Sales with Installment Payments

Everyone is familiar with buying luxury goods on credit. You can buy a car or a washing machine where you get the opportunity to pay it in installments. Even goods such as jewelry and carpets you can buy on credit. You speak a term plans and gets the carpet or jewel right away. This is called in Turkish “Taksitli Satis sozlesmesi” and is described in detail in the consumer protection law.

But recently, the legislature has created a different kind of sales model. The most important difference with this sale on credit is that you only get the goods delivered if all the installments have been paid off. This model is called the "ön ödemeli Satis' mentioned agreement and finds its basis in the contract law.

The reason I write this is that I'm investigating the statutory basis of sales under installment, based on multiple complaints mails of mostly elderly tourists. The typical complaint of tourists about a too expensive purchase, which has been done on a whim or under pushy sales practices, has been around a while. Though a much too expensive purchase in itself is no reason to cancel the purchase, but the Consumer Protection Law provides a number of legal options to terminate the purchase contract.

Consumer Protection Law offers the possibility to terminate the contract, if the (economic) qualities of the purchased do not meet the promises from the seller. For example, the carpet that is sold is not a Turkish carpet but a Chinese or gemstone in the ring does not meet the provided certificate. The precondition is that within 30 days of purchase, the buyer must request his will to undo the purchase in writing to the seller.
In such case, it is then to recover the deposit that has been done.

However, this is not the case with the new sales model. With the new sales model, the seller is not obliged to deliver the purchased to the buyer, until the full purchase price has been paid. The purchasing tourist can only undo the sale if the purchased good is delivered to him. But this means that he first has to pay the full purchase amount before he can undertake his undo actions towards the seller. And as you would agree with me; as long as you do not possess the purchased goods you are not able to check (or rather not prove) whether there is a lack of the purchased goods.

In short: Make sure you get the goods delivered immediately when you make a purchase in installments.