A newspaper intervented and arranged for an amicable resolution. If they had taken this to court, I'm sure they'd have won, but they were happy to accept a refund plus a voucher, so they didn't.

The 20% off voucher is a slap in the face, though. I'd never come out of this situation and still buy a laptop from HP, so it's effectively nothing.

And no doubt the voucher is for "full priced items, no deals or sales, may not be combined with any other offer"...

Loser pays legal fees once they lose, until then you're on the hook. And there's always the chance you will lose. HP (or, insert big entity here) has too much money to throw at lawyers, so usually it does not really make sense for a small party to sue a big one. Better to just accept the loss, walk away, and go do something more productive than generate more income for lawyers.

And this is why Texas allows for small claims court, where no lawyers are allowed for either side and it’s a $199 filing fee up to $20,000 in damages.

Interested to know if something similar exists in the UK?

Of course. Small Claims process in the UK has a fee of about 10% of claim value and covers claims up to £10,000. If you win the other party has to repay those fees. No legal fees allowed. So would be the right process here - presumably as HP are in breach of contract the laptop buyer would win a case for a claim of the extra cost of the same laptop at full price.

How can a corporation represent itself without a lawyer?

I'm not from there but I take a guess: they send a manager that must not be a lawyer.

They are required to send an employee of the company (a manager usually) who does not have a law degree to represent them.

Not sure what Texas' relevance here is? In Washington it's $50 and up to $10,000.

That being said, yes it does: https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/law-and-courts/legal-syste...

yep https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/small-claims-court...

> And this is why Texas allows for small claims court, where no lawyers are allowed for either side [...]

Are you sure about that? The small claims FAQ [1] on the Texas State Law Library site says lawyers are allowed. It cites section 500.4 of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure.

Looking at the Texas RCP, it looks like small claims is defined by rule 500.3, which among other things says small claims cases are governed by Rules 500-507, so 500.4 would apply as stated in the FAQ.

Most states actually allow attorneys in small claims court. But even in a state that doesn't allow attorneys it probably doesn't matter. That's because it is usually easy to appeal small claims decisions, so if you lose in small claims court but think you would have won if only you had had an attorney you can appeal. The appeal is heard in regular court.

[1] https://faq.sll.texas.gov/questions/48996

I don't think the issue at hand here is the letter of the law, but rather when a bargain is "too good to be true" which is up for interpretation.

Agree. It's about whether a buyer would reasonably expect the price to be correct.

UK law for consumer goods and sales, I would say generally doesn't require the buyer to be an expert. Laptops are items that are frequently included in sales and clearance sales at 50% off or more do happen. £400 is still a normal price to pay for a laptop. So I'd say the buyer could reasonably expect a laptop discounted to £400 to be the correct price, therefore HP were unreasonable to try to blame the buyer.

Even if it was too good to be true, I suspect that the sending of a confirmation by the company makes it a valid contract. Law famously doesn't take into account the proportionality of consideration - which is why the famous 'peppercorn rent' exists. [1]

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppercorn_(law)

A contract may have been formed, but maybe the contract has a clause that exempts pricing errors.

Without reading the contract, we cannot know. But given that the context was constructed by HP, there are likely multiple legal escapes.