After this article was published this morning (Saturday, 11/27/10) I received the following note from Jeff Wisot, Buy.com's VP of Marketing:
"Regarding the Panasonic Viera TV deal on Buy.com, we experienced a surge of customers on the page when the deal launched after midnight, and the product page received more than 220,000 page views alone on Black Friday. Though we worked hard to obtain additional units, we unfortunately could not meet the overwhelming demand due to limited inventory. Yet, nearly 650 customers benefited from the deal. We remain committed to delivering the best prices throughout the year, and will continue to offer other great holiday deals."
If Mr Wisol's version of events is correct, it appears to bein direct contrast with Mr. Brunelle's story (linked below). I was not at the Buy.com site in the early morning of Black Friday and I based my "facts" on Mr. Brunelle's blog article.
If Ihave called Buy.com's good reputation into question without reason, based on a mere misunderstanding, I apologize and apologize on behalf of Examiner.com..
Harvey Grund
My original article follows:
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There were many happy consumers last night due to some truly amazing "Black Friday" sales advertised on the Internet and, no doubt, many happy advertisers who found that lots of consumers were out there looking for deals. One large Internet Retailer however, Buy.com, seems to have made a lot of enemies on Friday.
Buy.com is being accused of a "bait and switch" scheme designed to bring a lot of people to their website on Black Friday looking for a terrific deal on a 42-inch Plasma 1080p HDTV by Panasonic for only $298.This item at this price was unheard of until an article appeared on ZDNet.com, on Wednesday evening, with a big bold headline that read "The best Black Friday 2010 HDTV deal yet: $298 Panasonic 42-inch 1080p plasma at Buy.com."
The ZDNet article was written by Sean Portnoy. Portnoy was apparently in touch with a Buy.com 'spokesperson' who told him that this particular deal would be available on the Buy.com website "an hour or two after Thanksgiving turns to Black Friday on the West Coast" (2 am Central time, 3 am on the East coast). Free shipping was also supposed to be thrown in to 'sweeten' this already sweet deal.
Many people visit ZDNet for buying tips and many of those people, all over the country, were sitting bleary-eyed at their computers when Black Friday dawned on the West Coast waiting for the Panasonic 1080p deal to come up on Buy.com.
The Panasonic at the advertised sale price never came up, and then at 1 am (West Coast time) Buy.com announced that the Panasonic 42-inch 1080p plasma was "sold out." Right now Buy.com has a lot of angry consumers nipping at their heels with complaints to the Better Business Bureau and other consumer protection agencies. The accusation is that the announced Buy.com sale on this particular item was just a scam designed by Buy.com to get people to their website for other Black Friday deals.
Even though Portnoy at ZDNet was apparently just reporting what he was told, he is also a target of this anger because his blog at ZDNet was the only place that advertised this supposedly 'terrific deal.'
You can Read The Full Story Here at Phillip Brunelle's blog. Mr Brunelle was one of those 'bleary-eyed' potential buyers sitting at his computer in the early hours of Black Friday waiting for the Panasonic deal to pop up when finally at 4 am (1 am on the West Coast) Buy.com announced that the Panasonic 42-inch 1080p plasma was "Sold Out."
Comments
I managed to order the TV, and it's now shipped. There was no bait and switch. Some got lucky, some didn't... No need to cry about it. I'm sure buy.com wanted it to be like a lottery where only the lucky get the TV.. otherwise, they would've posted the price and the EXACT time it would be on sale.
Jimmy...proof yours shipped?
According to buy.com, NONE of the tvs would have shipped until Monday at the soonest. Even if you were the 1st to order.
Me too. I bought one and it shipped. We are dealing with crazy deals. Sometimes I get them and sometimes I don't. It's no better anywhere else. Overall, I like this site.
gtfo jimmy
here's proof..
http://i56.tinypic.com/iofzuh.jpg
and this is what the tracking website says:
Last Status (None)
Estimated Time of Departure Friday, November 26, 2010 / R - Ground
Estimated Time of Arrival Wednesday, December 01, 2010 (NOT SCHEDULED!)
Shipment Type Threshold Plus
We have your order in our system as a �ship request� and we are waiting for the final shipping confirmation. Usually this will happen within 3 business days. Once confirmed, you can expect a call from us to schedule your delivery.
Once we have received the final shipping confirmation, you will see a proof of pick up entered and the ETD (estimated time of departure) and ETA (estimated time of delivery) will be updated with correct information. Until we have this information, we will not be able to assist you any further.
** Please note your delivery is not scheduled until we have made contact with you.
HOME DELIVERY CUSTOMER SERVICE PHONE #:
877-626-6249
HOME DELIVERY CUSTOMER SERVICE HOURS:
Monday-Friday 7am to 11pm CST
That is BS and "jimmy" is either someone who is trying to defend this deadbeat sale, or the advertising of it through zdnet.com to cover their butts. I waited up all night refreshing the page continuously too and the deal never got posted to the website on buy.com and then within a fraction of a second to refresh the page again the only change that finally happened was a sold out notice, and this wasn't until after 12:30am pacific time. I agree with this article and the person who wrote the blog about this because it wasn't just me who seen this, it was about five other people that I know who were online for west coast midnight to get the deal too, and not one of them got the deal, nor did anyone see anything about it until the sold out notice came up!! Anyone can type up an supposed email invoice Jimmy... especially someone who works for buy.com!!
You probably work for them!
If you got the TV, your the only one because no one else got one. Its just funny how the ONE person that got it is going around defending the website. If I was the only one that got the TV i might go around telling people i got it or something but i wouldnt be going around trying to defect the WEBSITE! hmm sounds a little fishy.
I 2nd Cory's comment, that anyone... especially someone who works for buy.com can come up with something like that, I could actually go on and create an order history too using photoshop to add in my info and cross it out like I'm protecting my identity. My sister and I waited up all night long for this stupid tv and same thing, it never came on. We refreshed the page every minute on the minute and not until exactly 12:34 did we see that the price never came up, but now it said sold out. I remember the time exactly because it was 1234. Since we are in California we didn't have to wait up all night for the time difference. Today when I was checking online to see what happened with this all I see everywhere is people saying that it was a bait and switch and everyone saying how they didn't ever see it even change price to the sale price and seen no changes at all with it until it said sold out. Jimmy is the only person I have seen in more than 20 articles on this topic online that claims he managed to get one, and in reality I bet Jimmy is someone who works at buy.com because he is really going out of his way to prove himself about this, what normal consumer would care so much? If I got the deal I wouldn't worry about looking up scam articles about buy.com the next day!!!
I BELIEVE HIM!!! He probably did get one of the TV's because he works for them!!! which is the same reason he can show us the supposed shopping cart. I am pissed off about this because I stayed up ALL DAMN NIGHT LONG and THE PRICE NEVER CHANGED FOR THIS TV!!!!! My parents were also three states away from me at home trying for this same deal and same thng they only seen the regular price for hundreds of dollars more and they said IT NEVER CHANGED UNTIL IT ALL OF A SUDDEN SAID SOLD OUT!!!! In the matter of less than a second too??!!! BULL CRAP!!!!!!!
THE LETTER FROM BUY.COM IS A LIE BECAUSE WHEN WE WERE ON THERE THEY ONLY HAD AN INVENTORY OF 12 OF THESE TV'S AND IT WAS AT THEIR REGULAR PRICE TOO, AND IF THEY HAD 650 SUCCESSFUL SALES IN A FRACTION OF A SECOND'S TIME BETWEEN REFRESHING THE PAGE FROM THE NORMAL PRICE TO SEEING A SOLD OUT NOTICE THEN WE WANT TO KNOW WHO ALL OF THESE 650 PEOPLE ARE, OR AT LEAST SOME OF THEM BECAUSE I WASTED MY ENTIRE NIGHT FOR NOTHING!!! I WILL NEVER SHOP ON BUY.COM AND I WILL PERSONALLY MAKE SURE NOBODY I KNOW DOES EITHER!!! I WILL ALSO POINT EVERYONE ON THE INTERNET TO THIS STORY AND TO THE GUY'S BLOG (PHILLIP BRUNELLE) WHO FIRST BROKE THIS STORY. THEY GOT MILLIONS, NOT OVER 200,000 OF PEOPLE WHO WENT TO THEIR WEBSITE LAST NIGHT... OVER 200,000 THAT THEY CARE TO ADMIT TO BUT THAT IS A LIE TOO!!! WHAT A SHAME!!!
Harvey, I believe that you were right in posting your original story. You have to understand that people will say and do anything to cover up their busted butts, and I honestly believe that you were right with your original article about this story, because I too was on their website last night and happen to know first hand as a directory of IT for a major retail website that there weren't any updates published to this product on buy. com until as everyone else already said, they posted a sold out notice for the product. This would have been the perfect gift with a perfect price for a Christmas gift for our son, but turns out there wasn't a deal at all and we only wasted our evening waiting on a buy.com deal that they never posted on their website, no matter what they want to tell people while trying to defend themselves.
(meant to say director above, not directory, lol although sometimes its what my job feels like)
Actually, the TV did go on sale. You had to add it to your cart to see the Black Friday price, that's why it was sold out because people actually bought them. They just never received them :-\
I don't work for buy.com.. I was one of the few lucky ones because I didn't sit there refreshing the page. what I did do was get the link on the webpage that "add item to cart", and I refreshed that on 3 different browsers, and one fo them suddenly showed up as $298 so I quickly checked out and got my confirmation email at 12:06AM PST.
I believe those that say they have received shipping confirmation as his shipping confirmation matches those who have posted in the deals forum I frequent. It seems very unlikely that multiple, separate accounts (some with numerous posts in the forum and membership that would predate anything but a multi-year conspiracy by the company) would conspire to defend Buy.com. Making baseless accusations in the comments section of an internet article comes across as petty.
As for me, I received confirmation that my order went through a few minutes after midnight Pacific time. The price of $298.99 only showed up once I had placed the TV in my cart. This seems to be the case for most, if not all people who were interested in the deal. My confirmation arrived at 12:12 AM PST with the time ordered being 12:09 AM PST.
At 3:59 PM PST Friday, I received an email from Buy.com that my order had been canceled, along with a $50 gift code as an apology for the cancellation. Neither the link for the gift code, nor the code itself, worked when I attempted to redeem the code. Obviously, I was quite disappointed. My conversation with a Buy.com CSR didn't take me anywhere- my guess is that they really had no idea what was happening, nor a way to provide any help. I'm pretty sure they were harassed by a number of irate customers or would-be customers.
At 9:32 PM PST, I received another email stating that Buy.com had secured more inventory and was working on fulfilling my order with more email updates to come.
As of Saturday 7:33 PM PST, my order has not been reinstated on the Buy.com website, though considering the updates on the Buy.com Facebook page, as well as the email I received, I believe I will be receiving the TV I ordered.
I believe that Mr. Wisot's number of 650 customers refers to the number of people who received a confirmation for their order, rather than the number who have so far received shipping confirmation. The aforementioned members of the deal forum have pieced together a sketchy timeline of when orders were received and have pieced together a rough estimate of how many orders have confirmed shipment (only a handful).
If anyone wishes to look further into the matter, I've provided two links at the bottom of this post. The first is the Buy.com Facebook page. For awhile, the page was being scrubbed of customer complaints, though it appears that has stopped. The second link is to the thread on Slickdeals for the TV. The wiki provides a snapshot of some of the events, and the thread itself goes into greater detail of everything that occurred (though it's probably far too long to read through).
I don't believe Buy.com intentionally did anything wrong, though I do feel they were grossly under-prepared for the sale of this TV and did a poor job organizing a response to the oversale. I've been disappointed in this experience with Buy.com, though it appears they are trying to resolve customers' issues. Though I believe the fiasco to be a series of honest mistakes, I'll be a bit hesitant to shop at Buy.com in the future.
I've also been disappointed by many of the consumers interested in this TV. Baselessly calling Jimmy a liar (even if he was callous), is just one example of the pettiness people have displayed surrounding this deal.
www.facebook.com/buy.com
http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?t=2416009
There is a follow up story on this, and it looks like the guy who originally broke the story got the same email from buy.com except he posted the full email in his follow up article at the link below...
http://phillipbrunelle.blogspot.com/2010/11/buycom-customers-want-answer...
If you placed an oder you can still get the tv, read about it in this article here:
http://phillipbrunelle.blogspot.com/2010/11/buycom-responds-to-consumer-...
either click the link above or copy/paste it into your browser.
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