Customers who jumped on the $9.99 52″ Samsung television deal recently are going nuts because they won’t be getting their $10 TV. Many are citing the old principal that it’s false advertising and Best Buy should therefore honor the deal. I even heard one “customer” who works in the legal field explaining that she had an agreement as a buyer between herself and the seller and therefore by not honoring the agreement, Best Buy is guilty of breach of contract. Sounds fine in theory, but there’s one problem. It was a mistake. Yes, it’s unfortunate that the deal was “too good to be true,” but if you didn’t see that coming, it’s your own fault. Even the Better Business Bureau issued a statement basically saying they won’t be pursuing any action against the retailer due to what was “obviously human error.” Get over it, folks. I’ve come up with countless examples where if things were switched around, these same people would be happy to have a deal taken off the table. What if your real estate agent made a mistake and left off a couple zeros on the listing for your house? If someone jumped on it and paid $2,500 for your house, are you really going to say “damn…” and start packing your things? Didn’t think so.
By
cali4dre
chappy81
dyslecix
mceezy
Doin Work 
August 14th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
The realestate bit was an excellent example
August 15th, 2009 at 5:18 am
I disagree. Not sure about the States, but in Canada, there’s a consumer law that if you see two different prices between the scanner and an advertised price, you get the lowest price.
From the Scanner Price Accuracy Voluntary Code:
“If the scanned price of a non-price ticketed item is higher than the shelf price or any other displayed price, the customer is entitled to receive the item free, up to a $10 maximum. When the item has a price tagged, the lowest price applies. When identical items are incorrectly priced, the second one will be sold at the correct price.”
In this case, the instore scanner would have read a different price than the one displayed online. Thereby, according to the Canadian law, the lowest price should be honoured.
August 15th, 2009 at 5:29 am
Yes, I’m all for that, but when it’s an obvious error, I don’t think the company should be held accountable for that. Honoring the $9.99 price for a 52″ television would be extremely detrimental to Best Buy’s business, therefore, I think the error should be forgiven.
August 18th, 2009 at 6:09 am
Love the real estate example, but my problem with retailers these days is that they hide behind the whole “if it’s a pricing error, we will not honor it”. I understand something like the TV, where it’s a gross mistake and there’s no way that can be right. What I can’t stand is sometimes it’s a matter of convenience for them to hide behind the disclaimer. Where’s the personal responsibility? Take for example an incident I had with Officemax. They mistakenly put a cheaper price on these flash drives. It was up on the site for several days, I was able to checkout, get confirmation, and the status said SHIPPED. I got a cancellation email a week later and status remained shipped for almost a year! That’s just ridiculous! I only ordered 3 to get the free shipping($50 or more). I wasn’t trying to pull a fast one, I just saw a deal, if I was trying to screw them over, I would have ordered hundreds of them. I just hate that with the disclaimer, I don’t think as much effort is being made to have correct prices if they were to honor previous mistakes.
August 18th, 2009 at 8:38 am
I can agree with that. I think in this case, it’s only because it’s such a drastic price difference. Otherwise I’m all for companies owning up to their mistakes.
August 19th, 2009 at 9:38 am
[…] Hotel Rooms! Last week, I offered my two cents on the Best Buy $10 TV Fiasco. This week, it appears the pricing-mistake fairy has struck again. This time, it was the plush […]