It is just the latest example of how online vendors can fall foul of the ire of customers looking for a deal. Dell, which has suffered from online pricing errors in the past, uses its terms and conditions to protect itself though lawyers caution that companies should not take this form of protection too far. Dell's terms and conditions state that the company "is not responsible for pricing, typographical, or other errors", and the company has been telling customers that it reserves the right to cancel any orders resulting from such errors.
Would-be lens-buyer Eric Sorensen, who posted his Dell chat session with a customer support person to an active forum on the dpreview.com camera site, provided perhaps the best illustration of how frustrated some felt at what they considered to be Dell's stonewalling. "Doesn't look good from my standpoint", summarised Sorensen, after a lengthy chat in which Dell said he could cancel his order or accept a replacement $230 lens, but not have the $1600 part.
The problem appears to have begun on Thursday evening when Dell advertised a "Canon 100-400mm L f/4.5-5.6 IS USM telephoto zoom lens," which normally retails for $1600, at the "killer" price of $196.
According to one ZDNet UK correspondent, those who placed an order received two emails confirming the purchase with an item description matching this particular lens. "The first email confirmed that the order was received and the second email confirmed that it was acknowledged." Dell authorised the funds on credit cards, but when consumers worried about the offer logged on to Dell's order status page to verify their purchase, they discovered that the descriptions had changed and now read "Canon 75-300mm f/4.5-5.6 III USM telephoto zoom lens," which retails at $230.
Gavin McGinty, solicitor with Pinsent Masons, said there are two separate issues for Dell here: "What will ultimately protect Dell is the contract formation process, and how it talks about the offer and acceptance," said McGinty. "Dell should say that the customer's order is a offer to Dell to buy the goods, and Dell then would propose to the buyer that it checks and order and if it is happy, accepts the offer."
Some companies still send out confirmation emails that say 'thanks for your order, this has been accepted', said McGinty. "That is bad practice because it leaves you at real risk of pricing errors." Companies should always make it clear that the email is not acceptance of the offer, he said. "Many big sites do this -- Amazon says acceptance of the offer only takes place on dispatch of the goods. Dell is fairly hot on these things, so I would be amazed if Dell's terms didn't work on these lines."
Dell did not immediately return a request for comment.
If Dell had got the stage of actually sending out goods, said McGinty, then at that point the company would be in trouble.
Dell also appears to have protected itself with the terms and conditions, added McGinty, though this is not as clear-cut as it might seem. "That is good in some ways because shows the company takes the issue seriously," he said, adding that placing such statements have pitfalls all of their own. "The Office of Fair Trading is cracking down on Web site terms and conditions, and I think there is a risk that putting such a sweeping clause in consumer terms and conditions here can fall into a grey area of consumer law and have to be drafted very carefully."
Talkback
I have no issue with those who place an order in hopes of receiving the deal of the century.
What I do think is pathetic beyond all reasonability is the self-righteous indignance these patrons put on as if somehow Dell has cheated them out of their birth right.
Make no mistake, those who pursue these deals are a pack of wolves preying on the sick and lame. There is little if any 'innocense' in the propagation of the fury that is online ordering in this fashion.
By all means, place an order and hope for the best. By no means, should you whine about the process by which you are declined the erroneous offer.
-Dead Horse
You could also mention one of the forums members on dpreview.com that placed an order for 30 of these units.
Everyone there knew it was a MISTAKE, they talk as if Dell is trying to screw them, that its a bait and switch, that it is not a moral issue for them.
Bull! Most of these people would do well as an ambulance chasing lawyer. Its sad what kind of society we have become. Anyone of these people would quickly run away if they were the one making this mistake.
Bring back some decency!
How a company, the size of Dell can make a mistake of this magnitude, just goes to say something about the company and its employees. I believe that this is not the first time a major pricing error has slipped through their irresponsible managerial team, as in reference to the pricing problem at Dell which involved a Dell Inspiron 3800 C600ST notebook, originally priced at about $2,466 but going for a mere $219, also which Dell ultimately sold the laptops for the $219.00.
(Full Article is here)(http://asia.cnet.com/news/communications/0,39037080,13031642,00.htm)
To make matters worse Dell, once being notified about their mistake started to begin a cover up, as to recirculation of item numbers, so their was a lot more going on than a "typo" there is now intentional fraud as well, as i did a screen capture that clearly shows the Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS as Dell Part# A0405637 then Dell does the switch and tries to change the Dell Part# A0405637 to the EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III USM on your order confirmation.
What Dell did not except was that there were people out there who took screen captures.
You go DELL.
You are the dude !!!
Well 1 day ago Dell had the 75-300 III, now they do not even list the lens. I smell something wortten going on,
How can Dell refuse to honor this mistake and then honor this one?
http://asia.cnet.com/news/communications/0,39037080,13031642,00.htm
I feel that if they do not ship the advertised product for the advertised price that they are opening themselves up for a major law suit, regardless of their double toungue standards of not being held for anything but the moon falling from the heavens.
I love Dell, but this time they screwed up.
Who cares really, it will take Dell a year to figure out who did the typo, just as it takes a year to get through to their deplorable customer service or tech support. But hey if you want to place an oder for something from Dell you never get put on hold for a second, look on the bright side
You forgot to mention that Dell had the correct Canon part number (for the less expensive lens) on the page, showing that there was an error somewhere
I have no doubt in my mind that Dell intentionally engages in training their customer service to participate in evasive and dishonest customer relations. My proof in this is being insulted repeatedly with the same inane lies from 3 or 4 different people. "My supervisor is out to lunch and I don't know when he/she will return" was given at all times of the day. "I do not know who my supervisor's supervisor is." They also could not locate or give me a phone number to any other department (beside sales of course) to the entire company. When I went into the magazines at the time, all the different Dell phone numbers went to the same peon brigade at "customer service" who obviously had no power except to try to talk the customer into accepting his unfortunate fate in having bought yet another Dell lemon. I went through 8 months of abuse trying to get my brand new computer to work, having to take the cordless phone out of the room, because it would run out of power from all the hours I spent in trying to jump through all the hoops of their ill trained tech help. Oftentimes my computer ended up in worse shape than before I called.
I got another interesting article for you guys.
Dell recently had a "Dellf Sweepstakes" game where you could register and you could either win a "prize" or if you lost you got a coupon. Dell had a coupon that was "a $1 17" LCD TV when you pruchase a Dimension desktop over $699". Dell got a lot of people to purchase a $700+ system, shipped the system, and had an automatic script email that person within hours after their system being delivered saying that their LCD TV order was cancelled because some people played the "Dellf" game more then once. The orders go through fine, you get your confirmation email and everything but once the UPS man comes and delivers your computer it's only minutes before Dell "unfortunately" cancels the TV. Dell is having BIG TIME delays so many people do not want to return the desktop (and pay $50 for shipping) so Dell ends up selling a $700+ computer.
Here is a forum I found regarding this topic. I found this forum while searching google.
http://www.fatwallet.com/t/24/397436/
if it's too good to be true...
of course it is...and I bet every single person that placed the order knew it must be an error and tried to take advantage of it...regardless of the size of a company it only takes one person to make a mistake...people should be disappointed yes..but also be realistic...I would be curious to see if there is actually a person who didn't know that this was far too good to be tru