Basis for opening a small claims court

Hi to everybody,
I have a question regarding a dispute case and I’m seeking some advice to know how I can approach resolving this issue if it takes a small claims court to fix it.
I and my fiance are getting married in a few months. She’s been looking at wedding dresses all over the place (we live in Southern California).
A few days back she went to a store (which is a legitimate store from a designer) to try a dress. She liked it and the salesperson told her all the lies in the world to force her into buying it right then. The dress will take couple of months to be made. She also told my fiance that the only option for her to receive the dress in a timely manner is to put a rushed order. She being honest and naive, trusted the salesperson and left a $400 deposit in cash and ordered the dress.
Now after two business days we come to know that the same dress is being sold at another legitimate retailer for almost half the price. Also apparently rushed order was not necessary. So basically the saleslady tricked my fiance to put an order and also put it as rushed order.
I contacted the retailer asking them to please cancel the order and refund the deposit. They haven’t responded yet but when I talked to them they were very offensive about the issue.
I’m wondering what should I do to avoid a small claims court to cancel the order and get the money back. Wedding dresses cannot be cancelled and it is mentioned on the receipt that has been given to my fiance. How can I approach it to at least build my case in case I need to take this to small claims court? What the salesperson has done is very nasty however what are our legal grounds?

Appreciate any piece of information/advice.

Hi xesium. Welcome to the forums. You do realise this is a web design forum, though?

A salesperson’s job is to get you to buy the product, and a seller can put pretty much any price on a product or service (apart from government regulations, perhaps).

This seems a case of buyer beware and doing your homework to me. :frowning:

You obviously need to ask advice from someone who has some knowledge of California consumer law. But, off the top of my head, I can’t see how you have a case. Thre’s no law against trying to sell a product at twice the price of a competitor. And presumably the deposit was accepted on the basis that it was non-refundable. Sorry. This is not what you want to hear in the run-up to your wedding.

Mike

Wow, there is a law against that in my country. However I guess it comes down to what is a winnable case rather than technically being in the right.

A law against what, exactly?

And, no, it doesn’t come down to what is a winnable case rather than technically being in the right. If you are not in the right - tehcnically or otherwise - then you have no chance of winning.

Mike