Unsolicited Goods and Services (Isle of Man) Act 1974

c i e
AT 5 of 1974

UNSOLICITED GOODS AND SERVICES

(ISLE OF MAN) ACT 1974

Unsolicited Goods and Services (Isle of Man) Act 1974 Index


c AT 5 of 1974 Page 3

c i e
UNSOLICITED GOODS AND SERVICES (ISLE OF

MAN) ACT 1974

Index Section Page

1 Inertia selling to consumers .......................................................................................... 5
2 Demands and threats regarding payment .................................................................. 6
3 Directory entries.............................................................................................................. 6
3A Contents and form of notes of agreement, invoices and similar documents ......... 7
4 Offences by corporations ............................................................................................... 8
5 Interpretation ................................................................................................................... 8
6 Citation and commencement ........................................................................................ 8
ENDNOTES 11

TABLE OF LEGISLATION HISTORY 11
TABLE OF RENUMBERED PROVISIONS 11
TABLE OF ENDNOTE REFERENCES 11

Unsolicited Goods and Services (Isle of Man) Act 1974 Section 1


c AT 5 of 1974 Page 5

c i e
UNSOLICITED GOODS AND SERVICES (ISLE OF

MAN) ACT 1974

Received Royal Assent: 10 April 1974
Passed: 21 May 1974
Commenced: 21 May 1974
AN ACT
to make provision for the greater protection of persons receiving
unsolicited goods, and to amend the law with respect to charges for entries in
directories.
1 Inertia selling to consumers

(1) Subsections (2) and (3) apply where —
(a) unsolicited goods are sent to a person (‘the recipient’) with a view
to his acquiring them;
(b) the recipient has no reasonable cause to believe that they were
sent with a view to their being acquired for the purposes of a
business; and
(c) the recipient has neither agreed to acquire nor agreed to return
them.
(2) The recipient may, as between himself and the sender, any person on
whose behalf or with whose consent they were sent, and any person
claiming through or under the sender or any such person, use, deal with
or dispose of the goods as if they were an unconditional gift to him.
(3) The rights of the sender and any other person mentioned in subsection
(2) to the goods are extinguished.
(4) A person who, not having reasonable cause to believe there is a right to
payment, in the course of any business makes a demand for payment, or
asserts a present or prospective right to payment, for what he
knows are —
(a) unsolicited goods sent to another person with a view to his
acquiring them for purposes other than those of his business, or
(b) unsolicited services supplied to another person for purposes other
than those of his business,
Section 2 Unsolicited Goods and Services (Isle of Man) Act 1974


Page 6 AT 5 of 1974 c

is guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not
exceeding £2,500.
(5) A person who, not having reasonable cause to believe there is a right to
payment, in the course of any business and with a view to obtaining
payment for what he knows are unsolicited goods sent or services
supplied as mentioned in subsection (4) —
(a) threatens to bring any legal proceedings, or
(b) places or causes to be placed the name of any person on a list of
defaulters or debtors or threatens to do so, or
(c) invokes or causes to be invoked any other collection procedure or
threatens to do so,
is guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not
exceeding £5,000.1

2 Demands and threats regarding payment

[1971/2 P]
(1) A person who, not having reasonable cause to believe there is a right to
payment, in the course of any trade or business makes a demand for
payment, or asserts a present or prospective right to payment, for what
he knows are unsolicited goods sent (after the coming into force of this
Act) to another person with a view to his acquiring them for the
purposes of his trade or business shall be guilty of an offence and on
summary conviction shall be liable to a fine not exceeding £2,500.2

(2) A person who, not having reasonable cause to believe there is a right to
payment, in the course of any trade or business and with a view to
obtaining any payment for what he knows are unsolicited goods sent as
aforesaid —
(a) threatens to bring any legal proceedings; or
(b) places or causes to be placed the name of any person on a list of
defaulters or debtors or threatens to do so; or
(c) invokes or causes to be invoked any other collection procedure or
threatens to do so,
shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on summary conviction to
a fine not exceeding £5,000.
3 Directory entries

[1971/3 P]
(1) A person shall not be liable to make any payment and shall be entitled to
recover any payment made by him, by way of charge for including or
arranging for the inclusion in a directory of an entry relating to that
person or his trade or business, unless there has been signed by him or
on his behalf an order complying with this section or a note complying
Unsolicited Goods and Services (Isle of Man) Act 1974 Section 3


c AT 5 of 1974 Page 7

with this section of his agreement to the charge and in the case of a note
of agreement to the charge, before the note was signed, a copy of it was
supplied, for retention by him, to him or to a person acting on his behalf.
(2) A person shall be guilty of an offence if, in a case where a payment in
respect of a charge would, in the absence of an order or note of
agreement to the charge complying with this section, be recoverable from
him in accordance with the terms of subsection (1) above, he demands
payment, or asserts a present or prospective right to payment, of the
charge or any part of it, without knowing or having reasonable cause to
believe that the entry to which the charge relates was ordered in
accordance with this section or a proper note of agreement has been duly
signed.3

(2A) A person committing an offence under subsection (2) shall be liable —
(a) on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding £5,000;
(b) on conviction on information, to a fine.4

(3) For the purposes of subsection (1) above, an order for an entry in a
directory must be made by means of an order form or other stationery
belonging to the person to whom, or to whose trade or business, the
entry is to relate and bearing, in print, the name and address (or one or
more of the addresses) of that person; and the note required by this
section of a person’s agreement to a charge shall comply with the
requirements of regulations under section 3A applicable thereto.5

(4) Nothing in this section shall apply to a payment due under a contract
entered into before the coming into force of this Act, or entered into by
the acceptance of an offer made before the coming into force of this Act.
3A Contents and form of notes of agreement, invoices and similar

documents

[P1975/13/1]
(1) For the purposes of this Act, the Isle of Man Office of Fair Trading may
make regulations as to the contents and form of notes of agreement,
invoices and similar documents; and, without prejudice to the generality
of the foregoing, any such regulations may —
(a) require specified information to be included,
(b) prescribe the manner in which specified information is to be
included,
(c) prescribe such other requirements (whether as to presentation,
type, size, colour or disposition of lettering, quality or colour of
paper or otherwise) as the Board may consider appropriate for
securing that specified information is clearly brought to the
attention of the recipient of any note of agreement, invoice or
similar document,
Section 4 Unsolicited Goods and Services (Isle of Man) Act 1974


Page 8 AT 5 of 1974 c

(d) make different provision for different classes or descriptions of
notes of agreement, invoices and similar documents or for the
same class or description in different circumstances,
(e) contain such supplementary incidental provisions as the said
Board may consider appropriate.6

(2) Any reference in this section to a note of agreement includes any such
copy as is mentioned in section 3(1).
(3) Regulations under this section shall not take effect until they have been
approved by Tynwald.7

4 Offences by corporations

[1971/5 P]
(1) Where an offence under this Act which has been committed by a body
corporate is proved to have been committed with the consent or
connivance of, or to be attributable to any neglect on the part of, any
director, manager, secretary, or other similar officer of the body
corporate, or of any person who was purporting to act in any such
capacity, he as well as the body corporate shall be guilty of that offence
and shall be liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly.
(2) Where the affairs of a body corporate are managed by its members, this
section shall apply in relation to the acts or defaults of a member in
connection with his functions of management as if he were a director of
the body corporate.
5 Interpretation

[1971/6 P]
(1) In this Act, unless the context or subject matter otherwise requires,
“acquire
” includes hire;
“send
” includes deliver, and “sender
” shall be construed accordingly;
“unsolicited
” means, in relation to goods sent or services supplied to any
person, that they are sent or supplied without any prior request made by
him or on his behalf.8

(2) For the purposes of this Act any invoice or similar document stating the
amount of any payment and not complying with the requirements of the
regulations under section 3A applicable thereto shall be regarded as
asserting a right to the payment.9

6 Citation and commencement

(1) This Act may be cited as the Unsolicited Goods and Services (Isle of
Man) Act 1974.
Unsolicited Goods and Services (Isle of Man) Act 1974 Section 6


c AT 5 of 1974 Page 9

(2) This Act shall come into operation when the Royal Assent thereto has
been by the Governor announced to Tynwald and a certificate thereof
has been signed by the Governor and the Speaker of the House of Keys,
but shall take effect at the expiration of three months beginning with the
day of its coming into operation.
Unsolicited Goods and Services (Isle of Man) Act 1974 Endnotes


c AT 5 of 1974 Page 11

ENDNOTES

Table of Legislation History

Legislation Year and No Commencement






Table of Renumbered Provisions

Original Current






Table of Endnote References

1
S 1 substituted by Fair Trading (Amendment) Act 2001 s 16 with saving. 2
Subs (1) amended by Fair Trading (Amendment) Act 2001 s 16 with saving. 3
Subs (2) amended by Unsolicited Goods and Services (Amendment) Act 1982 s 2. 4
Subs (2A) inserted by Unsolicited Goods and Services (Amendment) Act 1982 s 2. 5
Subs (3) amended by Unsolicited Goods and Services (Amendment) Act 1982 s 2. 6
Subs (1) amended by SD579/98. 7
S 3A inserted by Unsolicited Goods and Services (Amendment) Act 1982 s 1. 8
Definition of ‘unsolicited’ substituted by Fair Trading (Amendment) Act 2001 s 16
with saving. 9
Subs (2) substituted by Unsolicited Goods and Services (Amendment) Act 1982 s 2.