It's 2019 and still retailers haven't quite got a grip on their online shopping websites. Coles, a large supermarket in Australia, sold products with deep discounts due to a glitch until the company found the problem and restored the system. This story comes with a modern twist with users going to social media to spread the word about the glitch on the site so others can quickly take advantage. The store was able to get ahead of the surge in online shoppers and cull some of the carts, but not before the front runners picked up their discount goods.
Oh, look, a good use for social media. What are we up to, 5, or 6 now? =)
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Online Shopping Site Glitch Slashes Prices for Happy Social Customers
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(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 06 2019, @08:21PM
End stage capitalism.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by edIII on Wednesday February 06 2019, @08:27PM (14 children)
I've been in stores before where I saw a product that retails for near $150 going out the door for $15. Some things are clearly an error, and maybe it is me, but I can't feel good about profiting off their mistake. I walk up to the manager and ask if it priced correctly. I've also corrected many a cashier when they incorrectly tally my goods and I can see it on the screen. Literally saved the mom & pop grocery store around me about $50 in what they would have otherwise lost.
This reminds of me of a situation in Las Vegas where somebody fucked up and was letting gas go for around 15c/gallon when it was normally near $3/gallon. So many people spread the word they basically emptied the gas out before the store owner was able to change things. That was a rather very large loss for them, and considering they negotiate fuel contracts well in advance, they already paid the money for the gas. Since it was negligence, no way to know if their insurance policy covered it.
Treat others like you would want to be treated. Taking advantage of others in this way is just a form of sociopathic behavior, that is albeit, engendered in us because that's what rises to the top. I wouldn't call the fact a social media platform allows this kind of mass sociopathic behavior a redeeming feature, but listed in the ills it brings to society.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by urza9814 on Wednesday February 06 2019, @08:36PM (2 children)
Treat others like you would like to be treated...until you see how they treat you. Then let them reap what they sow.
I wouldn't take advantage of a mistake by the mom and pop store down the street, largely because they don't take advantage of mine. But if it's Amazon.com? Their "customer service" has proven to me many, MANY times that they don't give a fuck about me, so why should I give a fuck about them? At this point I mostly just try to avoid them, but I'm not gonna get upset if someone else exploits the exploitation machine.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday February 06 2019, @09:11PM (1 child)
What goes around comes around, both good and bad.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 06 2019, @09:14PM
But you know the law around here. If the price is clearly a mistake, like the 150 thing sold at 15, then the store does not have to sell it to you. If it was like 150 being sold at like 120 by mistake, then they would have to sell it.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday February 06 2019, @08:38PM (10 children)
Fuck you, ordered mine!
But seriously, there are retailers (ALDI) that will mark items down by 75-80% routinely. Given that most big retailers will squash online price mistakes and cancel orders, I find it hard to care about this incident. $3.30/kg steak? Bah!
Coles [wikipedia.org] is no mom-and-pop grocery store either.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday February 06 2019, @09:05PM (9 children)
I get your point, but I was speaking to the context of it being a redeeming situation for social media. Yeah, big corporations are a pox on all our houses and I have zero sympathy for them. Big corporations are shitty sociopathic creatures, but this seems to be a situation in which it's starting to change all of us into shitty sociopathic creatures too.
Unless the people spreading the word on social media had no idea it wasn't intended.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday February 06 2019, @09:13PM (4 children)
If you don't do it, somebody else will. Social media, deal sites, whatever, people catch wind of these mistakes (or any exploits) and they spread virally.
If you make an order, you're initiating a process that could be cancelled/not honored by the retailer. It's not theft, and it required no illegal "hacking". So while some might feel that it's stealing, others are going to feel that it's a completely legitimate transaction. Which it is.
Are we all morphing into sociopaths like Jake and Logan Paul? Do I have any emotions left at all? That remains to be seen.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Funny) by woodcruft on Wednesday February 06 2019, @09:27PM
Am I just getting old and cynical by thinking that's precisely the point?
Shove some goods up on your site at ludicrously low prices & drop a link to them on some other site saying "Look!!! Cheap stuff!!!"
Sounds like Coles' DBA had a cron job to update the DB a few minutes later...
Result: muppets grovelling around your site looking for other 'bargains' and hopefully buying some of your regular shitty and expensive goods.
:wq!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 06 2019, @10:34PM
I gave you a related warning in another comment, I don't know how seriously you take your own words but I think you meant them as such.
You answered your question before you even asked it. Dehumanization, justification through the bad acts of others, and the worst cynicism of all "If you don't do it, somebody else will". It is technically a legitimate transaction but would you feel the same way if you paid with a $100 bill for a $30 purchase and they didn't stop you when you walked away with no change then blew you off when you came back for it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 07 2019, @04:50PM (1 child)
> If you don't do it, somebody else will.
Not even a commons tragedy here. What you're saying is plain "if people think they can get away with it, they will steal."
Well, that's nice. I know communities of people who would not, without greater cause than personal gain.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday February 07 2019, @06:20PM
You keep on using that word...
The circle of people who will jump on a price mistake is much larger than those who will steal (barring a post-apocalypse scenario).
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 06 2019, @09:17PM (3 children)
The capitalist solution is simple: BAN social media, BREAK UP big corporations, and TAX sociopathic behaviour.
Also, BAN OR TAX cigarettes, alcohol, and all other unhealthy food, drugs and activities like consuming meat and sportsball. Finally, enforce proper hygiene via IoT-connected toothbrushes, showerheads, mirrors, and washcloths.
(Score: 3, Funny) by edIII on Wednesday February 06 2019, @10:20PM (2 children)
That makes the perfect crime easy. I wet the IoT-connected washcloth, start washing my taint area, then while the NSA analysts are screaming and gouging their eyes out, I hack a bank with my free hand :) When they ask for an alibi, I'll just say I was washing my taint according to the published doubleplusgood hygiene guidelines. Check the logs.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 07 2019, @06:33AM
What's a "taint"?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 07 2019, @06:40AM
https://www.xkcd.com/341/ [xkcd.com]
Oblig XKCD
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday February 06 2019, @08:28PM (9 children)
People on sites like Slickdeals pile on whenever a price mistake is found, but usually the retailer ends up cancelling all of the orders. I guess Coles is just dumb or slow to notice because they have a large inventory.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday February 06 2019, @09:17PM (8 children)
Coles is in Australia, and so it is constrained by the law.
If they advertise a price they have no choice but to honour it. They are also arseholes, so of course they will attempt to wriggle out if they can.
(Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Wednesday February 06 2019, @09:28PM (5 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday February 06 2019, @10:03PM (4 children)
The Australian consumer protection laws are not based on the UK system.
Source: I live in New Zealand, and we based our Consumer Guarantees Act on the Aussie model.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday February 07 2019, @12:00AM (3 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Funny) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday February 07 2019, @12:13AM (2 children)
Thanks for responding like an adult, and not turning the conversation into the usual shouting match.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday February 07 2019, @01:34PM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday February 07 2019, @07:39PM
Yeah, well, I don't care what everyone else says, I think you're all right kid.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday February 06 2019, @11:38PM (1 child)
Not exactly. The law requires the advertised price to not be misleading, but allow for clerical unintended errors - in which case, the price at checkout may be corrected without punishment for the seller (as long as they apply the corrections on the advertised price and don't rely on such 'errors' as a selling method). Of course, the buyer may refuse a corrected price before transaction (and the transaction is cancelled), but once the transaction is done at the advertised price, the seller can't ask for the difference.
Coles adopted a voluntary policy (scroll to 'our promise on price scanning) [coles.com.au] which says 'if advertised price is lower for a single item, you get your item free. For multiple items, only the first one is free'.
If the law was as strict as you describe, that policy would be illegal.
(I'm too lazy to search for Woolies, ALDI, aso - but I doubt they don't do something similar)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday February 07 2019, @12:02AM
OK, my mistake.
In New Zealand businesses must sell a product for the advertised price, even if it is an error. I was under the impression that our consumer protection stuff was pretty much a copy of yours.
Every now and again there are stories of people getting $50 laptops and such because of some mistake made by a store.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday February 06 2019, @09:24PM (2 children)
The shelf price, and the displayed price on a webpage by analogy, do not make a contract, obviously, they are offers for tender. However, by the time you've checked out, and they've offered you back the same total to pay, there's consideration from both sides, and as soon as you agree to that, it ought to be a contract.
Of course, the US and UK legal systems have gone against that common sense conclusion (claiming that the contract is only binding when the product actually gets shipped, which I find utterly absurd[*]) - is Oz as anti-consumer-protection as those two are?
[* E.g. such rules permit retailers to "sell" things that they know they cannot deliver, they might not even ever have had them available. And that includes the loss leaders that fooled you into shopping there in the first place.]
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday February 06 2019, @10:24PM
No. See my comment above.
There is also this banking scandal [stuff.co.nz] playing out at the moment. I can't see any senior bankers going to jail though. Even though they seem to have broken the law. Australia is of course not immune to money making charges go away.
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Wednesday February 06 2019, @11:45PM
The Oz consumer protection law only requires the advertised prices to not be misleading [accc.gov.au], but allow for clerical errors in the advertised prices - as long as they are corrected.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 07 2019, @04:48PM
> Oh, look, a good use for social media.
Customers saving money when a seller has a glitch, and spreading the word over social media about it, isn't 'good'. The supply chain of food is a good thing (unless you're a sociopath) and ripping off a farmer or a mom&pop isn't that different from systematically abusing a mistake.
This is only a "good use" in the sense of "culls the weak at IT," which is only good if you want the fittest, hungriest, most rapacious corps to survive.