[Update 2005-10-12: Resolved!]
Here’s something you weren’t expecting on my blog (aside from two updates in as many days): go check out this purse on Buy.com. OK, you don’t have to, but Buy.com is giving my girlfriend way too much shit over that purse.
In June, she ordered that bag for $27.60 including S&H, which is a good deal for a bag that lists for $69. In fact, if you look on Froogle you can’t find it for less than $50. The only problem is that Buy.com is refusing to give her the purse she bought ordered! (her credit card hasn’t been charged, or she could get their help with this)
If you look at the Buy.com page for the bag you can see a couple things. They’re not selling it for $27.60: they’ve jacked up the price to $53.90. Also, the page says it “usually ships in 3-5 days”. It’s been 69 days.
She’s called their customer service department repeatedly, only to be told that it would ship within 3-5 days each time (refer to her blog post for details).
(As an aside, Buy.com hides their phone number, so here it is: 1-877-780-2464. Buy.com’s phone number is 1-877-780-2464. I hope this helps someone searching for it, and that they have better luck with Buy.com than Jenny.)
My take? Buy.com fucked up, listed the bag for a price too low and is trying to get her to cancel her order by delaying shipment and not talking to her. Yeah, I’m biased, but there’s certainly plenty of other people with Buy.com problems (only a quarter of their customers would buy from them again). I don’t think she’s canceling the order in hopes that Buy.com sells it to her at a loss, which costs them money.
We’re not going to be ordering anything from Buy.com and, judging from the experiences of other people who had problems, this problem is endemic to the company.
4 responses to “Buy.com sucking”
Dude, tell me about it. I had the same experience with Buy.com; no response from their web form, I have to do a Yahoo! search to find their number, and when I call, all I get is people who sound like they are in India and don’t know anything.
I wouldn’t be too suprised if you guys never see that bag 🙁
My friend Rey ordered a 1TB hard drive that he found on Pricewatch.com. It was going for half of what it would normally cost, about $350. He too was denied this amazing deal.
I think that most online retailers (as many catalog retailers do) place disclaimers/Terms of use on their sites about incorrect prices. Specifically on how they won’t honor them.
Buy.com says: 9. No Responsibility To Sell Mispriced Products Or Services. Buy.com shall have the right to refuse or cancel any orders placed for products and/or services listed at an incorrect price, rebate or refund, or containing any other incorrect information or typographical errors. Buy.com shall have the right to refuse or cancel any such orders whether or not the order has been confirmed and your credit card charged. If your credit card has already been charged for the purchase and your order is canceled, Buy.com shall immediately issue a credit to your credit card account in the amount of the charge.
So it seems to me that Buy.com has the perfect out in this situation. What’s screwed up is that they are not just quoting their own policy, but rather keeping hope alive. If they were straight forward about their policy it might be less aggrevating. However, it might be the case that the person on the other end of the Buy.com clandestine hotline hasn’t been fully briefed on the goings and doings of the Buy.com policy.
I’d be pissed too…not about the loss of the sale…but rather the dicking around.
Something similar happened to me once with Amazon last spring. There was a massive pricing error on import CDs, bringing their price to 99 cents. I ordered around 100 items (including box sets that were listed for 99 cents) and they “magically disappeared” slowly from my order. Amazon apparently reserves the right to cancel orders with pricing errors below the usual price, but they at least notify you (they didn’t in this case).
If it was your screw up, would you ship the product? Probably not, I suspect.