IMPORTANT UPDATE: The See's Candies debacle

Paul Michael — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 23:22:13 +0000

For those of you (and I presume there were many) who took up the incredible See's candies offer I posted yesterday, I have bad news. I too got the email from See's saying they would not fulfill the order due to a glitch. But, the story does not end there.

See, I believe that a company should stand behind an order, even if it is due to a glitch. If you walk into a store and see a T-shirt marked as $5, they will usually honor it, even if the real price of that T-shirt is $45. To simply say "nope, not our fault, you're getting nothing" seems very unfair to me.

For those of you that may not have received it yet, here's the full text of the email...

Greetings from Sees.com,

We regret to inform you that a technical website error caused the following item to be displayed at an incorrect price on the Sees.com website:

Gift # 182 - 3lb. 15-1/2 oz. Holiday Gift Special - Price $1.00

We are unable to fulfill this item for the incorrectly posted price. Therefore, we have cancelled your order for this item that was placed on January 1, 2008.

At any given time, despite our best efforts, we may have an item appear on our website with incorrect pricing. We do verify prices prior to processing orders and any discrepancy will cause the order to go on hold for further review. We would like to assure you that your credit card was not charged as your order was placed on hold when the pricing error was discovered.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. We value your business and hope that you will give us a chance to serve you again in the future.

Sincerely,

Customer Service Department
Sees.com

Please note: This e-mail was sent from a notification-only address that cannot accept incoming e-mail. Please do not reply to this message. For any further questions, you can reach our Customer Service Department at 1-800-789-7337.

I called the customer service number and was told, very politely, that See's will not honor any of these orders. I pointed out that they may want to consider giving every customer they let down some kind of compensation, even a money-off coupon, so that they save face and show people that they are at least a company that cares about customer service. I am waiting to hear back from them and will let you know asap if I receive a response. Let's hope See's can pull something out of this fire. Watch this space...

This article is from Paul Michael of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

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IMPORTANT UPDATE: The See's Candies debacle