that there is an actual intent to offer you something, whether you specifically or any taker without qualification, you should not rely on an ad as a guarantee of an offer, but as a statement of a willingness to issue an offer or accept an offer, and if you need a definite offer you will need to contact the entity stating the intent and obtain a clear offer. > What would a consumer have to verify when they are placing an order to ensure they are not submitting to a practical joke? That there was an actual intent to enter into a binding agreement. In this case, the catalog set out specific terms and may well have qualified as an offer for the other items that were mentioned in it, assuming they had suitably specific language. When then seeing there was no jet listed the step to take would have been to contact Pepsico and ask for a confirmation that there was an offer prior to relying on it. At which point you'd have been told no. > I'm not sure how this individual came up with 7,000,000 pepsis worth of points; maybe that's not worth a harrier jet, but surely this individual wouldn't have bothered gathering them if not for the commercial. He sent a check. He didn't bother gathering them. The rules allowed him to buy them for 10 cents per point. This was treated by the court as him making an offer, and Pepsico rejecting his offer by not stating any acceptance of the order form and not cashing his check, given that Pepsico had not made an offer in advance, so sending back an order for with extra stuff written on it and a check could not constitute accepting an offer. If he had actually spent a lot of time or money on this prior to suing I'd have been slightly more sympathetic, but he kept his money until he started burning it on lawyers.

vidarh 7y ago

Any of them can constitute an offer. The point is that they don't automatically constitute an offer. For there to be a contract there needs to be a meeting of minds. To rely on a unilateral offer then, the terms stated needs to be such that there is no need for negotiating unstated terms - e.g. the other side has stated a sufficiently complete set of terms so that it is only down to accepting or rejecting it on your side. When an offer is made in an open ended way like that, the court points out that in past cases leaving out things like what will happen if you run out of stock makes the "offer" sufficiently indeterminate that it is not reasonable to consider it binding. You can solve that by adding a statement such as "first come, first serve" or "as long as stocks last" or similar. The point being that until you have confirmed that there is an actual intent to offer you something, whether you specifically or any taker without qualification, you should not rely on an ad as a guarantee of an offer, but as a statement of a willingness to issue an offer or accept an offer, and if you need a definite offer you will need to contact the entity stating the intent and obtain a clear offer. > What would a consumer have to verify when they are placing an order to ensure they are not submitting to a practical joke? That there was an actual intent to enter into a binding agreement. In this case, the catalog set out specific terms and may well have qualified as an offer for the other items that were mentioned in it, assuming they had suitably specific language. When then seeing there was no jet listed the step to take would have been to contact Pepsico and ask for a confirmation that there was an offer prior to relying on it. At which point you'd have been told no. > I'm not sure how this individual came up with 7,000,000 pepsis worth of points; maybe that's not worth a harrier jet, but surely this individual wouldn't have bothered gathering them if not for the commercial. He sent a check. He didn't bother gathering them. The rules allowed him to buy them for 10 cents per point. This was treated by the court as him making an offer, and Pepsico rejecting his offer by not stating any acceptance of the order form and not cashing his check, given that Pepsico had not made an offer in advance, so sending back an order for with extra stuff written on it and a check could not constitute accepting an offer. If he had actually spent a lot of time or money on this prior to suing I'd have been slightly more sympathetic, but he kept his money until he started burning it on lawyers.