Disturbing new Egghead.com policies

[Wag]

Not exactly a hot deal, but since we deal with Egghead so much and have been talking alot about pricing errors, I found this fairly topical.

Someone was talking on gotapex about the failed ram deal at egghead.com and they mentioned Egghead has revised their RMA policy.

I went over to egghead and lo and behold, this is what it states:

We further reserve the right to cancel a sale or to issue a Return Merchandise Authorization (RMA) for auction merchandise, including Surplus goods, that are posted in error, unexpectedly out of stock, does not conform to specifications, or was shipped in error.

I find this very disturbing and hope some government agency takes a close look at this. Do they honestly think they can RMA something that was shipped because of their mistake? What happens if they sell you something and decided they meant to sell it for $80 instead of $70? What if they find customers willing to spend more? How far does it go?

Now, I'm not just griping because I didn't get my RAM. I (like most of us) realized it was an error and decided to chance it, but this is just despicable and I will have nothing to do with them ever again.

 

[rahvin]

They can RMA it all they want, you don't ship it back and they can't do a damn thing.

 

[Dantzig]

Once it arrives at your house, it's yours. They can't do anything to get it back.

 

[mccall]

They (and other retailers) can and will place restrictions in their policies. That does not necessarily make them legal or enforcable.

RMA numbers, by definition, are requested by consumers in order to return merchandise. They are not issued by retailers in order to compel such a return.

Once the item is sold to you for a given price, and shipped, the item is yours. They can ask for its return, hell, they can even demand its return. That does not necessarily compel you to return the item.

Failure to return the item in question would probably result in nothing more than a bothersome "bigfoot" letter. They would have no legal grounds to compel such a return, and they (or their legal department) know that. That wouldn't stop them from asking or demanding its return and threatening legal action.

Once the item is billed to your credit card and in your possession it's yours to keep, no matter what they would try to convince you of otherwise.

 

[Siamskunk]

That sucks!!!
what if we win an auction for a labtop that says PIII 600 and then find out later that it was Cel600 after we receive it............then they can deny to issue RMA.
What an A$$$$Hole..............

 

[TheBigZ]

<< We further reserve the right to cancel a sale or to issue a Return Merchandise Authorization (RMA) for auction merchandise, including Surplus goods, that are posted in error, unexpectedly out of stock, does not conform to specifications, or was shipped in error. >>



I am reading that differently. I am reading that to mean they reserve the right to (meaning also perhaps NOT to?) issue an RMA. In other words, I think they're saying they reserve the right to not issue an RMA if the item was posted in error. Like the 10 pack of motherboards deal a few weeks back... they could have refused to RMA the single motherboard that people received instead of the 10pack of motherboards.

But as someone said earlier, you can;t put things in a disclaimer that are in violation of law. I don't know what make online stores think they should be able to get away with things that a b&amp;m store cannot. Someone will jerk a knot in them one of these days.

 

[Angrymarshmello]

Thanks to the @$$holes who ordered about 50 sticks of RAM. Thanks for ruining good online stores guys.

 

[Souka]

The first batch of ram I ordered was send UPS ground....after realizing the deal, I put a larger order(no, not 50 sticks, not even close) in to be send Overnight Express.

Anyhow, the UPS ground made it out, even had a tracking number. Unfortunately, Egghead got it turned arround in the North Bay Hub, CA. Felt sad as I watched it went back... Guess they put out a &quot;recall&quot; to UPS. Maybe if I had Overnighted the order it would have made it...who knows.

Such is life. :|

 

[w3b]

online retailers are not different from b&amp;m stores. at least according to FTC.

 

[Rab]

This was posted to another messageboard, but I believe it confirms your suspicions Souka. I've found the whole situation to be not unlike the Amazon.com toys fiasco not too long ago, with preferential treatment to some clients and the wholesale dismissal of others.

Regarding reposting &amp; the privacy of the individual involved.

1. It has been delivered to the residence.
2. The UPS tracking number does not give an address.
3. All this information was posted to a public messageboard.
(Public domain) Also, the author has chosen not to edit his message, but to leave the information available on the board even after being warned. (He didn't care.)

---
UPS tracking # 1Z1836780324915478, a shipment of 3 sticks.


The confirmation notice -


XXXX XXXX,

We would like you to know that we shipped the item(s) you ordered on
Sep 25, 2000 at 06:21 AM. Please allow 12 hours for the tracking
information to be available on the shipper's website.

Order number: 19455834*
---------------------------------------------------
Quantity Item
3 32x64-8 256mb Sync Pc100 168pinmem3.3v 100mhz Dimm


* If this is a partial shipment, your other items will ship
separately, as soon as they?re available, and tracking information
will be e-mailed to you. Despite the separate shipments, rest assured
that your total shipping charges for this order will not exceed the
amount we originally promised.

This shipment was sent to:

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXAVE
GADSDEN
AL
35904

Via UPSN
Tracking number: 1Z1836780324915478

For additional information about this shipment, please go to

http://www.egghead.com/custserv/order_lu.htm

Should you have any questions or problems when you receive your order,
please contact us at:

http://www.egghead.com/helpinfo/help_page.htm

Thank you for shopping with Egghead.com, and we hope to see you again
soon.

The Egghead.com Team

For Customer Service, visit
http://www.egghead.com/helpinfo/help_page.htm
Please do not respond directly to this e-mail
---

As you may note, the shipment was sent after Egghead's mass cancellations took place. Take it as you will, but it does tend to point out Egghead's divergent and fairly hypocritical ways of dealing with their customer base.

$50 GC's here, a shipment of ram there, and cancellations for the rest.

I just wish they'd invest in some proofreaders, instead of choosing the deny everything route.

-Rab
BTW - For those of you ready to scream, troll troll, try considering a less cynical viewpoint.

 

[cmatthes1]

in response to recieving items in error. I ordered a pair of the Pro Media Klipsch THX certified speakers. I got them about a week later, then two days later I got another pair. They sent me an e-mail saying, to send them back to avoid &quot;unessecary charges&quot;. Sold the other pair on auction, of course they never charged me for them.

 

[BigDog2k]

You the consumer are in NO WAY obligated to return merchandise that has been delivered to you. This means that if they deliver it to you, it's yours. However, the the 10 pack MB case, if you have a receipt that says you bought 10 mb's and they only sent you one, I would argue that with your credit card company

my 2cents

 

[Wag]

I think folks are missing my point. I'm not disputing that it's not possible for Egghead to RMA an item they shipped in error.

What I am saying, is that they have to have awfully big balls to put something like that (which is clearly illegal) in their policy. I sincerely hope someone from some D.A.'s office gets a hold of them when they try and RMA something like this.

That's just sad. I wonder who Egghead's legal council is? They clearly need a new one.

 

[mikebill]

But you can't actually do anything just by what they said in their policy. That's more like a way to defer people from ordering those &quot;too good to be true&quot; items. I don;t think they will really do that if you have got your stuff.

 

[rahvin]

Wag,

Contrary to what you may think, they can put in their Terms of Service that you must be their love slave if they so desire. It doesn't make the condition enforceable under US law though. Anyone can write anything they want into something like that, the law then decides what is enforceable if it goes to court. They would be stupid to try to take something like that to court.

 

[Wag]

Well, by putting something illegal as their &quot;official policy&quot; what does that say about the company?

I never said I expected them to act on it. It just makes a statement about the company itself.

 

[agheno]

I'll applogize ahead of time because I don't remember the exact details of this story but it seems to relate to the cancelation of an item that is already shipped.

I read this article in some acredited online news site (such as msnbc or possibly the New York Times). In any case, this guy puchased an item and it was shipped to his house. But instead of the item he ordered, the company sent him a protoype for their next generation product and decided they wanted it back when they realized their mistake. Rather than contact the individual to retrieve their prototype, they had the NYPD raid this person's home and forcefully retrieve the prototype. This guy had no idea what was going on and when it was all over he decided to sue. I never found another article with the results of this case...

Whether it was legal or not, this company took their product back after the sale/shipping.

 

[NoFish4U]

I remember that too!!! What the heck was that all about again........damn...cant remember....that was a funny story too.

 

[Rab]

It was a new WebTv prototype.

-Rab

 

[Wag]

Yes, and it was Microsoft who sent him the item.

Talk about disturbing. Geez. Since when does the publicly funded NYPD work for Microsoft?

And even after all that the guy was nice enough to return it. He didn't have to. If that was me, and the police came to knock on my door, I'd say, &quot;Talk to my attourney,&quot;