I look forward to Black Friday as it is synonymous with blockbuster deals. Along with several hundred customers, I believed I had nabbed one of the hottest deals as Target.com listed the Lord of the Rings Motion Trilogy on blu-ray for a special price of $7.99 (original $79.99) in the early hours of Thursday before Black Friday. Even more excitement arose when I received the confirmation email. Soon the blu-ray showed \”out of stock\” and the deal was believed to be over.
It all started when Target placed a price of $7.99 next to the Lord of the Rings Triology blu-ray set in their Black Friday Ad. Nobody expected the price to be honored but to everyone\’s excitement, Target decided to honor the deal for Black Friday. No one knew if this would be in-store or online but the deal went live on early Thursday morning on Target.com. Along with hundreds of customers, I purchased the blu-ray set and decided to skip the instore drama of Black Friday and sleep. I felt like I had already secured the deal so why spend the effort? In addition, I checked this off my Black Friday wish list and decided not to pursue other sales for the set.
On the day of Black Friday, several customers noted that they were able to secure the LOTR deal instore. This brought a sense of relief to those that had purchased the deal online as it showed 1) Target was actually honoring the price and 2)since only two or three copies were available in store, a significant portion of the movies were tied to the online orders. Several people cancelled previous orders of the LOTR series from amazon and returned previous purchases of the series as they believed they had purchased Target\’s Black Friday deal.
The weekend pass without further notification of how the online purchases were being handled. However, on Monday, November 27th on Cyber Monday, Target sent out an email stating that there was \”an unexpected delay\” and asking customers \”to approve this delay so that we can continue processing your order.\” I was once again reaffirmed by this email that the blu-rays would ship at the special black friday price but just with a little delay. I would once again skip out on the special prices that Cyber Monday offered as Target\’s price was clearly the best.
The next day changed everything. I received a cancellation email as follows
\”Hello from Target.com,
Unfortunately, due to the high demand for the following item it is no longer available from any of our sources.
- The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy (6 Discs) (Blu-ray)
Please note that this item was listed in our 2-Day Sale ad as “quantities limited; no rain checks.” We have cancelled this item from your order and can\’t say for sure when it might be back in stock. If you are still interested in purchasing the item, which would be at the regular price, please check back every once in a while to see if it\’s available. To view the current status and the costs associated with your order, please visit My Account;
Because you only pay for items when we ship them to you, your credit card has not been charged for this item.
Thank you for being a valued Guest. We hope you visit us again.
Sincerely,
Guest Service Department
Target.com\”
t turned out that EVERY SINGLE ORDER was cancelled. There was not a \”stock\” to being with. To make things even worse, Target decided not to issue a raincheck and instead, told us to purchase the item at regular price.
What upsets me about this situation is target handled it. If target never intended to sell the blu-ray sets in the first place, why did they even allow the online sales? Why didn\’t someone stop it immediately? Surely, they were aware of the issue before hand as their ad had the 7.99 price. In addition, instead of issuing a cancellation email late Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday or even early Monday, Target sent deceitful emails causing me to miss out on all the other special prices for this blu-ray set on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Furthermore, unlike other stores who oversold products like buy.com who ended up still honoring the purchases , Target did NOTHING. Staples and Best Buy both had price mistakes on their products and each sent out gift cards to compensate the customers. Target did NOTHING. After several emails and phone calls to Target, all I have gotten is lies about \”the source running out of stock\” and the option to purchase the blu-ray set at the original price. What a joke!
The only one who got something out of this situation was Target. They attracted thousands of customers to their site who purchased the deal. And I am sure that those customers did not only look at this deal but browsed other deals on their sites. They gave the false impression that people had secured an amazing deal and most likely convinced customers to spend a little extra money elsewhere at their store. ONLY target benefited from this.
Please sign this petition to expose Target and this irresponsible situation! As customers, we must stand up to this debacle and ensure that big companies like Target cannot treat customers in this fashion! Deal with the customer truthfully and not with lies! Customers who were outraged with Frys were able to force them into honoring their deal so lets do the same with Target! Or at least make them show some respect to their customers by providing some compensation be it a gift card or rain check for the time and effort wasted over Black Friday!
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Company Response
The following response has been submitted by the company. It's source has been verified by Groubal.
Mr. Doner,
Thank you for reaching out to Target. I’m so sorry for the delayed response. Here is what I can share about the pricing error regarding the Lord of the Rings DVD:
Target is committed to ensuring items in our ads are in stock and accurately priced for our guests. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, rather than the individual DVD, was incorrectly featured during the 2-Day Sale last week in stores and online at $ 7.99 instead of the actual retail price of $ 74.99.
Target.com honored the lower price for our guests for as many units as were in stock, but unfortunately had to cancel additional online orders when the product quickly oversold our supply. We regret any inconvenience guests may have experienced due to cancelled orders for the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.
Sincerely,
Amy Reilly
622 signatures
To further your bait and switch scheme, your cancellation email told me and others that the item is available in stores and we could purchase it there at the full $74.99 price. That is classic bait and switch
not shopping there anymore
I have since been in contact with their customer service via email and all of their correspondence are nothing but automated responses and offer no recourse for the inconvenience and lost opportunity cost that I and others have suffered.
Maybe the Target CEO should've donated all that money to his IT department to fix their website stock counter instead of the anti-gay movement.
Fix it.
Target!! The only way to fix this is to ship my order. That's it!
Taking a look at my last three credit card statements it looks like we do an average of $700 a month with them or about $8,400 a year. Based upon the shabby way that they have been handling this I am now more likely to just go past them the extra half mile and start doing my shopping at HEB and Wal*Mart instead.
If other regular customers who were also treated badly in this deal do the same then yes, it will end up costing Target more in the long run than it would to have simply fulfilled the original orders.
As I have told to numerous Target employees and executives over the past week, it would have been one thing to claim that it was a "printing error" and have been done with it, however when they chose to also have that same price go live in thier system and orders to be placed (and confirmed) people made real buying decisions based upon their actions which in turn cost them other purchasing opportunities, all of which were subsequently unavailable after they chose to reverse themselves and cancel all of the orders.
To not even offer the people who have valid orders in their system an alternative deal of the individual discs for $7.99 apiece (which they claim in their form letters was the originally intended sale price) and instead tell customers to feel free to come in and get the boxed set for $80 instead then they are acting disingenuously and frankly with little respect for the people who made holiday purchasing decisions based upon their deceptive sale.
I went to Wal-Mart and was treated much differently. This will not soon be forgotten. I hate to base all of my purchasing decisions off of this one experience, but I will be very hesitant to buy online at Target.com for Black Friday ever again. I would rather spend my time and money with a retailer that honors their word and acts with integrity.
1. Honor the deal
2. Update their Terms and Conditions to reflect this risk as a customer
3. An apology from an actual person from Target in regards to their customer service and how that did not meet their company mission statement.
You then took however many orders that you took and confirmed them up to a point that you finally showed OOS. You must have had a number in your system, right? You then don't correct your so called mistake until AFTER BF. You took from all the people that ordered online a reason to come to a B&M Target if that was all they were after. I have wondered if you didn't do this purposely to help with crowd control. It could certainly be argued. You took away many that would have come to BF B&M if they had known they weren't getting the Blu-ray set in the mail. You also took away the need and chance to get the Blu-rays in individual releases from other sources at a price just a little more than what you were offering.
You then send out emails referencing a delay instead of canceling at THAT time. You strung us along some more. Then you finally cancel claiming no rainchecks, blah, blah. We didn't need rainchecks because we had confirmed orders. Orders that we accepted to be delayed. I asked your CSR to send it when it comes in, even if it Feb. or March. The CSR then says they will put a note on my account and a telephone number to call when it shows up online and that they will adjust the price when it comes in. Well now you have taken the item completely off the site. I'm figuring at this point that you'll never sell this set online again so that you can claim that the orders can't be filled since you can't buy it online but only in stores. If that ends up the case then you are true sharlitans, deceivers, plain and simple liars. Hopefully criminal if you choose that path.
I wish I could know for sure your angle for letting this go online because I can't conceive it being an accident since you were on notice a week earlier.
I live 2-3 miles from one of your stores. I'll drive the extra 4 and go to Walmart. I was glad to see you guys go up against Walmart but now I don't trust you because you have done nothing but give me and however many others a reason not to trust.
I read a story on a CBS website that said Target will be honoring their oversolde BF deals. I just called Target and they said I could place another order at FULL PRICE but they will not honor their BF mistake.
Target are you playing with your customers trust in you. I could have easily gotten discounted prices on these from Amazon's black friday deals. But I was notified too late.
This is not acceptable and Target should not be allowed to get away with this type of business practices.
They should not have allowed me to order it online if they did not have enough in stock. I could have gone to the store to buy it instead.
I also missed out on another online deal while I was busy ordering this online.
BEST STORE TO SHOP AT.
Regardless, their business practice was not cool and I'm signing this.
I had placed an order for the three individual movies through Amazon.com a day before I saw the very low price for the trilogy from Target. Upon seeing Target's price, I placed an order through their website and then canceled my Amazon.com order. By the time Target emailed me to say that they were canceling my order, Amazon.com's price had gone up. If Target's price hadn't been available earlier in print form, I would believe they had performed this bait-and-switch to prevent customers from purchasing at Amazon.com. Regardless, I will be avoiding Target in the future unless they correct this issue.
This wouldn't be as big of a deal if I hadn't missed out on other offers for the LOTR set during black friday. I thought I was fortunate to get an "in-stock" copy at Target but apparently that's not what "in-stock" and "order confirmed" mean.
Total time in store - 10 minutes
Target should honor these orders
Unfortunately, due to the high demand for the following item it is no longer available from any of our sources. - The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy (6 Discs) (Blu-ray) Please note that this item was listed in our 2-Day Sale ad as “quantities limited; no rain checks.” We have cancelled this item from your order and can't say for sure when it might be back in stock. If you are still interested in purchasing the item, which would be at the regular price, please check back every once in a while to see if it's available.
"Please approve this delay so that we can continue processing your order.
(Note that if we haven't received your approval by December 27 2010,
we'll still try to obtain and ship the item(s) before that date.)"
=> I guess too many people approved the delay and target said oh no, let's cancel them all.
To me, it would be reasonable for target to limit quantity per customer (as some people ordered tons of copies apparently) as a way out of the initial out of stock issue, but to blindly cancel most if not all online order is definitely unreasonable.
I got my 2 sets of LOTR.
That aside, their handling of this issue has been horrendous. First we get emails saying that the order is delayed, and the the orders get cancelled, I didn't even get an email notification of cancellation, I happened to check my order status.
We're sick of being misled. If I was too late for the deal that's one thing, but to think we got it, then get an emailing confirming it, then another email confirming it, only to have the rug pulled out just sucks.
Man up Target, Fry's learned the hard way that accountability is still important.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
To make matters WORSE. IN stores they posted no notice of the (price error) instead tried to pretend it was $7.99 for each of the three movies (which may have been there original intent)...
There were obviously pulled to prevent their sale.
They should rebrand their stores to "Smeagol".
Several days later my order got canceled.
In Stock means In Stock!!! Don't Lie to Customers!!!
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2010/12/02/consumerwatch-black-friday-shoppers-lose-deals-after-glitch/
Everyone affected should go there and post negative feedback
Plus order the heaviest item you can from Target with free shipping - then when it arrives, return it to the store. Make them eat the shipping costs out their #$$.
They will learn not to mess with the consumer
At this point the helpless me feels like stealing and looting the MFs and to cause max damage. The free s/h and then dump back to store is not a bad idea. Possibly even taking some parts out of the order so they take the max loss. You are def. going to pay you scums. Frys / Soyo have already paid big time for their rebate scam and so are you Target and Staples.
"
I'm sorry to hear about the cancellation of the Lord of the Rings trilogy pack from your order. We do what we can to keep orders going smoothly, but sometimes unexpected changes to our supply will cause us to cancel an order. I know this can be frustrating and I'm sorry for any inconvenience. We've had a lot of orders for this blu-ray, and we always fill the orders starting with the oldest orders first. There was a high demand, and by the time we got to your order we ran out of stock. Because of this, we had to cancel this the motion picture trilogy from your order. Great Products. Great Value. And great guest service every time you visit Target.com. That's what shopping with us is all about, so it's disappointing to hear that we've let you down. Thanks for getting in touch with us. I hope you'll give us another chance and visit Target.com again. "
I'm not going to beg the $10, $15, $20 or whatever gift card from Target. I just want them to be punished being not fair and honest to their customers.
http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-525136
Looks like another unfortunate group of Target.com victims.
This really is ridiculous. Come on people, we need more signatures here! Down with Target!!
Greg Steinhafel CEO (622) 696-6234
Gregg.Steinhafel@target.com
Assistant:Denise May (612) 696-6243
Denise.May@target.com
Bart Butzer, VP Stores: (612)-696-4968
Christopher Perrigo, VP Target India: (612)-761-0613
Doug Scovanner, EVP Finance & CFO: (612)-761-6610
Janet Shalk, EVP Target Tech Services: (612)-304-5155
Jodee Kolzak, EVP Human Resources: (612)-696-6111
John Griffith, EVP Property Dev: (612)-761-1487
Kathee Tesija, EVP Merchandising: (612)-696-6134
Michael Francis, EVP Marketing: (612)-696-2822
Mitch Stover, SVP Distribution: (612)-304-2787
Stacia Andersen, President TSS: (612)-696-2856
Tim Baer, EVP General Counsel: (612)-696-6648
Tory Risch, EVP Stores: (612)-696-2476
To send an email, just put first name.last name@target.com
Lets do this people. Take a stand against bait and switch, and show these big corporations how they make their living.
Gregg.Steinhafel@target.com,
tim.baer@target.com,
Denise.May@target.com,
investorrelations@target.com,
stephen.eastman@target.com,
laysha.ward@target.com,
susan.kahn@target.com,
michael.Francis@target.com,
John.Griffith@target.com,
Beth.Jacob@target.com,
Jodeen.Kozlak@target.com,
Troy.Risch@target.com,
Douglas.Scovanner@target.com,
Terrence.Scully@target.com,
Kathryn.tesija@target.com,
Janna.Adair-Potts@target.com,
Patricia.Adams@target.com,
Lalit.Ahuja@target.com,
Stacia.Andersen@target.com,
Carmela.Batacchi@target.com,
Bryan.Berg@target.com,
Leonard.Chapman@target.com,
Barbara.Dugan@target.com,
Corey.Haaland@target.com,
Cynthia.Ho@target.com,
Derek.Jenkins@target.com,
Keri.Jones@target.com,
Sid.Keswani@target.com,
Richard.Maguire@target.com,
Timothy.Mantel@target.com,
Annette.Miller@target.com,
John.Mulligan@target.com,
Scott.Nelson@target.com,
Tina.Schiel@target.com,
Mark.Schindele@target.com,
Mitchell.Stover@target.com,
Rich.Varda@target.com,
Jane.Windmeier@target.com,
stephen.eastman@target.com
jodeen.kozlak@target.com
douglas.scovanner@target.com
terrence.scully@target.com
kathryn.tesija@target.com
patricia.adams@target.com
richard.maguire@target.com
timothy.mantel@target.com
mitchell.stover@target.com
It's clear now they not gonna send me the copy . I payed $11 something total.
It means they just took my money and that is it! NICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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