I went to the Circuit City web site on Thanksgiving Thursday after hearing about their Friday sale on Television. The Unadvertised Friday 6 Hour Sale had a television I was interested in shown on that site with various item. The site said there item were 40% off or more and the item I was interested in was marked $1799.00.
This page said the sale started at 5 AM Friday morning and it also said Shop Online or In Store. The links to the items on that page were not active until Friday morning. When I clicked on the item Friday morning at 5AM, a note said put the item in my shopping cart in order to see the price.
The price turned out to be 40% off the displayed price so I decided to keep it in my cart and purchase it. I left it in my cart and went to checkout. The nest step verified my personal info and my shipping preference and then asked me to continue, I clicked continue and it said Due to technical difficulties we were unable to add the item to your shopping cart.
I went back to the first page of the sale items and started over several times, it always ended the same way. I tried to call the contact number but it was not in operation at that time in the morning. I gave up and went back to bed at about 6AM. Later that morning when I got back up at about 9AM, I went to try to purchase the item again, after it displayed the price; a note was displayed that said This Item Must Be Purchased in a Store and it showed that the item was in stock in nearest Circuit City stores.
I was extremely upset. It was much too late to get to store and of course people had lined up for shopping many hours before the store opened, and I let my son use my car for other early morning shopping.
I wrote a complaint to Circuit City saying the promotion said Shop Online or In Store and then they changed it to Shop In Store. This was a deception, Circuit City responded by writing:
If an item is out of stock for shipping and express pickup, it will be Automatically removed from the shopping cart at the time of checkout.
When you add the product to the shopping cart, you need to verify it is available for shipping or express pickup. Circuitcity.com supports over a billion dollars worth of inventory. After selecting "checkout"
online, you will be able to view an item's in-store, direct ship, and home delivery availability.
This was no help and did not address why later during the sale the note saying the item could only be purchased in store. Further, the site indicated that it was in plentiful supply according to their own web site.
They responded by send me a link to the item at it's typical sale price of $1299.00.
Circuit City used this deception to get me to but their item at their usual price.
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