The price was publicly listed and people placed orders for the product at that price. Yes, the company should have to honor the deal. If the company doesn't want to get screwed because of mistakes like this then they should check their work for errors like other professionals do, or get help accountable like other professionals do...
Poll: Ethics on Stores Honouring A Mistake Deal (The Staples Copic Fiasco)
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They should honour the deal. If an employee fucked up, they probably have insurance for that, and anyway a "mistake" is something a person makes, not a corporation. If they're to cheap to hire an editor to check their ads, it's their own fault.
Though it'd be a pretty moot question where i live, we have consumer protection laws here, so they'd be legally required to honour the deal anyway.
Though it'd be a pretty moot question where i live, we have consumer protection laws here, so they'd be legally required to honour the deal anyway.
Assuming it was a mistake on the pricing, then they shouldn't honor any of them.
If they put them up there and changed their mind its debatable but I'm going to assume it was a mistake.
Corporations make mistakes too, they shouldn't have to put up with people basically robbing them due to legal loopholes.
If they put them up there and changed their mind its debatable but I'm going to assume it was a mistake.
Corporations make mistakes too, they shouldn't have to put up with people basically robbing them due to legal loopholes.
I had to give a refund for 1p once because the label was wrong. I wouldn't have minded but the guy had actually left, then came back 10 minutes later for the refund. I was just sitting there thinking he could have probably just wandered around town looking at the floor and he would have found more money than he just got back from that refund.lacktheknack said:
Ah, but it's the principal of the thing -_-
Ethically speaking
No, I see no reason why they should be obligated to honor the deal, which was obviously the result of some error (I don't think I've ever seen anything 95% off even on Black Fridays).
While I understand that sometimes a retailer might be willing to lose a few dollars on a sale in order to retain customer satisfaction/loyalty, I still believe they are in the right if they choose to not honor a price or deal that is a mistake as long as the only thing the customer suffers is disappointment.
In all honesty, I can't imagine any amount of customer satisfaction would have been worth the financial loss had Staples decided to honor the deal. At least they didn't have the nerve to charge the full price and then ship out the orders without the customer being aware.
No, I see no reason why they should be obligated to honor the deal, which was obviously the result of some error (I don't think I've ever seen anything 95% off even on Black Fridays).
While I understand that sometimes a retailer might be willing to lose a few dollars on a sale in order to retain customer satisfaction/loyalty, I still believe they are in the right if they choose to not honor a price or deal that is a mistake as long as the only thing the customer suffers is disappointment.
In all honesty, I can't imagine any amount of customer satisfaction would have been worth the financial loss had Staples decided to honor the deal. At least they didn't have the nerve to charge the full price and then ship out the orders without the customer being aware.
That was clearly a mistake, and while I understand very well how nice it would have been to get those at that price, it defies reason why people are still asking for them after they got their money back, and there's no way they'll go through with such a deal. Calling for them to honour the deal is being plain greedy, in my view.
If they took your money, then they entered into a binding contract to provide the goods or services at the price and are obliged to do so. This is the reason why most sites now don't take payment immediately but instead send you an "Order Confirmation" Email to say they received it and a human will check it before it's "Order Accepted" or "Processed". Once payment is taken, the contract is made.
Honor. Mistake or not, they set thier prices at this, and they claimed they were not out of stock, therefore they are required by law to honor those contracts. even if the money didnt went though in time, as long as you can prove you sent the money (bank, paypal history) at the time the thing was on thier site and you got listing on the site for buying it, they are required by law to honor your purchasing contract. buying stuff are contracts like any other, its just that they are simplified to need no signatures usually.
So what was your point again?
Here it is considered a breach of law to mislabel the products bellow their actual selling price and if you were to find one like that and they asked for more they would be forced by law to sell you for smaller price or give you a compensation (not sure if size is specified, i heard they give 50 LTL, which is a bit less than 20 USD worth)TWRule said:
I had a situation where the machine reading bar codes did something wrong and printed wrong item up, which was cheaper. i did point that out to the cashier, she called in her supervisor and the item was switched back. the actual document actually read that i buyght 1, then "-1" of these wrong products, and then went on as usual, i ended up paying more than if i were to stay silent.Little Woodsman said:
So what was your point again?
I worked at a store similar in fashion to wallmart. Costumers would grab stuff, change their minds and then put things back wherever they found space. by the time you notice it the costumer is long gone from the store, there would be noone to blame.Lieju said:
Holy shit, Copics for 95% off? That's mental, I don't blame everyone for jumping right onto that!
Personally, when I'm at work and I encounter a pricing error like that, most of the time I'll let the customer have it- it's usually only a few dollars anyway.
In this case? 95% off is insane, and I don't blame them for wanting to renege on the obvious mistake... But maybe as a gesture of goodwill towards the people who tried to buy them, they should have offered them at a less crazy discount.
Personally, when I'm at work and I encounter a pricing error like that, most of the time I'll let the customer have it- it's usually only a few dollars anyway.
In this case? 95% off is insane, and I don't blame them for wanting to renege on the obvious mistake... But maybe as a gesture of goodwill towards the people who tried to buy them, they should have offered them at a less crazy discount.
Nope.
For the people saying they should you really should go read some of the fine prints online stores have. In the digital age and with the pop up of "deal sites" stores have realized mistakes and/or glitches happen and most of the big companies have a policy that they can negate any sale that was deemed to be a mistake/glitch/etc.
You ask about the ethics of the store, how about the ethics of the buyers. They clearly knew it was a price mistake and yet they basically tried to cheat the store out of the real value of the items. OP did you bother to call up staples and inform them of the error or did you just slam that buy button as hard as you could; you knew the value of the items and you knew the price was a mistake. One could simply argue that you weren't acting ethically in this situation at all, so to question the ethics of the store when you yourself weren't acting ethically is a bit silly.
Edit: Also want to say that I really have little sympathy for the buyers in this case because what ends up happened with a lot of these big price mistakes is that people from deal sites swarm the item and try to turn it into a giant pay day. They will try to buy an incredibly amount of the item just to turn it around on ebay/amazon to profit off the mistake.
For the people saying they should you really should go read some of the fine prints online stores have. In the digital age and with the pop up of "deal sites" stores have realized mistakes and/or glitches happen and most of the big companies have a policy that they can negate any sale that was deemed to be a mistake/glitch/etc.
You ask about the ethics of the store, how about the ethics of the buyers. They clearly knew it was a price mistake and yet they basically tried to cheat the store out of the real value of the items. OP did you bother to call up staples and inform them of the error or did you just slam that buy button as hard as you could; you knew the value of the items and you knew the price was a mistake. One could simply argue that you weren't acting ethically in this situation at all, so to question the ethics of the store when you yourself weren't acting ethically is a bit silly.
Edit: Also want to say that I really have little sympathy for the buyers in this case because what ends up happened with a lot of these big price mistakes is that people from deal sites swarm the item and try to turn it into a giant pay day. They will try to buy an incredibly amount of the item just to turn it around on ebay/amazon to profit off the mistake.
Advertise your vehicle privately and by way of typo miss a zero, then see whether you feel inclined to lose tens of thousands. That should be your answer right there.
That's such a huge gap. Staples would lose about $300 per person. Even if those people are so upset by the refusal that they vow to never shop there again... Well, do you think the average Joe spends over $300 at Staples over the course of a lifetime? I bought a binder and printer ink from there.
We're not talking about your average Joe, here, though, but people who know the value of those things and buy supplies on a regular basis (when I think of how much I paid for all my art supplies, including similar markers, my head spins). But it's still something Staples couldn't afford.Juste Goose said:
This is really covered under basic sales laws - a listed price is an 'invitation to treat' - an invitation for you, the purchaser, to make an offer - then the store is free to accept or decline that offer. This is precisely set up to avoid situations where pricing errors could cost a company a lot of money.Rednog said:
Printing errors happen all the time, so I have to say No. Hate to say it, but you should have known it was a printing error. I mean 95% off? It's one of those "too good to be true" things.
Ethically speaking the store is under no obligation to provide the item as long as they return the funds they have received. I find it amusing that the majority of spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, misused words, and poorly understood applications of consumer protection laws are being used by the people who think Staples should take a potential multi-million dollar hit over a typo. They are under no obligation to honor the typo as long as they return any money received. It would be nice for them to take any number of actions to from honoring the misprint to offering realistic discounts or coupons along with refunds to affected customers. It would definitely be a good PR move but they are under no moral, ethical or legal requirement to do so.
Somewhere in the last few decades "The Customer is always right" has stopped being a guideline to good customer service and people have begun to think they are due any unreasonable request as long as they are spending money.
Somewhere in the last few decades "The Customer is always right" has stopped being a guideline to good customer service and people have begun to think they are due any unreasonable request as long as they are spending money.