Offers which don't exist being shown to you as you browse

Guss

Recently while trying to buy a pair of cycling shoes I came across a deal offering cut price Shimano cycling shoes (SH-MT44 Shoe) which looked pretty good (link provided below). When I visited the merchant's website, 'Go Outdoors' a well known shop, I tried to buy them and of course there was the usual carrot...'Stock levels low'.

Anyway I proceeded but I was foiled by their website. When I clicked the Buy/Reserve button I'm taken to a page which gave me a total which includeed delivery (£4.95). Yet on the same page it states in a greyed out box, delivery is not available for this order!!! So why quote for delivery?? Even worse when I tried to choose the Free click & collect service it stated.....yes wait for it .....

Oh Blimey!
Unfortunately we can't prepare these item/s for this store. To continue you will need to remove one of these items or reduce the quantity.

Meaning they are not available at this store.

BUT it does this for every single store in the area the customer is based in (Oh and I tried Edinburgh, Cardiff & London as a base, just to see if it was stocked elsewhere). So how is anyone supposed to get these shoes? Why is this so frustrating for me you ask? Because whenever I browse the internet this deal keeps popping up offering me these wonderful enticements to their website and incidentally when I tried to avail of their other wonderful offers on shoes I got the same result. These offers do not exist and I'm sure I'm not the only one to have pointed this out to them.

When I referred this to West Sussex Trading Standard they weren't interested and sent me a stock reply below, doubt they even read my email to them.

WHAT DOES ONE DO??


REPLY FROM TRADING STANDARDS....
Dear Sir/Madam,
Thank you for submitting an email to West Sussex County Council Trading Standards Service. The information we receive via email is vital to us and is used to help us target our resources effectively in order to protect residents and businesses.

Please note that if you wish to obtain advice in relation to the reported matter, for example in respect of a consumer complaint relating to problems encountered with goods or services that you have purchased, then you will need to contact Citizens Advice Consumer Service on 03454 04 05 06 or online via this link:- Citizens Advice Consumer Query form

We are very keen to encourage incident reporting. The summary below outlines the sort of information that we are interested in receiving. If you are aware of friends or colleagues whom you feel may also be in a position to supply relevant information to Trading Standards then please feel free to forward this email on to them.

Reporting information to West Sussex County Council Trading Standards Service
Activities that we are particularly interested in receiving information reports about include:-
Traders involved in the supply of illicit tobacco and alcohol (e.g. counterfeits, non-duty paid, tobacco products with foreign language/missing health warnings, the sale of single cigarettes, etc.)
Traders engaged in cold calling on vulnerable residents to offer home improvement services such as gardening, roofing and driveway work etc.
Home working scams
Traders exploiting vulnerable residents by, for example, selling them over priced or misdescribed goods or services
Traders supplying age restricted products e.g., knives, fireworks, tobacco or alcohol to young persons
Illegal money lending activity, i.e., ‘loan sharking’
Scam mail targeting residents (e.g. lottery win letters)
The supply of counterfeit goods
Food and drink fraud including fish or animal species substitution (e.g., cheap white fish sold as Cod) or false claims regarding place of origin, etc.
If you have knowledge of any suspected perpetrators or potential victims of these kinds of activities, or communities being affected, then your information can be reported to us by completing our Incident Report Form at https://www.westsussex.gov.uk/tsreport
Many thanks for your assistance

shaun_from_Africa

Try submitting a complaint to the Advertising Standards agency:

https://www.asa.org.uk/make-a-complaint.html

They accept complaints about online advertising so you may have more luck with them.

The_Rainmaker

Guss wrote: »

WHAT DOES ONE DO??

Shrug one's shoulders and carry on with your life.

JReacher1

I have worked for a retailer and a complaint through ASA is the way to go as this will be dealt with properly by them.

The main reason this happens is that retailers send feeds to third parties e.g. google, facebook etc. with their latest products and pricing information. This is not real time and can be up to 24 hours out of date. As a result when you click on these ad's you will often find that the information is out of date and the product is out of stock (especially if the price is good).

On the plus side retailers are charged by google/facebook etc for each click on the ad so it is in the retailers interest to ensure these products are available.

davidmcn

Guss wrote: »

WHAT DOES ONE DO??

What you've done i.e. report it to the relevant authorities and leave them to decide whether to pursue it. These regulations don't create any rights in your favour.

Guss

Thank you to everyone who has replied and yes the ASA sounds like what I should have gone for in the first place.

Incidentally this was Go Outdoors reply....

Thank you for your reply.

I have looked into this for you and I can see that there are only one pair of these shoe's left in that size in the whole company, these shoe's are in the S!!!!horpe store.

Unfortunately these items would only be available if you were to collect them from this store.

Please accept my apologies for the confusion with this.

If you need any further information then please do not hesitate to contact me and I will be happy to assist.

Kind regards,
Jordan!,
Go Outdoors! Customer Care Team.

Incidentally this same thing happened with a couple of other products they had on offer.


Honestly you couldn't make it up!!


P.S. Why is

s c u n t h o r p e

a targeted word on MSE?

davidmcn

Guss wrote: »

P.S. Why is a targeted word on MSE?

Because it contains a rude word. There's a Wikipedia article explaining, which I can't link to for the same reason... See also discussions about turning off the water supply to your house at the stop !!!!.

ceredigion

Guss wrote: »

WHAT DOES ONE DO??

One gets a pear of Bont's from a proper cycling shop.

Guss

davidmcn wrote: »

... See also discussions about turning off the water supply to your house at the stop !!!!.

:rotfl:

... See also discussions about turning off the water supply to your house at the stop !!!!.