Currys Black Friday debacle...

charlielab

Excuse the long story, but I'm hoping someone has some advice for me here...

On Black Friday, I bought an XBox One S with two games for £169.99 from Currys website.

The email said to pick it up in store on Monday 29th November. When I went to pick it up that evening, the man in the store said my order had not arrived, had in fact been cancelled, and couldn't tell me why.

On Tuesday 30th, I called the helpline and was told that my order was not cancelled but merely delayed, and I would hear within 48 hours. I did not hear.

During this time I complained to Currys via their Twitter account but did not immediately hear back.
On Thursday I called the helpline again and was told again that it was not cancelled, that they were waiting for one of the games to come back in stock and once that happened (either 4th/5th Dec, I was told), the product would be delivered to me.

About an hour after that, Currys contacted me on Twitter to say that they could not fulfil the order and it had indeed been cancelled. I also got an email from Currys to say that AT MY REQUEST the order had been cancelled (not true. I have never requested this).

About an hour after THAT, I got an email from Currys saying that my order had been delayed but was on its way and I would receive it Dec 8th.

By this time I am confused and annoyed. Currys still had my £169.99 as well.

Yesterday evening I hear from Currys via Twitter again and they say:
"Hi sorry for the delay in response here, I've further looked into this and can confirm your order was cancelled. I'm really sorry this has happened this was due to an error on our side as we aren't able to fulfil orders due to stock levels. I would like to offer you a £15 payment voucher for the inconvenience this has caused you. Please let me know if you would like to accept this offer."

I'm pretty furious- not least because the products I ordered are still being advertised as available on their website, albeit at a much higher price (I took pictures this morning just in case). So clearly they're delivering products to other people, just not me. I got my refund through this morning. I do not feel £15 will cut it here- I've been really messed around. Do I have any legal recourse? :mad:

Fosterdog

None at all, accept the £15 goodwill gesture voucher and move on

Warwick_Hunt

Given the contract is not formed until the goods are dispatched coming out of the deal £15 up is more than fair.

Oakdene

You're £15 better off than you started, move on.

charlielab

Surely it's not right that they can fail to fill my order but can fill identical, more lucrative offers at the exact same time?

Fosterdog

charlielab wrote: »

Surely it's not right that they can fail to fill my order but can fill identical, more lucrative offers at the exact same time?

No contract exists until they agree to it and dispatch the goods (based on their T&Cs) as the item was never dispatched they can choose whether or not to accept your offer to buy the items. In your case for whatever reason they have chosen not to go ahead with the order but to cancel it instead.

Usually with these sorts of deals they buy in a set amount at a lower price in order to offer it at a lower price. If they have now run out of those they will have to pay their suppliers more for the ones currently for sale and would likely lose money on the sale if they were to fulfil your order at the lower price.

charlielab

Thank you. This is the first time I have actually understood what might have happened in a way that doesn't fill me with white hot self-righteous rage. I'll take my £15 voucher!

MataNui

Unfortunately this now seems to be the standard practice for almost all the big players online business sales. Advertise low prices, fulfill only a small number of orders at those prices then cancel the rest with some BS excuse about being out of stock and relist at a higher price.

Its sharp, its dishonest, its legal and its now the new norm in online sales.

RockersWAG

I had almost the exact same experience with the Currys PC World deal on a KitchenAid Artisan stand mixer.
It was clearly an end of line product (as in the colour had been discontinued), as it was the only one of all the colours with such a big discount but even though I knew this would likely be the case, as the Currys website showed it has being in stock (and continued to show as in stock into the Saturday before the product disappeared completely from the Currys website), I was confident that Currys had enough stock in to fulfill my order.
Currys must have known they would not get in any more stock in addition to their existing number, as this same colour of mixer was the only one with such a big discount with several other online retailers too.
Call me a cynic but I find it highly suspicious that I had several emails over the 10-12 days after my order on Black Friday assuring me they would be sending my order as soon as they had it back in stock, only to wait until November (and the weekend banking limitations) were well and truly passed before issuing me with an automatic refund on 6th December because they 'couldn't fulfill' the order.
I told the customer service operator I spoke to when I called to complain about how they had gone about it that I strongly suspected Currys was fully aware it would get no more stock than it already had, knowingly oversold the product online and then fobbed off the customers who bought with enough reassurances over the next few days that we wouldn't ask for our money back before December.
That meant Currys could pocket the month-end interest on our cash while it sat in their bank until November was over, meaning they could profit despite the refund. Funnily enough, he became rather uncomfortable and told me he couldn't comment on the business side of Currys PC World!
Shoddy and I would even say dishonest service from Currys PC World. I won't be buying from them again.

Fosterdog

RockersWAG wrote: »

I had almost the exact same experience with the Currys PC World deal on a KitchenAid Artisan stand mixer.
It was clearly an end of line product (as in the colour had been discontinued), as it was the only one of all the colours with such a big discount but even though I knew this would likely be the case, as the Currys website showed it has being in stock (and continued to show as in stock into the Saturday before the product disappeared completely from the Currys website), I was confident that Currys had enough stock in to fulfill my order.
Currys must have known they would not get in any more stock in addition to their existing number, as this same colour of mixer was the only one with such a big discount with several other online retailers too.
Call me a cynic but I find it highly suspicious that I had several emails over the 10-12 days after my order on Black Friday assuring me they would be sending my order as soon as they had it back in stock, only to wait until November (and the weekend banking limitations) were well and truly passed before issuing me with an automatic refund on 6th December because they 'couldn't fulfill' the order.
I told the customer service operator I spoke to when I called to complain about how they had gone about it that I strongly suspected Currys was fully aware it would get no more stock than it already had, knowingly oversold the product online and then fobbed off the customers who bought with enough reassurances over the next few days that we wouldn't ask for our money back before December.
That meant Currys could pocket the month-end interest on our cash while it sat in their bank until November was over, meaning they could profit despite the refund. Funnily enough, he became rather uncomfortable and told me he couldn't comment on the business side of Currys PC World!
Shoddy and I would even say dishonest service from Currys PC World. I won't be buying from them again.

Yes I’m sure they did it to keep the interest which would be less than £5 and chose to have to tie up a phone line and pay a member of staff to deal with it, plus any transaction processing fees they may have. Losing money is clearly the main objective in business.;)

Ganga

charlielab wrote: »

Thank you. This is the first time I have actually understood what might have happened in a way that doesn't fill me with white hot self-righteous rage. I'll take my £15 voucher!

Pleased is was not something serious then:rotfl::rotfl: