Post-Target LOTR screw up: Target cancels orders

Game_Dude_3

Game_Dude_3

CAGiversary!
I just got an e-mail from Target saying that they cancelled my LOTR BR trilogy order for 7.99 because they were 'out of stock'. They cite their store ad that says they only had limited qualities, although I don't understand how that applies to the web site.

I'm getting some feedback from others reporting the same. What bugs me is that the web site will say when an item is out of stock, and I purchased the set before it was out. I strongly believe this is BS and was wondering if any one else got an e-mail and how we can go about still getting this deal.
 
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Turns out people are already receiving e-mails for their complaints...

Dear *****,

I'm sorry to hear about the cancellation of the The Lord of the Rings (Blu-ray) from your order.

I know this must be frustrating for you, but our supplier wasn't able to get us any more of this product, even though it looked like they would when you placed your order. Because of this we had to cancel this item from your order.

We do what we can to keep orders going smoothly, but sometimes unexpected changes to our supply will cause us to cancel an order. I know this can be frustrating and I'm sorry for any inconvenience.

Don't worry, we don’t charge your card until we actually start shipping your order, so your payment method wasn't charged for this order.

As an apology for your experience, I’ll be glad to issue a $30.00 Target GiftCard, good both on Target.com and in our stores.
The letter above is one of the few who received a $30 gift card, so it looks like Target may be lessening the blow to those who cry loud enough.

Still, kinda shady to pull the carpet from under us when they just as easily could have said "No Deal" as soon as the misprint was discovered...
 
I sent Target an email. I don't know if it'll do any good, but here's what I wrote:

"Hi,
I recently received an e-mail saying my order for "The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy" Six Disc Blu Ray Set for $7.99 plus shipping ($2.29) and tax ($0.64) for a total of $10.92 was cancelled due to the item being out of stock.

I am very dissatisfied with the decision to cancel the order outright and feel that it is bad business practice to enter into a deal with a consumer and then cancel it.

I understand that the item was of limited stock. That said, precautions should have been taken in your system's computer to cut off orders when the limit had been reached. If that was not possible then all orders should be honored at the sale price as soon as the item becomes available in the future.

I also understand that there are no rain checks on this item. That would be an understandable practice if the consumer was told up front that an item is out of stock. However, it is an unacceptable practice when a consumer is told that they have entered into a deal that has been approved by the seller to purchase an item and that the item will be shipping shortly. At this point both parties have entered into a contract and the point of "no rainchecks" has come and gone.

Because I trusted Target to uphold their word, I ended up missing out on sales on this same set from other retailers such as Amazon who have kept their word to me in the past.

Needless to say, I have no plans to make any further purchases at Target online or offline until the company as a whole improves their customer relations.

Thank you for your time.

- [My Full Name Went Here]"
 
[quote name='Swifttalon']I sent a quick email last night playing dumb and asking why it had been canceled. Here is Target's response.

"I'm sorry to hear about the cancellation of the Lord of the Rings trilogy pack from your order.

We do what we can to keep orders going smoothly, but sometimes unexpected changes to our supply will cause us to cancel an order. I know this can be frustrating and I'm sorry for any inconvenience.

We've had a lot of orders for this blu-ray, and we always fill the orders starting with the oldest orders first. There was a high demand, and by the time we got to your order we ran out of stock. Because of this, we had to cancel this the motion picture trilogy from your order.

I see that this motion picture trilogy is currently available in our local Target stores. If you’d like, just visit your nearest Target store with this DPCI number:058-40-0021 and ask a team member to point you to the item.

You can also contact Target Guest Relations at 1-800-440-0680 (select Option #5 for store merchandise) and we’ll be happy to look up this inventory at your local Target store.

If they're out of stock, they'll be able to point you to the closest store that does have the item.

Great Products. Great Value. And great guest service every time you visit Target.com. That's what shopping with us is all about, so it's disappointing to hear that we've let you down.

Thanks for getting in touch with us. I hope you'll give us another chance and visit Target.com again. "[/QUOTE]

I sent a mean email and got this same thing, word for word. I sent another mean email saying they didn't help me. If I don't receive anything by this evening I'll be making a call. A GC would be nice.
 
I got the cancel email, too. Called the customer service number right up, because not 24 hours earlier I got an email saying it was delayed until January, at which point I called them up and was assured by a supervisor that the order would not be canceled.

Long story short, after about 30 minutes on the phone, I was assured, and sent an email to verify it, that while the order is canceled, that when it becomes available at target.com again, that if I call in to order it they will honor the 7.99 price.
 
i called this morning & they told me they couldnt keep my order but they made a note on my account saying that when it gets in stock and i call back they will honor it no matter what but like most of you guys ill believe it when i see it
 
Got the pair of emails, sent them one back to let them know how disappointing it was that they'd put a limited quantities item up on the website without ample inventory.
 
Dear Target,

3171_1586_bush-lord-of-the-rings.jpg


Sincerely,
Anonymous
 
[quote name='DarkRider23']You know who I'm laughing at the most? All the idiots that presold these on eBay and now have to go ahead and cancel 10+ orders. I'm laughing so fucking hard at them. They are going to get so many negatives.[/QUOTE]

LOL:applause:
 
[quote name='DarkRider23']You know who I'm laughing at the most? All the idiots that presold these on eBay and now have to go ahead and cancel 10+ orders. I'm laughing so fucking hard at them. They are going to get so many negatives.[/QUOTE]


Yes, this is awesome!

A quick glance at completed listings on eBay looks as if a lot of auctions were ended early! A lot of stock photos in ended auctions.
 
Sent them an email. I don't really care for the Lord of the Rings movies (I'm a sucker for box sets; especially for 7.99 ones lol), but I hope to get a gc out of this :)
 
[quote name='Wheels03']Turns out people are already receiving e-mails for their complaints...

Dear *****,

I'm sorry to hear about the cancellation of the The Lord of the Rings (Blu-ray) from your order.

I know this must be frustrating for you, but our supplier wasn't able to get us any more of this product, even though it looked like they would when you placed your order. Because of this we had to cancel this item from your order.

We do what we can to keep orders going smoothly, but sometimes unexpected changes to our supply will cause us to cancel an order. I know this can be frustrating and I'm sorry for any inconvenience.

Don't worry, we don’t charge your card until we actually start shipping your order, so your payment method wasn't charged for this order.

As an apology for your experience, I’ll be glad to issue a $30.00 Target GiftCard, good both on Target.com and in our stores.
The letter above is one of the few who received a $30 gift card, so it looks like Target may be lessening the blow to those who cry loud enough.

Still, kinda shady to pull the carpet from under us when they just as easily could have said "No Deal" as soon as the misprint was discovered...[/QUOTE]

$30? What the hell did you do? I got $10. Grrr.
 
Just sent a nasty e-mail also. I'm not one for complaining, but this is pretty crappy customer service on their end, and they should fix this without having to make people bitch about it. I guess it's another one of those "too good to be true" stories.
 
[quote name='chrisnsally']WHAT??? The LOTR Trilogy on Blu-Ray for $7.99 ISN'T being honored?!?!

Oh, the shock.[/QUOTE]

If I make a mistake, I have to own up to it.

I knew it was a mistake when Target put it on their web site, but that's not my problem. There's nothing wrong with purchasing something at a certain price and expecting to receive that item.

What you're saying is that it's okay that Target flat out lied to hundreds of thousands of its customers, by saying it's out of stock when really they just don't want to own up to the damage. If they didn't send me a delay e-mail and make up this out-of-stock story, I would have been fine with their decision. They're playing us for dumb, though, and that's not acceptable.

But hey, if you're cool with that, to each his own.
 
[quote name='Game_Dude_3']If I make a mistake, I have to own up to it.

I knew it was a mistake when Target put it on their web site, but that's not my problem. There's nothing wrong with purchasing something at a certain price and expecting to receive that item.

What you're saying is that it's okay that Target flat out lied to hundreds of thousands of its customers, by saying it's out of stock when really they just don't want to own up to the damage. If they didn't send me a delay e-mail and make up this out-of-stock story, I would have been fine with their decision. They're playing us for dumb, though, and that's not acceptable.

But hey, if you're cool with that, to each his own.[/QUOTE]

Show me where it says that Target *MUST* honor any pricing mistakes they make. I'll wait.

You people and your entitlement issues crack me up. As usual. And don't even bother responding because I couldn't care less what your opinion is. You have unrealistic expectations in a situation where a retailer makes a pricing mistake. I don't.
 
[quote name='mva5580']Show me where it says that Target *MUST* honor any pricing mistakes they make. I'll wait.

You people and your entitlement issues crack me up. As usual. And don't even bother responding because I couldn't care less what your opinion is. You have unrealistic expectations in a situation where a retailer makes a pricing mistake. I don't.[/QUOTE]
It is not that I feel entitled to this. It is that Target should have canceled these Friday morning, instead I got an email asking me to wait until mid January, which I said I was willing to do. 2 days later they cancel the deal. They should have waited until January, like they said they were going to. Instead, they waited a full 4 days before canceling the orders. That is fucked up customer service
 
[quote name='mva5580']Show me where it says that Target *MUST* honor any pricing mistakes they make. I'll wait.

You people and your entitlement issues crack me up. As usual. And don't even bother responding because I couldn't care less what your opinion is. You have unrealistic expectations in a situation where a retailer makes a pricing mistake. I don't.[/QUOTE]

They honored it in store, so why should their online department be any different? He might be a little on edge, but you're being an unreasonable asshole. You're on a forum... a place to discuss your opinions with others. This thread is for people who feel shafted by Target, which we were. We had other options, and chose to go to Target, which in the end screwed us out of the other deals. Please go elsewhere if you don't care about this thread.
 
The issue is not that Target made a "price mistake," its how they handled it. Instead of being upfront, Target lied and gave a bs excuse that they don't have enough product to supply the orders. If the problem really was inventory, some people would have gotten their orders fulfilled. But instead, every single order was canceled, the price was honored to nobody. Target simply does not want to sell at the low price.
 
Did you people expect there to be enough quantities for the Slickdeals and CAG hoarders ordering 10x copies to resell? People should feel lucky enough that they honored this deal in stores for Pete's sake. So you didnt get it online. It didnt cost you anything in the end. Plus you'll all want the extended versions in the future. So live with it.
 
[quote name='dchrisd']The issue is not that Target made a "price mistake," its how they handled it. Instead of being upfront, Target lied and gave a bs excuse that they don't have enough product to supply the orders. If the problem really was inventory, some people would have gotten their orders fulfilled. But instead, every single order was canceled, the price was honored to nobody. Target simply does not want to sell at the low price.[/QUOTE]

This. Somehow I doubt their warehouse is "out of stock." I'm hoping once it gets back "in stock" that they will honor the price as they promised me last night on the phone. Still this whole experience has been pretty shitty on Target's part.
 
[quote name='Arakias']Did you people expect there to be enough quantities for the Slickdeals and CAG hoarders ordering 10x copies to resell? People should feel lucky enough that they honored this deal in stores for Pete's sake. So you didnt get it online. It didnt cost you anything in the end. Plus you'll all want the extended versions in the future. So live with it.[/QUOTE]
No, Target still did a shitty job. There was people that didn't order the 7.99 Blus from Amazon and went with this deal and were teased for four days. The best way for Target to have handled this was make it live at midnight, set a timer for it to automatically go out of stock at five to ten minutes, and fulfilled those orders. This shit was order-able for over an hour IIRC.
 
[quote name='Friend of Sonic']No, Target still did a shitty job. There was people that didn't order the 7.99 Blus from Amazon and went with this deal and were teased for four days. The best way for Target to have handled this was make it live at midnight, set a timer for it to automatically go out of stock at five to ten minutes, and fulfilled those orders. This shit was order-able for over an hour IIRC.[/QUOTE]

Not to mention during the timer there is also a limit of say 1-3 copies per customer. That way El Hoardos can't buy up 50 of them then brag about it on Slick Deals or whatever.
 
And, if you really want to make some noise... This list is from 2008, so I am sure there are some changes, though the phones #s may be good:
[email protected]
612-696-6234
fax: 612-696-6325 Assistant:
Denise May
[email protected]
612-696-6243
Phone numbers for his direct reports, inside...
Bart Butzer, VP Stores: (612)-696-4968
Christopher Perrigo, VP Target India: (612)-761-0613
Doug Scovanner, EVP Finance & CFO: (612)-761-6610
Janet Shalk, EVP Target Tech Services: (612)-304-5155
Jodee Kolzak, EVP Human Resources: (612)-696-6111
John Griffith, EVP Property Dev: (612)-761-1487
Kathee Tesija, EVP Merchandising: (612)-696-6134
Michael Francis, EVP Marketing: (612)-696-2822
Mitch Stover, SVP Distribution: (612)-304-2787
Stacia Andersen, President TSS: (612)-696-2856
Tim Baer, EVP General Counsel: (612)-696-6648
Tory Risch, EVP Stores: (612)-696-2476
 
[quote name='dejeckt']You guys going to do a corporate carpet bomb (forgot what its called)? Guys wanna submit a similar letter all together?[/QUOTE]


This is a great idea. People create some letters that will hopefully get them to send us good gift cards, the trilogy, or something good.

We will choose the best one and everyone can send it.
 
its a good thing i went in and bought this before black friday and did an adjustment, just in case this wouldn't work, which it didn't.
 
http://consumerist.com/2007/05/how-to-launch-an-executive-email-carpet-bomb.html

Well I'm not sure if this is a good idea. I'm officially done with this after this last post, but the top link is what I read about (executive email carpet bomb).
I still regret not getting it from b&m store, but I'm not going to think about it. So many other things to do rather than doing this; still I will try pming if LoTR ever comes back in stock. Its too good of a movie set to let go :D
 
[quote name='mva5580']Show me where it says that Target *MUST* honor any pricing mistakes they make. I'll wait.

You people and your entitlement issues crack me up. As usual. And don't even bother responding because I couldn't care less what your opinion is. You have unrealistic expectations in a situation where a retailer makes a pricing mistake. I don't.[/QUOTE]

Clearly you didn't read my post or don't know how to read/interpret words.

I never said I was entitled to them. Price mistakes are natural, and I even said in the post you quoted that if they owed up to it, I'd be fine with it. But they lied. Twice.

If you couldn't care less about my opinion, you wouldn't have responded.
 
3 things about this situation bother me.

1) It was clearly a price mistake in the ad that they found out about a number of days before Black Friday, yet they let their website go ahead and sell it at the Black Friday price (that was clearly a mistake and clearly known about). Why not just sell it for regular price on the website or, like someone else stated, just list it as "in store" only during the time of the promotion?

2) They honored the "price mistake" in store as part of their Black Friday promotion. A lot of people likewise assumed the website would be honoring the price as well, since they had plenty of time to correct the "price mistake" on the website, if it was indeed a price mistake.

3) They ended up canceling all orders but are not owning up to the fact it was a price mistake. Their website probably has terminology covering them in the case of price mistakes so why not use that in this case and be honest? If even one online order gets fulfilled for the $7.99 price I'd be surprised. I think the dishonesty is what's bothering me the most about this.
 
[quote name='Josef']3 things about this situation bother me.

1) It was clearly a price mistake in the ad that they found out about a number of days before Black Friday, yet they let their website go ahead and sell it at the Black Friday price (that was clearly a mistake and clearly known about). Why not just sell it for regular price on the website or, like someone else stated, just list it as "in store" only during the time of the promotion?

2) They honored the "price mistake" in store as part of their Black Friday promotion. A lot of people likewise assumed the website would be honoring the price as well, since they had plenty of time to correct the "price mistake" on the website, if it was indeed a price mistake.

3) They ended up canceling all orders but are not owning up to the fact it was a price mistake. Their website probably has terminology covering them in the case of price mistakes so why not use that in this case and be honest? If even one online order gets fulfilled for the $7.99 price I'd be surprised. I think the dishonesty is what's bothering me the most about this.[/QUOTE]

This is true, too. The ad was out for, at the very least, a week prior to Black Friday. I remember the error causing a stir in one of the sticky threads.
 
Well, I sent my e-mail to them. I haven't had a company handle an online order this badly since circuit city and look what happened to them. Absolutely pitiful customer service.
 
[quote name='CaoPi']lol, had a feeling this was fishy, as it wasn't this low in store for their BF sale hah![/QUOTE]

Uh, yes it was.
 
[quote name='CaoPi']lol, had a feeling this was fishy, as it wasn't this low in store for their BF sale hah![/QUOTE]

FLOL, yes it was. I got 2 copies of the full on trilogy on blu for $7.99 a pop. That's what it scanned at/rang up at. No ad needed, no price override/price correction etc.

Unfortunately they were this 6 disc version (no digital copies, all discs in 1 fat blu-ray case), not this earlier 9 disc version (digital copies and separate blu cases for each movie) - did anyone happen to get the 9 disc version in stores?
 
[quote name='karkyco']FLOL, yes it was. I got 2 copies of the full on trilogy on blu for $7.99 a pop. That's what it scanned at/rang up at. No ad needed, no price override/price correction etc.

Unfortunately they were this 6 disc version (no digital copies, all discs in 1 fat blu-ray case), not this earlier 9 disc version (digital copies and separate blu cases for each movie) - did anyone happen to get the 9 disc version in stores?[/QUOTE]

Yup, it's my crown jewel :)

The Target near my place had 2 copies left when I got there last Tuesday; both of them were 9 disc.
 
[quote name='karkyco']FLOL, yes it was. I got 2 copies of the full on trilogy on blu for $7.99 a pop. That's what it scanned at/rang up at. No ad needed, no price override/price correction etc.

Unfortunately they were this 6 disc version (no digital copies, all discs in 1 fat blu-ray case), not this earlier 9 disc version (digital copies and separate blu cases for each movie) - did anyone happen to get the 9 disc version in stores?[/QUOTE]

How can you tell if they are 6 disc or 9 disc just by looking at it?
 
Well, I heard back from Target and this is the response I received.... Basically the same as what someone else posted but with a few variations... Not any help in the end...:

"Dear [My name],

I'm sorry to hear about the cancellation of the The Lord of the Rings (Blu-ray) from your order.

I know this must be frustrating for you, but our supplier wasn't able to get us any more of this product, even though it looked like they would when you placed your order. Because of this we had to cancel this item from your order.

We do what we can to keep orders going smoothly, but sometimes unexpected changes to our supply will cause us to cancel an order. I know this can be frustrating and I'm sorry for any inconvenience.

Don't worry, we don’t charge your card until we actually start shipping your order, so your payment method wasn't charged for this order.

Your comments are always welcome. Unfortunately, we can't offer you any concessions or information about this matter.

In the mean time, you can check with your local Target stores, since they might have this item (we're unable to check store inventory here).

To get the location and hours of your nearest Target stores, just go to http://www.target.com/storelocator and enter your ZIP code or city and state. We'll give you a map of the stores in your area and their addresses.

I know how disappointing it can be when you aren't able to get the item you've got your eyes on, so I'm sorry if we've let you down.

Thanks for shopping with us. I hope we'll have another chance to give you the great guest service you'd expect from Target.com.

How Did We Do?
Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:

If yes, click here:
[website given]
If not, click here:
[website given]

Please note: this e-mail was sent from an address that cannot accept
incoming e-mail.

To contact us about an unrelated issue, please visit the Help section
of our Web site.

Sincerely,

Preetha S
Online Guest Services
Target.com
www.target.com"

Guess I'm done doing business at Target.
 
Don't bother e-mailing them since they are pretty much sending the same stock reply no matter what you write. 1-800-591-3869 is the number then option 1 will get you to a rep. Be polite but firm with them on the issue.
 
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