Sure! I first heard about it on the channel 5 news in Chicago. They ran a story on it and right after the segment I rushed to Amazon.com to see if it was still on the site. Sure enough, it was! So of course I picked one up. At first I was just curious to see if it would go through the whole buying process and remain $39.99 and it did. I was surprised. Naturally.
Now the question becomes how far will this continue? Will I actually be able to secure this purchase at the price they sold it to me at? Apparently the systems are being sold on Amazon from target. Or at least that is what it says on the bottom of the items page. So I did some searching. Their policy on such things states that should an item's corrected price be higher than the stated price at time of sale then the order will be canceled. Thus saving them from losing the money on the mistake and saving the customer the hassle of fighting a "corrected" price adjustment on their credit cards.
And that right there is the issue at hand. I purchased the PS3 which after tax and shipping came out to about $55. A great deal to be sure. So what happens now? If for instance a week from now they turn around and charge my credit card the correct price I would have grounds for a couple different arguments.
First, that they have no right to charge my card a second time as I only gave them authorization for the original charge. And I know for a fact that the credit card company (any one for that matter) would stand behind me on this one if I had to bring it that far. Secondly, I would then tell Amazon.. "This is how you do business? You charge a customer one price, and then after the purchase has been made you come back and charge the customer another price which is 300% HIGHER than what the customer was originally charged!?!?" Because if that is the case, then what stops them from charging a customer anything they want for any product they sell? Absolutely nothing.
And I am absolutely positive that if they were to engage in such a business practice, there are more than one news outlet that would be very interested in running the story. Imagine all the negative press.
It is almost in their best interest, this has got me thinking, that they would be better off just honoring the in-correct price they had on their site. Sure they will lose money, but they would stand to lose alot more in the potential customer loss from the negative story getting out.
So what is to become of this? We will have to wait and see. At the moment the item is out of stock. But I have multiple receipts and documentation to show what I paid for the PS3. So I have my backup, interested to see what they will have when this comes to a head.
I will keep everyone posted. As things progress I will post updates on my blog here for everyone to follow along with. The prices have since been changed to reflect a more realistic number. Stay tuned for updates.
