*DEAD* Super Smash Bros Brawl -$20 @ walmart now

[AtomSmasher]

It should be noted we were told we were getting a $10 gift card.  I have not received one and will not be surprised if it never arrives.  I may actually never use it - I normally avoid Walmart on purpose in favor of whatever independent or even smaller chain retailers I can find.

I got mine shortly after the email that said I would be getting it.  You may want to check your spam box.

[saint]

To: John St.Clair, <saint@arcadecontrols.com>
From: Walmart.com Gift Card
Sent: 18, Jan, 10:51 PM, 2008
Subject: Walmart.com bought a Walmart.com Online Gift Card for you! Card Amount: $10
Card Number: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
PIN: XXXXXXXX
Hello John St.Clair,

This Walmart.com Online Gift Card for $10 has been sent to you by Walmart.com for buying merchandise at Walmart.com. If you're a Sam's Club member, you can also use this Gift Card at samsclub.com.

The details of this Online Gift Card are below. Please save this email. It is the only record of your Gift Card information that you will receive. For your convenience, click "Save Card to Account" below to link this Gift Card to your account as soon as possible. The Gift Card information will be stored in your account for future online purchases.
 

[ChadTower]

I had been looking and looking for it... finally found it with a string search I cut from Saint's email.  It was in the deleted items folder.  Thanks!

[tommy]

You mean to tell me that when you go into a store, and you see a price of an item listed as $19.00, then you get to the register and they say, sorry, we made a mistake, it's really $35.00, you're not going to get a bit pissed and ask what the hell are you talking about and put up a fight over it?

Once again, I know about how they protected them self over pricing errors, but at some point the consumer needs to get mad and have them honor their price.

If we were not on a message board and were just talking person to person you know you would agree with me.

[pointdablame]

You mean to tell me that when you go into a store, and you see a price of an item listed as $19.00, then you get to the register and they say, sorry, we made a mistake, it's really $35.00, you're not going to get a bit pissed and ask what the hell are you talking about and put up a fight over it?

Once again, I know about how they protected them self over pricing errors, but at some point the consumer needs to get mad and have them honor their price.

If we were not on a message board and were just talking person to person you know you would agree with me.

And you can't see the difference between 2 or 3 folks walking into a walmart to take advantage of a pricing mistake before it gets fixed vs. thousands of orders being made online before it was fixed??

Give me a break.  For the record, NO I would not agree with you.... online, offline, or otherwise.  You see all businesses as evil and can't see anything from their perspective.  The terms are there, if you don't like them, don't order from the store.

[tommy]

And you can't see the difference between 2 or 3 folks walking into a walmart to take advantage of a pricing mistake before it gets fixed vs. thousands of orders being made online before it was fixed??

I see that point. People wanted to get the item cheap. No doubt. How is that different than any other situation in life with people wanting to buy something cheap or save money?

I've heard of people looking around ebay for idiots who misprice their items, most people here do it and love to post about how they got something really cheap. It's not my job to make the prices, it's theres. You wouldn't email the ebay guy and tell him his item is worth more, no, you would just scoop it up for yourself, so don't give me that crap that you're looking out for the store or anyone else but yourself and expect me to swallow it. I see an item at a good price and I buy it, and so do you, they need to honor it, period. Posting a few words saying they are allowed to screw up in anyway they want to and not have to deal with any loss is not acceptable.

Maybe next time they will double check their site facts before releasing it over the internet.

[polaris]

In the UK shops are protected by a trading standards law.
If they mis price the item they are under no obligation to sell the item, they must however remove it from sale for 3 days before restocking and repricing it.
i wonder if theres a sinilar law in the us

[AtomSmasher]

And you can't see the difference between 2 or 3 folks walking into a walmart to take advantage of a pricing mistake before it gets fixed vs. thousands of orders being made online before it was fixed??

I see that point. People wanted to get the item cheap. No doubt. How is that different than any other situation in life with people wanting to buy something cheap or save money?

The difference is losing a couple hundred dollars over an item the customer already has in their hand, vs losing tens of thousands of dollars over an item that doesn't get released for months.

[shmokes]

In Texas, if a person/business gives you a price they're more or less bound to it...

Most people believe this about where they live, and while I don't know the law in Texas, I doubt you're right.  If you've got evidence of an actual bait-and-switch, then the store can get in trouble.  But stores are not typically bound to honor genuine pricing mistakes.  Some will, but that's just cos the good will generated may be worth more to them than the bad will that will go along with turning the customer away.  But contract law doesn't typically require it, and I suspect this is true in Texas just as it is pretty much everywhere else.

[shmokes]

Dude, I know you're a hot shot . . . guy . . . who . . . apparently knows random things about the law, but . . .


From a Texas Court of Appeals opinion written less than three months ago, where a guy purchased hard drives that were mistakenly listed for $1 each; the website refunded his money instead of delivering, i.e., money had changed hands:

Perez v. Hung Kien Luu
November 1, 2007

"If prospective seller's misrepresentation is limited to an item's price and that misrepresentation is made only in a general advertisement, claimant must prove an intentional misrepresentation, to recover under the Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DTPA) for misrepresentation of characteristics of goods or services, or misrepresentation that agreement confers or involves rights." V.T.C.A., Bus. & C. § 17.46(b)(5, 12).

BTW, the V.T.C.A. that the court cites at the end of that quote refers to Vernon's Texas Statutes and Codes Annotated.

So, to answer your question about who gets to define 'genuine pricing mistake', the answer is pretty clearly the retailer.  If the retailer says it was a mistake, it was a mistake . . . unless the consumer can prove otherwise.

Oh yeah . . . I'm a 2nd semester law student 

[ChadTower]

 

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4X8uj_SYPQ[/youtube]

[tommy]

Oh yeah . . . I'm a 2nd semester law student 

Do you always try to split hairs? 

[shmokes]

Not always, no.

[tommy]

No one wants to lose money and it is not fair that it should happen, but when someone takes the time to publish prices online and makes a mistake and people try to buy the item it should be honored. I would honor my price. I guess that's where I went wrong, thinking people are fair and would want to treat people as I would want to be treated is not easy to find.

If anyone here were to try to get out of their price they would be crucified for it, but not Walmart.

[AtomSmasher]

If anyone here were to try to get out of their price they would be crucified for it, but not Walmart.

If I had a mint arcade cabinet that I wanted to sell for $300 and I accidently made a post in b/s/t forum that said it was for sale for only $3, then I can assure you that I would not honor that $3 price.  I simply say "whoops, pricing typo it's actually $300" and I highly doubt anyone here would be upset.  Most likely everyone would say it seemed to cheap to be true, so it's not a surprise the actual price is higher.

Now lets look at what actually happened with walmarts price error.  Instead of losing $297, they'd be losing tens of thousands, and when the price was corrected everyone here (except you) said that it seemed too cheap to be true and it's not a surprise the actual price is higher.

[tommy]

You're going to the extreme to make your point, and it is not taken well.

We are talking about a $50 game at $20, it's reasonable.

[AtomSmasher]

You're going to the extreme to make your point, and it is not taken well.

We are talking about a $50 game at $20, it's reasonable.

We're talking $30 less per game times hundreds (probably thousands) of sales, so we're talking well over ten thousand dollars.  I guess you don't understand the large scale nature of online sales.

[tommy]

I understand that. It sucks to lose money. Unfortunately when you release a price on line and people try to buy it at that price you just have to sell it at that price. It sucks for them, but it just has to be done to sleep well at night and have people come to your store and buy stuff. Otherwise people see you as a lier who can't be held accountable for what you say.

[AtomSmasher]

Otherwise people see you as a lier who can't be held accountable for what you say.

And by "people" I guess you mean only you      

This has turned into another one of those Tommyland threads where Tommy disagrees with everyone, and even though it's impossible to change his mind once its set, people keep trying to do so.  Oh well, que sera, sera.

[tommy]

I see you have turned to attacking me in some small way, that means you somewhat agree with me but cannot argue anymore.

[tommy]

I agree, but still.. I don't really think it's the price so much, whatever it may be. They set the price and people bought it.... done deal. Their error is their loss.

[AtomSmasher]

I see you have turned to attacking me in some small way, that means you somewhat agree with me but cannot argue anymore.

lol
theres a difference between tired of arguing against a someone who doesn't understand and giving up because I somewhat agree with you.  Your entire argument is that you feel walmart did not do the right thing, and when an entire argument is made up of a feeling and not of facts, its impossible argue that the feeling is right or wrong.  We've explained how it was economically beneficial for them to do it, legal to do, that we knew it was a pricing error and that we at least partially expected them to cancel the order, so theres really no where else for this debate to go.  You feel walmart wronged their customers, while the rest of us don't.  My advice for you is to search out every deal website you can and try to gather a group of people to boycott walmart.  Let us know how it all turns out.

[tommy]

I see, you like to get screwed by companies and like to use the "we can't do anything about it" defense. Ok, carry on.

[AtomSmasher]

I see, you like to get screwed by companies and like to use the "we can't do anything about it" defense. Ok, carry on.

The difference is that I don't see it as me getting screwed by them, I see it as I was trying to screw them by taking advantage of their mistake, but they caught me in the act and put a stop to it.  I know you don't agree with that, but thats the way I see it.

[tommy]

You should have said that earlier, that makes sense to me now that you said it like that. I don't agree, but now I see where you're coming from. You feel guilty.

[AtomSmasher]

You should have said that earlier, that makes sense to me now that you said it like that. I don't agree, but now I see where you're coming from. You feel guilty.

I actually did say it earlier, it was the first response I made to you in this thread.  I guess it was just a matter of wording it differently.

And I don't feel guilty since I feel no remorse for my actions and would do it again in a heartbeat.  It was more that I knew I was trying to take advantage of them, so I'm not upset when they stopped me.

[tommy]

You didn't say it with as much honesty as you just did. Say things how you mean it an I will understand, don't beat around the bush. 

I'm satisfied with your position now. Since you worded it right.

[shmokes]

Tommy, the purpose of the law isn't to help you latch onto windfalls, or capitalize on peoples' mistakes.  The purpose is to redress injuries.  When Wal-Mart refunded Saint's and Chad's money, there was no injury, save the negligible work of clicking "Add to cart".  There's does not amount to an actionable injury.  It's ---smurfing--- retarded.  It's like saying that Walmart should be able to sue you for damages if you fill up a cart with groceries and their checker rings it all up and then you realize you left your wallet at home and have to leave without the groceries.  Gimme a ---smurfing--- break.  We live in a society.  There has to be some flexibility. 

We simply are not talking about anybody acting in bad faith.  What's more, the honest mistake didn't even hurt anybody.  In spite of that, though, they still gave out gift cards as a gesture of good will.  The problem here . . . the one and only problem, is your absurd sense of entitlement.  Is it a wonder that we have so many frivolous law suits in our country?