Komplett Web mistake is "commercial suicide"

[lokem]

A NUMBER OF PEOPLE caught German site Komplett short today by ordering DRAM at a fantastically cheap price, having their credit cards charged before the Web site realised it had messed up.

The Web site received an "incredible" number of orders from carpetbaggers capitalising on its cheap DRAM and had to send out a letter this morning apologizing for the mistake, as it charged £13 for a 512MB module.

And the firm might go bust, with people losing pensions and goodness what else because of the error, it has emerged.

...

Said the site in a letter to people who ordered the cheapo DRAM this morning:

"Dear Sir,

This email is in reference to your recent order with Komplett for a 512Mb RAM module, priced at £13.00

"This item was subject to a gross human error that resulted in the price offered being set at £82.00 LESS than its cost to us.

"The person responsible has been hung, drawn and well and truly quartered. His parking space has been given over to the lunch lady and pension distributed among our warehouse staff.

Full article:
http://www.theinquirer.net/20030221.htm

Very, very painful....

 

[boeingfixer]

So are they saying they indeed honored the price ? I think British Airways did the same thing with Concorde tickets selling them for $25. When they realized the mistake, they said "sorry" and caused such an uproar, they ended up honoring all the tix....its only fair.

 

[lokem]

Originally posted by boeingfixer
So are they saying they indeed honored the price ? I think British Airways did the same thing with Concorde tickets selling them for $25. When they realized the mistake, they said "sorry" and caused such an uproar, they ended up honoring all the tix....its only fair.

Not exactly. They cancelled the purchases but gave the buyers some discount on re-buying the same item. I'm sure there will be a lot of stuff going on....

 

[Arris]

It depends on the price difference.
If its 13 instead of 130 (which is an obvious error) then the company are less likely to honour the price or be forced to honour it by law (in the UK anyway). More and more of these errors are creeping up. Not that long ago Best Buy had pre-order for the GF4 Ti4600 at a price which was at least half the price. I don't think they honoured it as they sent out an email saying that all orders were cancelled sorry for the inconvenience. Also more recently I posted that Dabs.co.uk put the Xbox with a games bundle for £260 instead of £400, and they ended up honouring this price for the few people who had ordered it at that price.

 

[lokem]

Originally posted by Arris
It depends on the price difference.
If its 13 instead of 130 (which is an obvious error) then the company are less likely to honour the price or be forced to honour it by law (in the UK anyway). More and more of these errors are creeping up. Not that long ago Best Buy had pre-order for the GF4 Ti4600 at a price which was at least half the price. I don't think they honoured it as they sent out an email saying that all orders were cancelled sorry for the inconvenience. Also more recently I posted that Dabs.co.uk put the Xbox with a games bundle for £260 instead of £400, and they ended up honouring this price for the few people who had ordered it at that price.

They didn't say how much the actual price is. Considering the fact that the mistake could and would take down the entire company (what they claimed) it is understandable that they do not honour the price.