{"id":10,"date":"2007-04-04T22:07:55","date_gmt":"2007-04-05T05:07:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reisun.org\/?p=10"},"modified":"2007-04-04T22:07:55","modified_gmt":"2007-04-05T05:07:55","slug":"deceptive-web-retail-practices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reisun.org\/?p=10","title":{"rendered":"Deceptive Web Retail Practices"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It is the classic bait-and-switch, to show more inventory on your web site than you actually have in stock, I assume hoping that when the order is placed and the item becomes &#8220;backordered&#8221; or &#8220;unavailable&#8221; the customer will then buy something else that is in stock. Still, a pretty crummy business practice.<\/p>\n<p>I want to highlight some stores that I have personal experience with that do this:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span class=\"a\"><font size=\"2\" color=\"#008000\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.1800mobiles.com\/\">www.1800mobiles.com<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0(March 2007) I\u00c2\u00a0wanted to get a 1100mAh battery for my Cingular 3125 (HTC StarTrek) phone. Google has this first when you do a search, and indeed the website has it &#8220;in stock&#8221;. Once I placed the order the next day I get the following email:<\/font><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span class=\"a\"><\/span><span class=\"a\">Dear XXX,<\/span><span class=\"a\">The item(s) listed below is\/are currently back-ordered with a 1-2 weeks estimated time of replenishment. We will ship your item(s) as soon as available.<\/p>\n<p>\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 QTY:\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a02<br \/>\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 ITEM: STAR161<br \/>\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 DESC: Cingular 3125 1100mAh Lith-Ion Battery<br \/>\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 OPT:\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<br \/>\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Thanks,<\/p>\n<p>1800mobiles operations<\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\" color=\"#008000\">\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Then about a week later I get an email that summarily cancels the order, saying that the product has been discontinued or some such (I unfortunately deleted the email out of disgust). Of course, this product is still listed (as of April 2007) on the web site as available and &#8220;ready to ship.&#8221;<\/font><\/p>\n<p><\/span><span class=\"a\"><font size=\"2\" color=\"#008000\">Beware of 1800mobiles.com!<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"a\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"a\"><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is the classic bait-and-switch, to show more inventory on your web site than you actually have in stock, I assume hoping that when the order is placed and the item becomes &#8220;backordered&#8221; or &#8220;unavailable&#8221; the customer will then buy something else that is in stock. Still, a pretty crummy business practice. I want to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-consumer","category-web"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reisun.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reisun.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reisun.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reisun.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reisun.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.reisun.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reisun.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reisun.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reisun.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}