Slashdot Mirror
Website Checkout Glitches: Two Very Different Corporate Responses
Freshly Exhumed writes "On the morning of December 26th, 2013, an error on the website of Delta Air Lines' produced impossibly low fare discounts of as much as 90% for about 2 hours before the problem was corrected. Delta, to their PR benefit, have swallowed the losses, and the lucky customers have shared their delight via social media. Unfortunately for many buyers of goods from The Brick furniture retailer, no such consumer warmth is forthcoming. The Brick's website checkout had awarded them an additional 50% off, over and above all other costs, but the official corporate response has been to demand the money be returned. Affected customers are now lashing The Brick with social media opprobrium and drawing direct comparisons with Delta's response. So, given that these are not small, mom-and-pop companies, have we reached a point at which online retailers are expected to just swallow such costs for PR purposes, as part of doing web business?"
If a brick and mortar left a sign up in their windows advertising X percent off consumers would expect it. Just because they are online doesn't give them a pass for sloppy practices.
OOOOH, the internet.
Someplace sold me something, then they demand more money?
Can you guess my answer?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Satisfied customers tell one or two people, while angry customers tell dozens of people. Right now you have a massive black-eye situation for this "The Brick" place.
I hadn't heard of them before now. They have created a bad first impression for thousands of people. It's a big screwup and another example of how so many corporate people live in their own little manufactured reality. They have just screwed up something basic that every small shopkeeper learns on the first day.
They bricked themselves?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
People outside of Canada have probably never heard of The Brick until now. It's one of the stores I refuse to go in to. The salespeople jump on you the moment you step in the door and don't stop.
Trolling is a art,
The Brick is a large Canadian store, mostly for furniture, mattresses, and appliances. The submitter may not even be aware that it's only Canadian. They are infamous for advertising that you can purchase their shit for a very long deferred payment (as they put it, for $0 down, $0 payments, 0% interest for 2 years, back when interest rates were high). These adds have gone on for over 20 years, perhaps much longer.
They got dinged recently for actually requiring down payments despite their advertising, because you pay tax up front, and "administrative fees", and delivery, etc. etc., so they kind of have a reputation for welching on their advertised prices already.
The Brick is known in Canada for deceptive business practices, so the consumer protection agencies have taken to the media to inform that customers do NOT have to give the money back.
The retailer advertised those prices, and tries to trick the customer into cancelling the sale to wiggle out of the sales. That's a tactic known as bait-and-switch, and it's illegal.
You're not old until regret takes the place of your dreams.
"...have we reached a point at which online retailers are expected to just swallow such costs for PR purposes, as part of doing web business?"
Uh, yeah, I do. It's called personal responsibility. If you've screwed up and cost the business even millions of dollars, then hold the person who screwed up accountable to try and eliminate the chances of it happening again.
THAT is what I expect. Not some weak-ass horribly worded excuse to attempt to make the consumer somehow feel guilty about a providers mistake that they happened to capitalize on.
So no, the rules for online are not to fullfill orders that have clearly incorrect prices. If I go into a big grocery store like Krogers, and some disgruntled employee has put a a 50 dollar bottle of wine on sale at $10, they are not going to sell it to me for $10 when it rings up for 50. There is a secondary check there for price, the human element. Likewise, if a computer glitch, maybe put in by a disgruntled employee, allows me to check out for half price, then this is an admitted grey area. My payment has been accepted.
I would say, however, that until a product is formally charged to a customers card, which often happens as it is shipped, and maybe even until it is delivered there the retailer has an opportunity to cancel the order. Possession is, of course, paramount. This is why I would say one the product is delivered the price must be honored. This is a grey area as well, and we have seen cases where retailers have demanded delivered products back, but this to me is clearly bad manners.
So why is Delta honoring the price? I think it is because of delivered product. When I buy a ticket, my card is charged, and I immediately get a confirmation that I am guaranteed a seat on that flight. If something happens and I do not get a seat on the flight, I at minimum am sure to get a seat on a similar flight, often with financial compensation above and beyond that seat. Also, unlike most small retailers, the airlines have algorithms that continuously adjust the price of seats to maximize the total revenue on each flight. Therefore it is harder for airline to use the 'disgruntled employee' excuse.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
No, they shouldn't. The deal is already done. If they have delivered the goods and accepted the cash, they have no recourse to decide that they either want to magically undo the contract they've already agreed to, or to decide to alter the contract for more money.
Plain and simple, once the deal is done, they can not go back on it, in any way.
Here's a little story about Amazon doing the same thing.
http://slashdot.org/story/07/02/15/1356226/amazon-adjusts-prices-after-sales-error
Some of the details in the Amazon story are missing though:
(1) It was a 2-for-1 sale on DVD box sets where they double-discounted the price of the cheaper DVD set. Some people bought identically priced sets and so paid $0, but a lot of people bought two sets with different prices so they paid the nominal difference.
(2) Amazon corrected the error on the website within hours, but continued shipping some of the orders for up to 4 days later so they clearly knew about the error and still choose to let merchandise ship rather than make the effort to put an internal hold on it.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Groupon logic is horribly flawed. They actively encourage vendors to sell under cost, with the hope that customers will return. There's always a chance they will, especially if you treat them well. There are numerous stories online about how the vendors are totally screwed.
http://posiescafe.com/wp/groupon-in-retrospect/
In this blog post, Groupon takes 100% of the sale, promising that customers will always buy more than the ad (and they didn't), and wouldn't limit sales, so they were giving away everything for every Groupon customer for months.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/22/groupon-cupcake-deal-need-a-cake-bakery-rachel-brown_n_1108676.html
In this story, the story is similar, where far too many customers were sent in, and the vendor was pressured to sell at materials cost, which almost killed them.
Now, in The Brick case (TFA for those not paying attention), the company made the mistake. They were able to limit their losses by resolving the discount problem.
There were several other comments here. One says "what if they bought 100 mattresses?". Well, there's no indication of that in the story. Others are first-hand accounts of the way the company operates, which has included blatant false advertising and other deceptions. That would indicates the real truth behind TFA was intentional. If I, an average consumer, see that I get an outrageous discount, I'll probably go add more items so I can get the better deal. Great. But their plan is to now bill me for the difference.
Some people have said the problem was caught before anything shipped. Great. So cancel the order, and work with the customer. I have seen that happen before. It's not unreasonable. "Sorry, due to a technical error, your order has been cancelled. Please place your order again."
The Brick went totally the other way with it. "Hey, we screwed up and applied the wrong discount, pay this new amount. We don't care about the receipt being the legally binding contract. You owe us." I have seen that before too, usually with con artists who get to exert some sort of leverage. I've mostly heard this with moving companies. "It will be $5,000 to ship your belongings from Point A to Point B." When the day comes for delivery, since they have all of your possessions in their storage yard they demand more for whatever fees they decide to apply.
You get it at car dealerships too. "$22,500 out the door" and hours of dealing with them over paperwork becomes "$22,500 plus tax, tag, dealer prep, showroom fees, and whatever else is now $33,999."
I've heard many stories about car dealerships taking your trade-in car, which they offer to "wash, detail, and inspect", and when it comes time to close the deal and you're presented with a new price *and* an insulting trade-in value, your car is no longer on the lot. It's been "sold", which usually means moved to another lot. So before you've signed the paperwork, you're stuck between walking home or accepting their offer. I've known people who had to go as far as to call law enforcement to report their car stolen, just to get their old car back.
Personally, I've never had to go that far with a car dealer. I trust them less than a thug who says he wants to steal my wallet. At least the thug is up front about what they're going to do. I demand to know what they will give me for my trade-in before I do anything else. Once I was offered $100 trade-in on a $10,000 car. Ok, so you're a crook. I'll go buy elsewhere.
Of course, all of those are dirty tactics, and the company will deny any knowledge of such activity ever happening, but they still do it. So TFA about The Brick isn't some sob story about a company being screwed by the customers. It's a sob story of a con gone bad.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.