News Komplett brands punters 'criminals' after pricing cock-up

From the Register:

Computer components etailer Komplett.co.uk has sparked a customer revolt after hurling insults at its punters.

One gobsmacked customer told The Register that Komplett has "branded me a criminal for taking them up on their offer to sell me a [graphics] card for £130 on their web site".

The argy-bargy started last week when Komplett advertised a Sapphire Radeon 9800pro 256Mb graphics card on its Web site for £130 (plus VAT). The product was also reportedly advertised at that price in a computer magazine.

Around 100 people jumped at the offer only to be told by Komplett that it was a mistake and should have cost nearer £400.

More here

Not the way to retain customers, but you can see their point. However, a more neutral apology letter (ala Amazon after the great iPAQ pricing cock-up) would have served them a lot better.

 

I don't see it as an obvious mistake. We are constantly bombarded by unbelievable offers, that seem too good to be true. My mail box is full of offers to make thousands of dollars every week from home (if I just send in the $20.00 fee for the starter pack). The other week a nice gentleman from the government of the Congo wanted my bank details so he could deposit $18million dollars in my account for a couple of weeks, after which I would be allowed to keep 10%.

It's so tough sorting out the genuine offers.

 

Very, very true GOO - if they'd just apologised then all would probably be well... It depends if they were silly enough to sell them the items at the advertised price though £130 compared to about £400 is a VERY obvious difference; even for computer n00bs who don't really know what it is, but still sell the item...

 

I have had to deal with komplett in the past, and when I emailed them to ask if they could refund my shipping (since I had payed extra (£8) for next day delivery and it had taken over a week) and i was basically told to **** off in not too dissimilar words to which I have just used. The language they used was very blunt and not very polite. I put this down to the person on the other end not having a very good grasp of english since the office is not in England. That was no excuse really but it explains the bluntness of there correspondence

 

thats interesting since I just ordered from them today.

If I have problems I'll post it in their section on the dvd forums, that should get it resolved quickly

 

Well i actually have a good story about komplett

On thier website they had the new Durons fsb quoted as 200mhz, where in fact they are 266mhz. So i sent them a nice email telling them of this problem and i recieved a nice email thanking me with discounts off my next order Just processing it and will find out how much i get off

 

I've always found komplett to be great.

My first ever online purchase was with them and I was informed what was going on with my order with every step of the way.

The same has happened with all subsequent orders.

*n

 

Komplett charged me twice for one item - what more can I say. They are unprofessional. Simply unprofessional

 

The problem with online retailers making mistakes is as soon as one person spots it they put it in a place like this and get loads of orders, last time ebuyer advertised their 250gb hdd for £40 I saw orders from 10 people totaling 25 drives within an hour.

To be honest to call people criminals is very harsh, maybe they should be more careful.

 

I would of been happy with a nice letter aka Amazon-style... but this took the p*ss.

Also they put EVERYONE'S emails address's in the CC: so now everyone who recieved the email has my email. Not good practice.

 

I believe you can sue them because of that - its a flimsy reason but its legit:

Any data controller (any person who manages/holds data about another person) may not distribute personal details about the person. IE. they cannot tell others your email address, IE. you have grounds to make them p*ss themselves.

send them an email and see what happens.

 

It's being done already. There's a whole group of people who are getting together to do this. Got Watchdog on 'em too.

 

good

 

well i ordered one for the discount price so did a couple of other guys in the old ocs-ut clan. there is a forum setup and alot of the guys in there are pretty damn serious about getting there cards.