I won the knife lottery!

bodog said:
Ignore list. Just because something is legal doesn't make it right. OP did the right thing by trying to let them know and then accepted it when they saw their mistake. OP sounds like a decent person.
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The OP sounds like a VERY decent person. My point is not just what is legal, but what a business owner should ethically do. Honestly, had the owner of the business contacted the OP and said "Look, buddy, we made an error and fulfilling this order would really hurt us. Is there something we can do to work it out?" then I would have all the respect in the world for the seller. In fact, again from the perspective of a small business owner, that might be how I would handle it if i couldn't afford the hit. It's backing down, but it's admitting the error and doing the RIGHT thing (not just the legal thing). Simply canceling the order because
They said an "error" occured while processing my order.
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without further communication is a serious chump move. It's not owning the error at all.

If owning my mistakes and expecting accountability when others do the same is something that makes you want to put me on the ignore list, so be it. I can live with that.
 
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bodog said:
Ignore list. Just because something is legal doesn't make it right. OP did the right thing by trying to let them know and then accepted it when they saw their mistake. OP sounds like a decent person.
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This sounds like another angle on "is there such thing as an overpriced knife" debate- is there such thing as an UNDERPRICED knife, or UNFAIR deal? If you think that this situation is unfair, or "not right", then is there a moral imperative on the business, or do morals only go one way, to the consumer?

Zero
 
The OP's efforts and honesty is a Breath of fresh air, he did a good thing by calling them. I wonder if the dealer, after realizing the error, should have contacted him to offer a discount or some kind of credit for a future order to thank him. Not that the OP was looking for such credit.
 
Also I'm on board with the praise of OP.

As far as the cancelled order, I'm on the fence a tiny bit.

With 8 knives in two orders that was the natural outcome, regardless of business fundamentals.
 
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I have to agree, 1 or 2 they may have let slide. I'm not sure I could resist either though. I have found a few mistakes on a certain online selling service. Reversing the first two numbers of a price. I.e.: $41.00 goods at $14.00 and $71 @ $17. I was lucky enough to have to the prices honored but the prices were quickly fixed. I tried to make contact on the second one but, never got a response.
 
The loss on this to the store would likely have been taken out of an employees salary, whoever was in charge of entering the price of the items into the system or if it was a brick and mortar store possibly the clerk handling the transaction. Unless of course this price error could be blamed totally on a software glitch. I've occasionally worked retail and mistakes like this would have come back on somebody for sure. Kudos to the OP for letting them know about the error.
 
I have to look at it this way. Say I needed money and put one of my knives up for sale here. I post a $300 knife for sale at $30. Someone sees the obvious error, posts that they'll take it, calls my phone, my wife answers, and upon being questioned says that I don't usually make mistakes like that and the price seems right to her. Well, I catch the mistake, refund the money, say there was an error, and repost it for the correct price. Is that unethical for anyone to have taken the actions they took? No, not at all. I would appreciate the person calling to verify the price and if the person understood then so much the better. I'd be pretty pissed if the person expected me to take a gigantic loss due to a finger fudge when listing the price. That'd be unethical.
 
bodog said:
I have to look at it this way. Say I needed money and put one of my knives up for sale here. I post a $300 knife for sale at $30. Someone sees the obvious error, posts that they'll take it, calls my phone, my wife answers, and upon being questioned says that I don't usually make mistakes like that and the price seems right to her. Well, I catch the mistake, refund the money, say there was an error, and repost it for the correct price. Is that unethical for anyone to have taken the actions they took? No, not at all. I would appreciate the person calling to verify the price and if the person understood then so much the better. I'd be pretty pissed if the person expected me to take a gigantic loss due to a finger fudge when listing the price. That'd be unethical.
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That's how I look at it. The ethical argument has to work both ways. Some people will become irate when a seller won't honor a ridiculously mistaken price, yet they have no problem taking advantage of that person's mistake. It's like if I give a cashier a $10 bill, and they mistakenly think I've given them a $20 and give me change accordingly. I'm going to point out the mistake and return the extra money. This may not be an exact analogy of the situation in question, I guess, but I look at it in the same way. :thumbup:

edit to add: To be clear, if a seller makes a mistake on a price and goes ahead and honors it, that's cool too, but it should be totally up to them. My issue is with people feeling entitled to take advantage of said mistake, as though they are somehow "owed" the item at the mistakenly advertised price.
 
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tholiver said:
The loss on this to the store would likely have been taken out of an employees salary, whoever was in charge of entering the price of the items into the system or if it was a brick and mortar store possibly the clerk handling the transaction. Unless of course this price error could be blamed totally on a software glitch. I've occasionally worked retail and mistakes like this would have come back on somebody for sure. Kudos to the OP for letting them know about the error.
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That's an illegal practice these days I think, unless it's a criminal act.

I don't think criminally stupid counts though.
 
If this is the mega-online-store I'm thinking it is, then this is fairly standard practice. It's essentially price-fishing. With a little bit of google-fu you'll find hundreds of complaints about both the main store and third party sellers listing ridiculous prices, canceling orders, and re-pricing the items to reflect the perceived demand when the product goes "hot."

Additionally, it's in the company's policy reserving the right to cancel an order should the wrong price be listed. They function contractually only when the item itself is shipped. They extend this to third party sellers as well.

If it ain't the company I'm thinking it is, I still wouldn't be surprised that they have a similar policy.

Props to the OP for the high integrity. :thumbup:
 
Most print ads I've seen have a disclaimer that they don't have to honor a mistake made by the printer, I would assume the website has the same disclaimer somewhere in tiny text, and by ordering or using the site the user agrees to those terms. (Whether they realize it or not.)
 
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