Computers & Electronics Discussions

While your disappointment is understandable, all retailers reserve the right not to honor erroneous prices. This policy is universal, and if such a policy puts you off shopping at a given retailer, then you will not have any retailers at which you'll be willing to shop.

And, repeatedly posting the same thing all over the Discussions boards will eventually result in being banned for spamming (which may have already happened, as this is a new name attached to the same story). Please be respectful. Just because you were disappointed that you didn't get something you thought was too good to be true (because it was) does not grant license to be rude or to violate the Terms of Service for the site.

If you would like to speak to a senior case escalation representative, send a private message to SearsCares on this site, or e-mail searscares@searshc.com and tell them your story. Continuing with your current strategy, however, will definitely not help your case.

This is the first time that I posted anything on here.

It may be the same story because I'm sure that a lot of other customers' orders were cancelled, which is what the customer service rep said today when I called.  Nothing else was posted by me on any other discussion boards.  I do not feel that I was being rude. 

I apologize if you are not the same person who posted the same story. Your wording was extremely similar to someone else's post.

I don't think I will be shopping at Sears ever again, if this is the way you treat people. I don't think it is right to be so accusatory of your customers and try to defame your customers on a public site, especially since it was a Sears error, haven't you at Sears ever heard of freedom of speech?

sf2006 - Don't even bother e-mailing their "Customer Care" directly.  They will just send you back a scripted e-mail, send you a 10% coupon that does not work on electronics, and pretty much say "sorry we handled this poorly...".  I know this because they had advertised a LG 47LH90 for a great price.  Sears associate told me to wait for friends and family.  Turns out they never had a sufficient stock and tried to upsell when I arrived to order it.  Thorough bait and switch.  Of course the sale is now over and they will not honor the sale price even though they dropped the ball.  I thought Sears was better in service then elsewhere but I was wrong.  I will not shop Sears after my gift cards are spent.  Good luck with your situation...

I think that it is terrible for any company to ignore the pricing that they posted, erroneous or not.  We, as consumers, attempt to get the best pricing and when we find it we should be guaranteed to receive it.  If you make a mistake that is your fault and you should have to guarantee it like Albertsons does.

Sears may not necessarily be able to personally contact you, but they do try to address issues. If they are unable to provide you with such a deal, it is at least courtesy to present you with another option, and you always can refuse. As for the coupon, electronics are not very profitable for retailers, and are not  able to provide such a discount.  The demand of the product might have been higher then expected, no retailer can figure out the correct supply necessary.

I'm not trying to be rude here, but imagine you have a rental property and you list in on craigslist.  The amount you need to pay the mortage and taxes and make a profit is 1200, but instead you typed in 120.  Would you be willing to rent the property to someone at a loss?  I wouldn't, nor would I be legally bound to.  It's the same way with any business entity.  While I agree corporations are expected to held to a higher standard and they should afford customers the actual reason why an order was cancelled, I wouldn't expect them to honor an erronous price.  It's unfair to take advantage of anyone, business or non-business entity, just because they made a mistake.

Well put, Sean.

I'm sure if the roles were reversed, we'd be hearing some different responses.

People have this tendency to do things without thinking, and think about things without the slightest intention of doing them.

Here Here Sean921...i couldnt of said it better my self. People do need to understand that pricing errors do occur, and not just with sears but with every major online retail site. I can gaurantee if these people that are complaining about this pricing error were to post something of theirs in thier local newpaper to sell and the newspaper or themselves typed it in wrong for a cheaper price, i can gaurantee they would not sell it at that error price because it was not the intended price they wanted to sell it for so they could make a profit off of it and they would decline the offers or void the offer and fix it immediately. This is the exact same thing happening here. Sears is only trying to protect its investment and make money just like every other company out there!! 

Yes, I agree, it can be frustrating to buy something at a great price to find that that price cannot be honored because of a pricing error. It has happened to everyone at some point. It's life. Everyone is human, therefore, we are subject to making mistakes. No matter how successful a company may be, they didn't get there without mistakes. Of course, for the most part, big companies like Sears have gotten as far as they have because they DO have good customer service behind them. You only ever hear about the bad things, unfortunately. It seems to be that people like to rant negatively about their experiences then people do about their positive ones. Obviously, Sears wouldn't still be in business if EVERYONE thought that Sears was out to get them and tease them. Just like every other business, small or big, Sears made a mistake (pricing error) on their part. When you placed the order, there was a Terms and Conditions you had to check in order to complete the order, no? In this terms and conditions, it did state that if such an error were to occur, that Sears reserved the right not to honor that price and cancel the order. I mean, nobody really reads those things anyways, right? However, it was there, and you technically acknowledged it. Yay life.

Hi LovetheFlintstones, 

I am sorry your order was canceled and for your troubles. Please allow me a little time to get your problem in the hands of the right people who can help you out.  

I have to say besides the occasional glitches of the website, I believe Sears is the best retailer out there they believe in customer care. I have had similar instances where something went awry and sears stood by me and made it right. Thanks Sears

Your New Customer

LovetheFlintstones, sorry that happaned to you but I think BestBuy had the same thing with a big screen TV and they refused to honor their online prices. Think all the retailers have that policy.

Hi Molly,

I really appreciate your concern.  It is not right what happened.  There were at least 5 different products in that price range on the website that morning; it was not just a one product error.

I personally know two people who received their computers, at the erroneous sale price.  They chose two day shipping and the order left the store before the error was noticed.  The same computers were also available for the smae price on Saturday evening.  I purchased two on Thursday and one on Saturday, received order confirmations for both and then received order cancellations via email.

flintstone

Sorry to hear about the pricing issues but it actually happens to all of us. A few of us saw other items at a "pricing error" price and they ordered it online through the store (we are sears employees) they all also had their orders cancelled as well. So normal customer or sears employee ~ if they want to cancel the order they do reserve the right to do so, same thing happens if you try to purchase an item in store and when it comes through if we do not have it in stock we can deny the order because its an out of stock item. 

HDuser ~ sorry to hear about the LG issue but that is the associates fault, the entire company ran out of stock on that tv about a week or more before the Nov. Friends and Family that associate should have contacted you to let you know the tv was no longer available, no item is ever guareented to be available outside the actual time you are looking at it. This is why we are trained to get the customers information while speaking to them and contact them if the price changes or the item becomes unavailable. That tv had been at the $1299.99 price point for a months time before becoming unavailable and still is unavailable to this day ~ I do believe LG has issued a limited stock notice to all stores as well. Our store has agreed to honor any rainchecks on that item if it becomes available again but as I said LG has issued a limited stock notice which usually means they have discontinued production on it.

I tried to buy locally from Sears and ask if they would honor Best Buys ad.  No they wouldn't as Best Buys was cheaper on the LED tv,offered a blue ray player, and delivery and disposal of old tv. For mor money i can buy at Sears and get just tv. 

What tv ksnative, Sears does not match promotions, Sears only matches prices. The reason being is a promotion is paid for by the manufacturer not the retailer. Money is money and its only logical to spend it where the deal is better.

"Matching prices" is a crock.  Sears, Best Buy and the rest of the retailers have figured out a way to get around that (my best friend is a VP of Frigidare, and he told me how it works).  The manufacturers ship the exact same product to different stores but change the model number.  That way, if you find the same item priced lower at Best Buy than Sears, Sears can say, "Sorry, that's not the same item...it has a different model number").  Retailers are always going to look for creative ways to look like they are offering you something of value when they are in fact not.

While true on a lot of electronics, having previously worked for Sears in electronics for three years, I can tell you right now that I price matched more televisions than I probably sold without price matching.  The company wasn't as aggressive as Best Buy was when I originally started, and I was basically just using their sites prices to sell televisions at the various stores I worked at.

Albertsons has a web site?

Available to millions of Customers?

Open 24-7?

Wow!

Or, maybe, Customers will always wish to interpret things more liberally than Retailers do...

It's a double-edged sword.

Depends a lot of retailers purposely dont carry like items but in electronics a lot of times you really cant get around it.

Sears has become extremely aggressive, with constant manufacturer price decreases being immediately applied, advertised sales being beaten by lower sale prices in-store, and dynamic response to competitor sale pricing. You should check it out sometime. Of course, no retailer has everything cheaper than the rest of the competition, as that is simply not possible, But, the prices are much more competitive than you may remember.

I purchased two snow throwers from Sears.  They were almost $800.00 dollars for each one.  I also purchase an extended warranty on both snow throwers.  I gave one to my parents and they lived about 75 miles away from me.  Both snow throwers stopped working at the same time.  I took my snow thrower back to sears in a snow storm.  My mother took her back maybe two weeks later.  I talked to sears about the the issue and they were not willing to give me a loaner or a shovel for the troubles.  It took over a month for me to get my snow thrower back.  After calling almost everyday, they finally gave me a loaner and a 30 dollar gift card for the trouble.  It was very frustrating and painful.  Sears customer service is very terrible.  Their extended warranty policy can change on you.  I will try to avoid buying major items from sears...I thought that they could handled the snow throwers a little bit better.  Sears should have offer some type of gift card to the person since they had the wrong pricing.  Maybe they could took 30 dollars off more from the original sale price.  So Sears, please get your stuff together.... 

How long had you owned the machines before they failed, and how much had they been used? And, how did the machines fail?

Was there any gas left in the machines, for longer than 60 days?

Getting prompt service during the height of snow blower season must have been very daunting.

Did something "break" or would they just not start-up?

Our Sony T.V of 5 years broke on Thanksgivings day 2007. So we all decided to buy a new T.V set on Black Friday. We were very disappointed with our purchase at Sears Department Store in Canyon Country, California. We were the first three people at the register and most of the electronics I wanted to buy that were advertise were no longer available. We told the cashier to get whatever is available at the store. He offered us the Aquoas instead of Sony Bravia. He also offered us the insurance, " just in case you broke  the T.V. the insurance will replace it at no cost" his exact words. Upon hearing those words we bought the insurance without any hesitation. My son wanted to buy something  else so we roamed around the store for more than an hour since the line for mechanize pick up was very long. When we came back, we were told that our T.V that we purchased was no longer in the store. We were surprised to hear  that the T.V. that we just paid an hour ago was no longer available. How could they sell something that was not in the store. So anyway, we were told to either  pick something else again but it would not be a door buster price or just wait till they replace that same item in a few days. We agreed to just wait. One week had passed we still don't have our T. V. We were told that it would take another week. So we waited until we received our bill statement in the mail. We were already charged the cost of T.V. and insurance but we don't have the item on hand. So we decided to go back and asked them what was really going on. The manager told us that it was a back order that they don't know when they're going to get it.  He told us he's going to call us after a week if not he'll replaced it with another T.V. set A week before Xmas 2007 we finally received  a replacement. Since our house was already under construction we put back the T.V set back to the box and kept it in a safe place. On August 7, 2008 we decided to open the box to watch the Olympics the following day August 2008. When we turned on the T.V it was O.K for 2 minutes and then it went blank.No picture!It looked like a screen that has no cable coverage. So we called Sears  and we were told to call the insurance for the repair. We called but there was no available day until the following month. When the repair man came he stayed for less than 5 minutes. His diagnosed it as" abuse" I called the following day and inquire why his diagnosis was abuse. I was told that maybe my baby probably hit it with a toy or something. I told him my son was no longer a baby. He was 14 years old at that time. I told him that the picture on my lamp table was  taken 13  years ago. he said that was his diagnosis and he cannot repair it and the insurance will not cover it. He said Sony is very strict, they just don't replace T.V.'s. I didn't understand what he was saying. I asked him what about our insurance?isn't it that 's what insurance are for? to replace it when you brake it even though we were not aware that we broke it. So tell me anyone was this justifiable?