Slashdot Mirror
Customers Creating Fake Amazon Pages To Get Cheap Electronics At Walmart
turkeydance writes People are reportedly creating fake Amazon pages to show fake prices on electronics and other items. In the most heavily publicized cases, Walmart was reportedly duped into selling $400 PlayStation 4 consoles for under $100. From the article: "The company announced on Nov. 13 that it would price-match select online retailers, including Amazon.com. However, any Amazon member with a registered selling account can create authentic looking pages and list items 'for sale' online. Consumers need only take a screen capture of the page and show it to a cashier at checkout in order to request the price match."
WalMart's already wised up, and changed the rules. Now it only applies to items on Amazon SOLD BY Amazon. No more marketplace sellers.
http://consumerist.com/2014/11...
There's "gaming the system" and there's fraud. This isn't clipping Home Depot coupons and taking advantage of Lowe's willingness to accept competitor coupons. This is forging your own Home Depot coupons on your computer, printing them out, and using them at Lowe's, since you know that Home Depot won't accept the forgeries.
This. It doesn't take an Amazon account of any kind to create a dummy web page saying whatever you want, including "sold and fulfilled by Amazon.com" or any other magic. Simply "save as" the HTML and then modify to your heart's desire. If all it takes is a printout of the web page, then Walmart are fools and deserve to be taken to the cleaners.
Fry's has a simple system for this.
1. You tell the sales associate (it's not done at the checkout counter) what site you want them to match.
2. They check it against the list of sites that they are willing to match.
3. They go to the site on their computer, and look it up.
4. They print an invoice that you take to the counter with your purchase.
5. BTW, they have incentive to do this, because they get something any time they print an invoice. I don't know the details, but it would be dumb for Fry's to withhold whatever the reward is just because it was a price match. So, anytime somebody at Fry's is actually helpful (rare, I know, but sometimes happens...) don't balk when they want to print an invoice!
You don't get away with just showing them your screen.
You can show them a screen, from the web or some price-search app, and then they will go to their own browser to look it up.
I don't get why you think they are crooks?
Probably because its textbook case of fraud.
A fake price is still a price.
But its being misrepresented as real price, in a real offer to sell real playstations to the real public.
Walmarts price matching policies apply to genuine offers made on the same product by another party to the public. It doesn't apply to fake listings that were never evem intended to be seen, nevermind honored, by the public.
Walmart, should probably demand to see the listing showing a PS4. If the customer can't find it, it its not an offer to the public. If the crook leaves it up so walmart CAN find, it (and just plans to blow off anyone who tries to order one in the meantime) then Walmart should order up 50,000 units. That's "get the full attention of the FBI" money when you don't honor the shipment.
And there's no hiding behind "limited quantity available", or limited time and its already expired offers... because price matching policies tend to exclude that sort of thing too.
Because the objective of price matching policies is to convert a competitors sale to your sale. If the competitor can't fulfill the order then you haven't lost a customer to them and don't need to price match.
Actually, it's called fraud...
> Is this really a loophole? What happens if I go to amazon.com and find one of these $100 playstations, and quickly buy it, then insist they honor the contract?
Insist all you want, there is no contract until there is an exchange of value aka your card is charged. And your card isn't charged until the item ships.
This is all well established law. Not a week goes by where someone on fatwallet or slickdeals hasn't had an order cancelled because of a misprice on the merchant's part. If they actually charge the card and ship the product, then there is nothing the merchant can legally do about. But until that point, the ball is in their court 100%.