On Sunday June 29th Target advertised the wii Fit in it's newspaper flyer but the sales staff in the electronics department confirmed they had never received the item in the store and didn't know when they would get any in. (I have the salesperson's name I spoke with).
I spoke to the store manager (I also have her name) and before I had told her I had already confirmed there were no wii Fits avaialbel for sale at the time the advertisement ran she indicated "well, we only got a few of the itme in and they went quickly". I then told her I had already spoken with the electronics department and they had told me the store never had the item. The manager then backtracked and said well we didn't have any in so if we didn't get any in on Sunday morning then we didn't have any. I said this would be a very easy thing to confirm because with computerized inventory systems, the status on the availability of the item should be readily accessible. I said I felt this was an unfair business practice to advertise an item you do not have in the store (especially in light of gas being $5 a gallon - it now cost me about $5 to run to the local Target store). The manager basically said they don't have any control over the weekly ad, what is advertised, or the in store inventory at the time the ad is run - that corporate is reponsible for that. I clarified this statement with her and said I wanted to make sure I understood what she was saying as I would be conveying that to the corporate office and she stood by that statement.
I then contacted the Corporate Customer Service 800 number and spoke with Mike who after hearing my story and placing me on hold for an extended time passed me on to a Cutomer Service Supervisor, Julie. Julie, basically said the flyers are made months in advance (I pointed out to her that the wii Fit hasn't been out that long) and Target depends on the manufacturer to provide the quantity of items needed to support the ad.in other words, the manufacturer, Niintendo, is at fault because they agreed to have the product available to Target and they didn't. We went around and around with Julie being very dismissive and saying she was sorry she couldn't assist me today althought she had made no attempt to assist me with anything. She basically said these are high demand items and so stocking them is hard and they depend on the manufacturere to supply them. I pointed out to her that was my point exactly - they are high demand items that everyone is looking for so advertising them gets people into the store only to find out you don't have them but then you're there and you spend money on "other stuff".
We resolved nothing! I feel ripped off and just wish there was some legal recourse against these advertising practices. The store blamed corporate, corporate blamed Nintendo and in the end nothing happens!!!
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