B&H not honoring the advertised price?

So I'm not sure where I should post this, but the issue here is that B&H advertised the price for the product that I bought last night at 255.99$ and later this morning they emailed me saying there was a price error and that the price is 299.99$. B&H said per their terms with the manufacturer, they are unable to offer that price. What is your guys take on this?

This isn't my first item that I've bought from them, I've bought thousands of dollars worth of gear from them before and never had this issue. I know that its only 50$ but the issue here is the false advertisement due to their error and not the consumer. I would think that they would honor it so that it reflects their accountability and reinforce an ongoing seller/buyer relationship. But they're not honoring it.

Thank-you for letting me rant my frustration.

They said it was a price error. Amazon won't honor price error either. I'm sure it's all manual input to the computer for prices and error can occur. I would just move on.

It happens all the time. Sometimes the customer gets a deal, lots of times not. Also, for example, Canon has minimum advertised pricing in effect, which means if they sell something at a price lower than MAP, they could lose their approved seller status amongst other things.

If 255.99 is obviously a wrong price, I would say to just let it go, and not worth getting riled up about

alright, THANK YOU for understanding, I will not get riled up lol.

Somewhere on their website, most likely in the terms and conditions, there will likely be a clause that explains that this can happen. It could be something as simple as placing "E&OE" at the bottom of each catalogue page (Errors and Omissions Excepted) which basically states that if there is an error they can, and will, correct it even after an order is placed. All they have to do is contact the purchaser and make sure that they are OK with the correct price.

It is common practice for businesses to do this. Nothing to get riled up about, they are simply correcting a mistake and telling you the correct price.

personally I think this is a bad business practice. This happens in the airline industry all the time and many times airlines will claim the same thing. As a customer, I can believe that a pricing error would be selling a $249.99 item for $49.99. I do not believe a pricing error is selling a $300 item for $50 off. Prices that are legitimately reasonable should be honored.

mikeinctown wrote in post #17033235
personally I think this is a bad business practice. This happens in the airline industry all the time and many times airlines will claim the same thing. As a customer, I can believe that a pricing error would be selling a $249.99 item for $49.99. I do not believe a pricing error is selling a $300 item for $50 off. Prices that are legitimately reasonable should be honored.

Agreed... Once you have paid for the item, the deal is basically done. If you were in the store, found an item advertised as $255, took it off the shelf, checked out at the register, and as they were bagging the item, then the manager walked over and said, oops, that price was wrong, you owe us $45 more, what would you do? Why is online sales any different?

What if you made a listing on this site and you advertised a 70-200 F2.8 II for $180 instead of $1800 because you forgot a zero. Do you take $180 for it?

mikeinctown wrote in post #17033235
personally I think this is a bad business practice. This happens in the airline industry all the time and many times airlines will claim the same thing. As a customer, I can believe that a pricing error would be selling a $249.99 item for $49.99. I do not believe a pricing error is selling a $300 item for $50 off. Prices that are legitimately reasonable should be honored.

An error is an error. In the above example hitting 5 instead of 8 or 9 while doing quick data entry can happen easily. Or putting in the price for the item on a line above in your spreadsheet might explain $249 vs $300.

If you get your money back you have been made whole, there is nothing to complain about. You are in the same financial position you were before visiting the site/store.

Now of course, as a business, you have to decide if the ill will gained by cancelling orders will be worth the money you save by not selling products at a loss. If this was a camera product or lens, there may also be MAP guidelines set forth in contract from Canon, etc, and losing your preferred reseller status from Canon is going to cost you more than losing a dozen customers,

TeamSpeed wrote in post #17033343
Agreed... Once you have paid for the item, the deal is basically done. If you were in the store, found an item advertised as $255, took it off the shelf, checked out at the register, and as they were bagging the item, then the manager walked over and said, oops, that price was wrong, you owe us $45 more, what would you do? Why is online sales any different?

Here in california, at least, stores honor prices even if it's priced incorrectly by mistake. No arguments from managers. I think it's in ca statute to prevent bait and switch.

This is not always the case, but it has become standard practice to honor mislabeled prices in an actual store, but your order will almost always be cancelled if ordered online. Like it or not, it's just the way it is.

For me personally, it's no big deal if a really low online price is not honored because it was a mistake. I look at it this way...I'm super thankful that we even have online stores that sell things to us at such outstanding prices. I remember the days of paying full MSRP at a brick-n-mortar store. Sure, today's online stores are making money, but the margin on each item is very slim. They are pushing a lot of stock and can't afford a price mistake...and I understand that. I'm happy to shrug my shoulders and say shucks, and then go on about my business of buying things online for the great prices they sell things for. I'm not questioning anyone else's opinion, just sharing my two cents.

Cheers,
Bryan

tkbslc wrote in post #17033630
What if you made a listing on this site and you advertised a 70-200 F2.8 II for $180 instead of $1800 because you forgot a zero. Do you take $180 for it?

2 things:

- payment was made already, so the question is "the person already struck a deal with you and paid", do you refund the amount and say, "you owe me $270 more"?
- the mistake was a 15% mistake, so the better analogy here was that you listed it at $1530

Well, I bought the item already, but I will think twice to buy from B&H again since they lost my buyer/seller relationship due to this error.

I agree with some of you that they should have honored it since it was their mistake. If it was in person, I bet it would've been a different situation and they would've honored it.

I paid for the product and I even received a transaction # and email. Then they emailed saying it was their error. I believe this situation is the same as Delta Airline honoring cheap fare tickets after the system glitch, its an error and they owned up to it.

Overall, I will look for my Camera gears somewhere else, I know Adorama does price match and so does Amazon. thank you for chiming in.

LostViet408 wrote in post #17033866
Well, I bought the item already, but I will think twice to buy from B&H again since they lost my buyer/seller relationship due to this error.

I agree with some of you that they should have honored it since it was their mistake. If it was in person, I bet it would've been a different situation and they would've honored it.

I paid for the product and I even received a transaction # and email. Then they emailed saying it was their error. I believe this situation is the same as Delta Airline honoring cheap fare tickets after the system glitch, its an error and they owned up to it.

Overall, I will look for my Camera gears somewhere else, I know Adorama does price match and so does Amazon. thank you for chiming in.

Stop playing the victim and playing your sad song. If they had a good deal on something I'm sure you're not going to say "Oh, i'm going to pay more else where because it's B&H selling it".

I am sort of disgusted by the attitude that says it's OK to take advantage of a mistake made by a retailer. The OP is done with B&H because of this? Doesn't the positive relationship work both ways? Why would you want to get over on a retailer that has been good to you? Because they made a pricing mistake? Maybe a real person made that mistake. Does anyone feel entitled to put a real person in harm's way at their job so you can save a few bucks on photography gear?

SMH at the internet bargain hunting vulture mentality.

If you think a bait and switch thing is going on that is a different story, but I don't recall B&H every being accused of that.