Buy.com class action-Hitachi fiasco. Do not delete

[shamu]

The way I see it, isn't a class action suit that has won paving the way for individuals who aren't in the class action to win against them? Those who keep saying don't sue buy.com, it's too late, sounds like they already agreed to shell out 500 grand or so. I too like buy.com and wish it didn't happen to them, but egghead on the other hand, I'd love to see sued, mostly because my dealings with them in the past.

 

[Hossenfeffer]

I wouldn't mind seeing some sort of action against egghead. Not as much for the ram as for the questionable customer service policies. They charged the credit cards at a given price, then halted the orders, refunded the charges, etc. It's just not good business. Perhaps some sort of action could remind them of how important it is to have proven and effective safeguards against such mistakes.

Not only that, but the difference in the treatment between customers is borderline appalling. I mean... ewww. Heh. In some cases, it's not a question of whether or not I see the ram, but I want to be absolutely sure that when I deal with a merchant, I get exceptional customer service. I don't appreciate crude form letter order cancellations, charges and refunds, etc.

 

[Hossenfeffer]

Hehe. Burn, baby burn

 

[Harvey]

Ah, yes... The famous BC Hitaci monitor event. I remember it well.

I'm glad the plaintiff's finally won. I posted at the time that it would take awhile and that what each person recovered could be small, because each person's loss was only around $400 per monitor. I also posted that I thought that a better course would be for each buyer to file a Small Claims action in their own home town.

FWIW, I know that most (if not all) of those who actually filed such an action and served notice got a decent settlement from BC. Best of all, all those claims were settled over a year ago.

Assuming your cause is just, class action suits are a better tool when each claimant's damages are a lot larger than a typical Small Claims action. When attorneys take on a case like this, they are allowed to reclaim all of their costs and their fees off the top before any money is distributed to the claimants. I will be interested in knowing how much of that $575.000 is left to be distributed to the parties.

 

[Quick6]

Why Buy.com they all might struggle but hey that's buisness don't start what you can't finish. People should do their job and do it right. damN lazy Americans . Vote Gore RA RA RA.

 

[Slacker]

Fun is Fun, DONE is DONE.

The e-mail is telling folks what has already been decided, it is not a matter of whether or not to sue, they have already been sued.

Buy.Com does seem to be a completely different company now but the monitor deal was not the only foul up, it wasnt even the biggest in terms of $$$ and # of customers involved.

 

[Lark888]

The issue with buy.com was associated with their continued and pervasive practice at that time of charging people for products first and then 'maybe' shipping later. There were a number of these pricing errors that allowed buy.com to rack up a lot of cash to fund their business at our expense (mine included). There was a darn good reason that they were taken to task over the monitors and, indeed, lost in court.

Although I never did receive my monitor, I was satisfied that Buy.com was forced to change their pay now, ship later maybe, policy. Without the law suits and small claims, I am confident that they would not have killed this cash cow until they were drummed out of business. In this case, I think buy.com is a better and more profitable company because of these actions.

I have never had trouble with a pricing error that was corrected before my money was taken, and gladly do business with companies that are careful with their customers. Been a long time since I've been in a buy.com thread..... wonder where Caroline is?

Lark

 

[nippyjun]

Does anyone know how many people ordered those monitors?

 

[Slacker]

1,000 to 1,300 monitors many people ordered more than one.

 

[T2T III]

Just a few questions: Will only those who joined the class-action lawsuit receive the payment? Or, will this occur for everyone who purchased a monitor and then was rejected? Could the courts request the logs for all purchasers and require a payment to be made?

Just when I was able to put this behind me (I was a purchaser of 2 monitors), this thing kicks up again.

 

[StanFL]

I would probably have a better case against Egghead in the RAM fiasco than most. Not only did they accept the order and charge me (debited right out of checking account) but when the cancelled the orders they somehow left mine active. I let it ride for over a week, hoping it might ship even though I knew the odds were slim to none. It was on the 8 or 9th day after placing the order I finally called egghead and inquired why an order I had placed over a week ago had not shipped. After being placed on hold a couple of times I was informed of the pricing error and that the order was being cancelled and the charge credited back. If I had not called them they would likely STILL be holding my money.

Having said all that, if some class action is started against Egghead I would not participate. Neither will I be taking them to small claims court. It was a mistake on their part, end of story. If I was held monetarily accountable for every mistake I ever made I'd be filing bankruptcy daily

For all those consciousless folks looking for something for nothing after attempting to pay next to nothing for something all I can say is "Get a life".

 

[KBtrade]

StanFL, I couldn't agree with you more...well said.

 

[Fiddy]

I've never had a problem with Buy.com Back when they charged your card before they shipped, I would just call up and see if was in stock, If it wasn't, I would buy it somewhere else. They have always shipped on or before they said they would. Got alot of good deals with their free shipping and coupons. I think to sue someone and back them against the wall for a TYPO is chicken shlt. Be forewarned, we will pay for this in the long run, not Buy.com.




OOPS I had a typo in the message. I thought that I had better fix it before I got SUED!

 

[Skooch]

I all have to say is "boohoo!" poor multi-million dollar company buy com wont be able to buy coffee for a week because of the lawsuit.





P.S. I too am one of the orginal "WMC"
P.P.S. I also put this behind me over a year ago and thought it was over.

 

[Blade Runner]

Most of you responding to this post have no idea what went on. Buy.com finaly sold the monitors for that price, but not first come first serve. They came up with some weird way of deciding who got one. Damn right they should be sued. So if you were not here... Don't be judging us now...

 

[Midnight Rambler]

Funny how it's OK for the Egghead DRAM schemers to get "theirs", but not OK for the people screwed by BUY.CON to get some compensation ...

 

[WoundedWallet]

Could someone verify if what I understood is right?

This letter says that unless you send an email to marlinsaltzman.com stating that you wish to 'opt out' of the settlement, and the judge agrees with the settlement, then every credit card address that ordered the monitor will receive an equal share of the settlement. That is regardless of the credit card holder even knowing there was such a class action.

So if I'm right that means that I have to do something in order to NOT receive near $100 in the mail. That's a tough one to beat.

Lets see, if a lotta people write down an email choosing to opt out of the settlement, that means that those that choose to stay will get more. Hmmm...

COME ON GUYS!!!! Lets SAVE BUYCOM! OPT OUT of this immoral settlement. Where will we get our deals once their lovely stock dives below a buck a piece? Don't let buycom be another, hehe, Value America.

Boy, things have really changed in this last two years haven't they?

 

[pjs]

Oh! go stoke your own lobes!

Paul

 

[nippyjun]

Please opt out so that the pie can be divided among less people. Sure that makes sense.

 

[Tessai]

I remember this issue coming up a long time ago. I did not take part in the deal (no CC ;_; ). I do think however, that buy.com was wrong for charging people for the monitors and then playing pull-the-magic-number-out-of-the-hat to see who would get the monitors that they could "afford" to ship at the misprinted price. If they realized that they fragged up their prices, they should have tried to do something about it before it got out of hand. This is almost as bad as the $50 of $50.01 fiasco that happened a while ago. Yes, it was bad for people to take advantage of the coupon. Yes, they should expect to get their orders cancelled. However, buy.com should have more sense than to put a coupon code on their website without running it through tests on non-production machines. I happen to be a network admin for a local high school, and if I ever put out a program for my users that was not tested and had massive bugs, believe me, I would get my butt tossed in the flame. Buy.com saw this lawsuit coming and that's why they settled. In the case of Egghead... I ordered a Creative Labs Geforce2 from them with overnight shipping. When I found the card would not be shipped for a week, I called them to cancel the order. They said not to accept the package. My question was: If the damn card hadn't left the warehouse, how come they couldn't just refund my CC? I ended up with 2 Geforce cards, and Egghead is not willing to pay for the shipping of the cancelled card. So now I have to find some way to get rid of it because I can't afford to have it around (the card was for a friend's machine that I was building for him). Buy.com has learned a valuable lesson (heh, it even has a pricetag) and Egghead.com will learn theirs soon enough. This buy.com bit was almost, if not worse, than the ubid.com P3 scandal. All of the online stores are learning that they better check that they are crossing all of their T's and dotting all of their I's. If they don't, they might lose a day's worth of profit.

Tessai

 

[Nutiket]

As one of the people that was flown out to california to discuss this issue with CEO Greg Hawkins, I can definitely tell you that everything that Buy.com promised us that day has come true, and their service and policies have indeed improved. They still aren't perfect, and do need more work, but much improvement has taken place.

For all your morons that stated, "don't sue buy.com, they are a good company". They have allready been sued, monetary damage is done, it took a year and a half to finally settle, but it start back in March of 99. And since then, buy.com has become the respectable company which you now love. It was the Wounded Monitor Children who brought about the change of their policies, or atleast pointed out the shortcomings of the company. If we had not taken action, buy.com might still be as bad as they were 2 years ago. That being said, I don't think anyone here should be blamed for "Killing a company", more than likely we kept them alive by showing them how to heal themselves. I also have noticed that other e-commerce sites have taken their lead. Its the awareness that we create, which improves things for other customers.

As for the lawsuit, I had no idea that was still going on, I had long since forgotten it. I don't think $575,000 is going to drive Buy.com out of business. Its possible that they have insurance to cover it, or even if not, they have enough money from stocks to support it. My guess is that they lose several times that each year by selling below cost, and they haven't run out of investors yet.

Personally I am impressed with the amount of change and awareness that this issue has created, and what power we as a community have to bring about change. This is the pioneer times of e-commerce, companies will rise and fall, and the strong will survive, but customer service and policy precedent will be set now, at the beginning, and its worth the failure of a few companies, to establish a proper way of doing business over the net.


Nutiket
Former webmaster of buycrap.com

 

[spec411]

I encourage EVERYONE on this deals forum to spend a few minutes reading the posts contained herein, there is a TON of useful knowledge, regarding consumer protection, lawyers, etc...

As a soon-to-be lawyer (law school graduate) I must disagree that lawyers are not SCUM..its our BILLS that are scum...many of us are actually quite nice and friendly people. Yes, we know the law, we worked VERY hard to learn it and use it. We do have high fees. However, please compare:

$85 / hour for a mechanic with virtually no education
(and most are incompetent but thats another story)
$110 for an electrician
$130 for a copier repairman
$150-300/hr for a web programmer/computer consultant

Im sure we could've all decided not to go to 7+ years of secondary schooling and chosen one of the aforementioned professions, but we didnt. Often, we do NOT get paid if we dont achieve a favorable result. Since when did you go to your mechanic with a strange problem, and he told you, "if this doesnt fix the problem, you dont have to pay for the repair?" Nope, you have to pay for the repair, and any additional repairs until the problem is tracked down.

Lawyers are here, not flooding the newpapers and billboards and internet trying to get your business. YOU come to us with a problem and we accept the challenge of fighting for YOUR best interests, not ours. Often times we recommend alternatives which are FAR less costly than pursuing litigation. There are also MANY attorneys earning less than $40,000 a year working for public interest, to promote JUSTICE in our country. It is rarely the case where an attorney does only a small amount of work and reaps a HUGE fee---often thousands of hours are spent, consuming 90+ hour work weeks.

With regard to buy.com and retailers, As we have seen with all these places by deal-hunting, many are less than happy to honor prices, price-matches, etc. ONLY when you threaten or initiate legal action do these businesses respond. If this litigation HAD NOT been initiated, buy.com STILL would be charging your credit cards and shipping whenever they felt like it! Sure they would have had customer complaints, but what makes a business act is to hit them in their POCKET. You cannot "force" a business to "act right". But you can punish them financially if they dont.


My question for everyone - With Staples charging full price for orders without obtaining authorization, X.com removing credit lines causing bounced checks without prior notice, and the other horror stories, are we to just sit here at this forum and complain? NO. We need to not only stand up for OUR rights under the law, but also help ensure FUTURE violations do not occur. We can email x.com, staples, etc. all we want, and talk to their CSR's, and what do you think that is REALLY going to accomplish? Once a CSR hangs up with you, the issue is dead. Once the email is deleted, the issue is dead.

Its up to attorneys to pursue these matters, which you might not be able to adequately pursue yourself. We went through a great deal to learn the law and apply it to real-life situations. You can always choose to pursue a matter in small claims court, but the reality is you have jobs of your own, and cannot take the time necessary to pursue the matters we are hired to handle. Often times the work is tough and VERY boring, must to reach a favorable result, the work MUST be done. We wish we could just walk up to the judge and say "see what buy.com did- that was wrong and we should get money for it". Unfortunately "saying" that by means of legal proof and argument is a VERY complex and time-consuming process.

As for lawyers being money-sucking scum? Im 25, and I havent earned more than $5000 in ANY year - I have been going to school for 21 CONSECUTIVE YEARS and I make more on eb@y than I have in a law office. There's a reason im here hunting for deals! Many in the tech fields are making more than six figures by the time they are 21 or 22. Do Cisco, AMD, etc SUCK because they pay that much? You pay these employee's salaries when you buy their companies' products.

If companies would be "ethically responsible" and change their policies when they see unhappy customers, there would be NO NEED FOR LAWYERS. But we deal in reality, and the reality is that many businesses ONLY respond to legal action.

 

[Rab]

<< Do Cisco, AMD, etc SUCK because they pay that much? >>



Maybe someone here should e-mail those greedy ferengi and demand that they give back their ill-gotten wages. Yeah, that'd show them!

$5.15 an hour is plenty for all non-republicans.

 

[Blessed]

spec411, that was well thought out and I agree with you totally. I am one of those that did not recieve a monitor from buy.com. I have purchased WAY TOOOO many things from them since then because their service has greatly improved since feb '99. I love buy.com, but I'll be more than happy to take money from them through this class action.

Money is money... and it'll help pay for law school next year.

 

[ShoNnuff]

&quot;$85 / hour for a mechanic with virtually no education
(and most are incompetent but thats another story)
$110 for an electrician
$130 for a copier repairman
$150-300/hr for a web programmer/computer consultant&quot;



holy cow batman!
I think you had better do some comparison shopping.

Mechanic $55/hr
Electrician $30/hr
I know nothing about how much a copier repairman charges
Computer consultant $55/hr

I have had to endure more school than you to receive my 2 B.S. degrees. I work in the technology field and I make no where near the money you had mentioned.