Target Cancels the $19.99 Orders

[gravyluvr]

You are forgetting that we (US - er US as in United States) are in the land of both Lawyers and Hollywood.

Law suits are not at all uncommon AND bad publicity can kill a retailer. And whoever said, people will just buy from there anyway, should understand the true ripple effect that bad publicity can cause.

Audi lost millions after the 60 minutes article. Walmart is suffering similar losses right now due to "public opinion" about their labor practices, and AMAZON got a good bump thanks to bad press about other bookstores AND online retailer bad press from a Christmas season several years ago, so bad press can kill a giant.

Amazon and Target are more likely to honor the 19.99 than to not honor it.

A simple email can't hurt. As much as I've spent at Target over the last six months... I think I might even get this game free!

[Psychobabble]

Not really - false advertising only applies if the company deliberately lies (or exaggerates) about what a product does in order to get you to buy it, and you can then really only have a basis for a lawsuit if you actually bought it.

See, this is why I said it depends heavily on local laws. In Australia, Amazon would fall afoul of the trade practices act simply for "mistakenly" displaying a price which they had no intention of honouring. The statutory body which enforces those laws (ACCC) if it realised this before the price was changed could probably use its powers to force them to change the displayed price. All an individual consumer could do, though, is sue for actual damages and you'd have a really tough time that this misleading conduct actually caused you any damages (and, no, disappointment doesn't count). You'd quite possibly get a judgement against Amazon, but it would be kind of pointless.

That's my understanding of Australian laws anyway.

[Kalah]

Of course, there is no way we can prove that Amazon was actually doing false advertising; they say it was an innocent mistake, and I certainly have no way of proving this is not true.

What we've seen lots of over here, is shops advertising massively for a product, and when you come to the shop, the product is "sold out" - and then they try to sell you something more expensive. It's all a ruse to get you into the shop.
What they do is advertise a product they either don't even have, or have only a very limited amount of. Many shops were caught doing that last year, and the consumer ombudsman reacted rather fiercely, giving them all a thorough spanking.

[Corribus]

What we've seen lots of over here, is shops advertising massively for a product, and when you come to the shop, the product is "sold out" - and then they try to sell you something more expensive. It's all a ruse to get you into the shop.
What they do is advertise a product they either don't even have, or have only a very limited amount of. Many shops were caught doing that last year, and the consumer ombudsman reacted rather fiercely, giving them all a thorough spanking.

Certainly a possibility, but impossible to prove, of course. I understand what you're thinking: get them in the door with a low price, tell them "oops, it's actually the normal price of 30 bucks", and figure they'll stick around a buy it anyway, because they're going to pay that everywhere else they go. I doubt it is necessary for Amazon to resort to such tactics though just to sell a single computer game. It's not like this is the next Harry Potter book, after all!

[Psychobabble]

That sort of "bait advertising" is a strict liability offence under australian consumer laws (ie you can't just say it was an innocent mistake) and is prosecuted quite easily. There were a few high profile prosecutions of companies about a year back which had failed to update their website with new higher prices (their story anyway) so when people came to their shops they were faced with the higher prices. Even if their story had have been true it still couldn't get them off...

[gravyluvr]

What we've seen lots of over here, is shops advertising massively for a product, and when you come to the shop, the product is "sold out" - and then they try to sell you something more expensive.

Bait and Switch, as it's called here in the States, is illegal and is strictly enforced. The company will have to provide the advertised merchandise at an unlimited supply unless they state how many they have.

[Psychobabble]

I know very little about US consumer law, but is that the federal antitrust statute or would it depend on which state you were in? Also, how rigorously is that section enforced? I know, for instance, that the US has strict prohibitions on price discriminiation at a federal level (charging different consumers different prices for the same goods) but only a handful of cases have ever been prosecuted in the ~80 year history of the section and none of them were successful.

[Cleanpea]

it is just not a very nice thing to do, that's all...