Good stuff.
Interesting that it specifies the vendor’s obligation to ‘ensure that the consumer is able to maintain written exchanges with the trader in a durable medium, including the date and time of such exchanges’ - and that they must give an email address!
EDIT - I had in mind @billybutcher 's thread on email when I wrote this!
Good news indeed. Having purchased something online in the past which turned out to be unacceptable with no seeming method of communication with the vendor, this will hopefully provide more assurance.
As an aside, I always pay for items online from any new (to me) source with a disposable single use card from Revolut which is immediately replaced thereafter as an additional layer of protection.
Is that a debit card?
Consider using a credit card - you should have the ability to file a claim with the credit card company if you can’t get any joy from the vendor.
yes, a debit card. Credit cards are not as easily obtainable in France as the UK. I still have an active UK credit card (used now mainly for online purchases which will be delivered in UK to family there) but it would not make sense to use that in France given that they would determine the forex rate (and might not even now provide the same protections anyway). The majority of our purchases now are in Euro and from EU sources. Using Amazon, the returns policy is significant in our choices.
I have a Carte Zero Graham - nearest I can find to a UK-style credit card…
https://www.cartezero.fr/
This article Paiement par carte bancaire: connaissez-vous le chargeback? – Association Léo Lagrange pour la défense des consommateurs suggests that having a Visa or MasterCard that is not also badged CB would enable you to do a chargeback in the event, eg, of a vendor not supplying what you’d bought. Bit of a lengthy process, but good to have as a fallback if you ever do have a completely non-responsive seller.
I often use PayPal for online purchases and they have a very good protection policy. I recently didn’t receive goods from a supplier - they said the goods were my responsibility as soon as they had put them in the post. I referred this to PayPal as the company wouldn’t give a refund or send replacement goods. PayPal then settled the case in my favour and refunded the full payment that I’d made. I was very pleased that their protection policy actually did what it said on the tin 