Tower Hobbies $600 Goof

There was this old guy in Scotland. He was walking past a liquor shop and he spotted a bottle of whisky for one penny (sort of like a cent). He went into the shop and asked for the bottle for one penny. The owner said no, he had made a mistake with the sign, and it should have been one pound. So the guy called the local policeman and the cop told the shop owner he had to sell the whisky for one penny. The shop owner was really annoyed but did what the cop told him to do.

The guy and the cop went round the corner and proceeded to drink the whisky. The cop said, " I liked the look on his face when I told him to sell you the whisky for one penny". The guy said, "just wait till I take the empty back and ask for the deposit on the bottle".

In most states, if you advertize something at a certain price, you have to sell it to anyone who asks until a correction is posted. The laws also take into account obvious errors such as this. Anyone who bought them would likely have to either return them or fork over the cash.

While my knowledge of the law is limited, I would have thought that once the parcel was in the hands of the postal service, only the the person to whom it was addressed could claim it - barring events such as being undeliverable.

I would have thought you would have a claim against the postal service if they returned it without attempting to deliver it.

An urban legend perhaps?

David

Paul Mc> In most states, if you advertize something at a certain price, you have to

-- If we're not supposed to eat animals, why are they made out of meat?

I remember a while back Kodak offered a digi camera for 0.01. They did honour the 300 or so that were sold before the error was changed but I remember a discussion on this after HP made the same error and didn't honour the orders. The company was not obliged to sell at that price because no contract had been entered into.

The "something for nothing" crowd are always looking for a personal gain at someone else's expense.

I'm not referring to any of the posters or Tower Hobbies. Just stating a fact.

Ed Cregger

One wonders - if they overcharged would they still want to have it back?

From the Tower Hobby website:

"All prices, pictures and descriptions on this site and all other Tower Hobbies publications are subject to change. Tower Hobbies maintains no responsibility for inadvertent errors. In the event of typographical errors on our site or in our publications, Tower Hobbies reserves the right to cancel or refuse orders at its sole discretion. Please contact us within 30 days regarding price or promotion discrepancies"

Sorry!

Your post documents the incompetence at Tower Hobbies, and the dishonesty of your "friend".

| From the Tower Hobby website: | | "All prices, pictures and descriptions on this site and all other Tower | Hobbies publications are subject to change. Tower Hobbies maintains no | responsibility for inadvertent errors. In the event of typographical errors | on our site or in our publications, Tower Hobbies reserves the right to | cancel or refuse orders at its sole discretion. Please contact us within 30 | days regarding price or promotion discrepancies" | | Sorry!

And the local grocery story has a sign up in the parking lot that reads

NOT LIABLE FOR DAMAGE DONE TO CARS BY GROCERY CARTS

or something like that. But just because there's a sign that says it, that doesn't make it true. (But if the sign makes a few people `eat it' rather than trying to collect from the store, then it's made money for the store -- even if it's not true.)

Similarly, just because they put up something on their web site, it doesn't make it true.

As for them reaching out and having the post office return the package, I've never heard of that happening before -- I'm amazed that they could do that. I guess next time you should do next day air :)

Generally, the law is that a vendor has to honor their advertised prices -- but the law usually also allows for errors. Once you've clicked on `buy' and your credit card has been changed, you've got a legal contract of some sort going on there, but if Tower then cancelled the order, well, you've got three options -- 1) try and convince them to reinstate it `to make the customer happy', 2) sue them, or 3) chalk it up to experience. To succeed at #2 (if it actually goes to court) you'll need to convince the judge that it was false advertising rather than just a mistake. If the $600 engine was $459 and all over their flyer, maybe. But at $1.69, good luck! And of course, it'll cost more to sue over it than it's worth.

Ultimately, posession is 9/10ths of the law or so. If they do sell you the engine for $1.69 and you get it, then they may ask for it back once they catch their mistake. They could sue you if you refused, and they might even win, but it would cost more than $600 to do so and so they'll probably just eat it.

In any event, it was obviously a mistake on Tower's part and not something dishonest, so the honest thing to do would be to call them and let them know. They'd probably give you a gift certificate or something for your trouble.

A few years back a internet company offered a computer monitor for a really low price on their website and hundreds of people ordered the monitor. They only shipped out a few before they caught their mistake but would not honor any of the ones that had ordered the units but did not ship. They even charged a number of credit cards and then refunded the money. They were sued for breach of contract and lost. They ended up paying a huge amount of money to those that ordered the units. Even though Tower says that they can rufuse to sell you something but when they sell it to you and it leaves their warehouse then it should be yours even at a such a low price. Here is a good link about such incidents and what happend.

Ed, You hit it on the head. I also just love those folks that do not understand civil contract law and criminal law. Contracts are civil matters and all the court would do is put each party back to their standing before the Contract. Customer gets his money and store keeps item. Since this already has happen - Tower has item and customer has credit card charge credited back eveyone is back to their original point. Unless we are talking about a life giving drug the court is not going to give zip about the mental pain the customer has from not getting something for next to nothing by a store's honest mistake. As for criminal or regulatory fine, Tower made a blunder on their web page with no intent to defraud. Companies print retractions all the time for errors in magazine and newspaper ads. The law does not shaft companies for honest mistakes.

Sorry, but the car dealer does not have to sell you a new car for $400 dollars because the typo in the newspaper missed the two zero's behind it to make it $40,000.

Sorry, but your wife does not get to keep the mink coat that was given to her by mistake by the lay-away clerk when she went to pick up ski jacket she had on lay-away.

Sorry, but the bank does not have to deduct the two house payments you still owe that the computer error droped off on the last statement and the bank corrected on the next one.

Sorry, but that $100,000 that was in error reported in your bank account is not yours and yes you will have to pay back any of it you spent.

I doubt if any of the "Something for Nothing" crowd would hand over their property worth a few hundred or thousands of dollars for a few bucks if the newspaper screwed up their for sale ad. If they say they would they are saints, idiots, or fibbing. I have yet to meet a saint in that crowd.

Yes, sometimes companies eat those kind of errors for PR reason's but that does not mean that they are obligated to do so.

Bob Ruth

"> If I was your friend I would be contacting both Tower and the Post office

I doubt my friend wants to push it that far. He was seeing how far it would go(and perhaps a "something for nothing" type), I don't know. If it was me I would not have tried in the first place. It was obviously a big mistake on Tower's part. I was more intrigued by his story as it relates to the fine point of the legal question (remembering contracts in a business law class I took over 35 years ago), and the return of the item at the post office. A lot of legal water under the bridge, and the privatization of the PO since then.

Thanks for all the replies,

Tom

Did you read the article you posted a link to?

"Some e-tailers feel obliged to deliver on their blunders; others cancel delivery. With no clear legal precedent yet, the Better Business Bureau Online will institute new standards next month that will, in many cases, require participating online merchants who make Web errors to honor even absurdly low posted prices. "

There is no statement that any of the example companies have lost a lawsuit in court. The BBB Online is not a law making nor regulatory agency of any goverment. It is a voluntary business organization. Therefore the only thing that will happen is that any business that does not agree with their guidlines will not be able to show the BBBO stamp of approval, whopee do! I doubt that will slow down people ordering from Tower if they don't have the BBBO seal of approval.

All the article says is that because of the internet speed, ad errors create hundred's to thousands of people trying to take advantage of them instead of a few. That the example large companies decided to honor stupid mistakes for PR reasons does not indicate that they could not win in court against the weasles.

The only court case attempted listed was in regard to bait and switch which has always been an actionable activity. There was no listing of cases where a company lost where the company has an honest error in pricing. I doubt if they would have won in court. "Bait and switch requires proving that a company knowingly offers a product which they have a very limited supply or no supply of at a given low price in an attempt to draw in customers and then selling them same product or another product at a higher price. You have to prove it was done on purpose and not an error in an ad. Settling out of court does not prove guilt. The company lawyers and accountants may have concluded it was cheaper to pay-off a bunch of weasles then to defend the case in court. Happens all the time. Do we waste millions to defend a case we can win or do we pay off a few hundred thousand dollars to a bunch of weasles? depending on the number of weasles and the PR somtimes the answere is yes or no. So round up enough fellow weasles to jump on an honest mistake and file a class action, you might get an out of court settlement. Or you could spend a lot of money in lawyers and get nothing if the company decides to stand their ground.

"Until the FTC or the courts set clear guidelines for liability, most Web pricing disputes will be decided based not on legalities but on public relations."

This key quote above sums it up. Tower has decided that the minor negative PR is worth not giving away their products on an ad error. I say good for them. Let the weasles win and nobody will be willing to have online stores if a simple honest error will cost them thousands of dollars. I don't think the legal system is going to let the weasles win simply because the net causes them to jump on honest errors by the thousands instead of half a dozen a newspaper ad error generates.

Bob Ruth

That's what I'm thinking.

It seems more likely to me that they would just 'ding' his credit card for the extra funds.

| "Some e-tailers feel obliged to deliver on their blunders; others | cancel delivery. With no clear legal precedent yet, the Better | Business Bureau Online will institute new standards next month that | will, in many cases, require participating online merchants who make | Web errors to honor even absurdly low posted prices. "

Note that the Better Business Bureau has no `teeth'. They cannot force anybody to do anything.

Some companies will go to great lengths to make sure the BBB is happy with them, but if they don't want to, the BBB can't do anything to do them other than list bad things about them -- but very few people check with the BBB first.

And if the BBB does things that are very unpopular with merchants, they'll just stop being BBB members and that'll be the end of the BBB because the merchants will stop sending them money.

The BBB works for the merchants, not for the customers.

And to make a quick comment to another post in this same thread, but from a different user --

| It seems more likely to me that they would just 'ding' his credit card | for the extra funds.

They can't do that. The transaction is over when your credit card has been charged and you have an engine in your hands.

And the sign on the rear of a gravel truck: "Stay back 200 feet. I do not pay for windshields." You can't read that sign from 200 feet.

Doug, Thanks for the expansion on my comments regarding the quotation from the linked article. Sadly for the original link poster the article did more to support my side of the discussion than his. It is always worth while to really read things before posting a link sometimes. :-)

Bob Ruth

"BobAndVickey" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@mb-m26.aol.com...

Actually they did not try and bait and switch they offered people a certian amount off the price of the same monitor first, do not remember the amount. As I ordered one of the monitors at the price that was stated on the website. I later became one of the plaintiffs in the court case. I do not know why the ariticle states that they were charged with bait and switch because they never tried to switch the monitor for another higher priced monitor. They actually delivered what they had on hand for the price and once that was gone they then offered the discount that I mentioned earlier and so the court case was born. I believe I ended up with a check from them for 50 dollars because of the mistake on the website. If they would have not delivered any of the monitors than they might have won the case or there may have never been a case. But since the actually delivered the units and then tried to offer those that did not get any units a discount might have been the bases for the bait and switch charge, I just do not remember. The article also talks about how some e-tailers also do the right thing and honor the mistake even though it cost them alot of money. So yes there is one legal precedent on a pricing mistake by an e-tailer and I would think that some time sooner or later there will be more. The BBB is a waste of time as I have had an issue with a company that was/is a BBB member. The BBB is not there to help the consumer in any way instead they are only there becasue the Companies pay them money, so I would also think that any rule that they make will not have any teeth to stand on because any company that did not want to honor such a rule than they would just ignore it and still be a member becasue the BBB does not want to lose that income, the company will just have a negative mark on there record. John

Per the article the company settled out of court and therefore there is not a legal precedent. To acheive a legal precedent the case would have to be settled by a court judgement. Your lawyer/s agreed to drop the case in return for the money you received from the company. In almost all cases like this the defendant requires that the plantiff agree that no statement of guilt of is accepted or issued.

Bait and switch does not require an offer of a differnt product at a higher price. B&S can be done with a limited supply of the advertised item at the low price and the rest at a higher price. If you have 500 Sony TV's in stock at the price of $600, drop the price of two of them to $100, post an ad on purpose stating that you have Sony TVs for $100 dollars each and not clearly mention that you have only two in stock at that price then you have done B&S. However an honest mistake can also fit this profile. The paper makes the mistake of a typo in the ad and changes $600 to $60. The store tries to appease the people coming to the store with the ad by offering to knock a $100 off the price of the $600 TV or showing them a cheaper TV that comes closer to $60. Therefore to win a B&S case one must prove that the advertised pricing was done on purpose with the intention to decive the consumer.

Attorny's filing lawsuits often will throw as many charges as they can whether or not they can prove them satisfactory in a court. They also like to include anyone that might be associated whether or not they can prove that party is liable. The idea is that if you throw enough legal pasta against the court wall something might stick and if you include enough people in the lawsuit someone might buck up some money to pay off rather than spend a fortune proving to the court they are innocent. This attitude is what is killing a lot of industries and business in this country. I saw it too many times in construction contracting and commercial sales.

Bob Ruth.