RE: FW: Shop@Kodak DX3700 Digital Camera [warning: long]

["Mark Hetherington" <mark.egroups@xxxxxxx>]

> From: Kenneth Watt [mailto:kennwatt@xxxxxxx]
> I have to agree with Des.
>
> In my work, repairing stuff, if I quote a price for a job then it is
> *almost* set in stone, if I put it in writing then too bad if the
> pricing changes, it's my loss. However, if I *estimate* then that is a
> different story, it is then an estimated price and not an actual
price!

Quotations and estimates are defined differently under law and neither
share
the same definition of price. Where you can negotiate with a customer to
adjust a quotation, well done. But since you draw the parallel, I assume
you
would also refuse to honour someone coming to you with a photocopy of the
quotation for the exact same work? Especially if several thousand people
did
so?

> Put it this way, if I quoted you £60 to repair a duff washer then got
> there and told you the same job would now cost £180 you wouldn't
accept
> it, no reasonable person would, I know I wouldn't!

If you quoted, no, if you estimated as many repairers do for the reason
that
it may not be as simple as a £60 job after investigation, I would have
little choice, but I suspect you would be good enough to warn me before we
got to such an increase in the total bill.

Regardless of the parts involved, a repair is essentially a service so is
again largely covered by a different area of the law. The guy I use for
most
of the repairs, generally estimates in terms of 'not much' and 'a lot' when
talking about cost so I have never had the opportunity for it to change
that
much :).

I argued the change successfully once with a call out plumber, but they
made
sure they got the money another way by dragging the job out but that is
another story :(

> However, if I enter into a contract,

This was the point I was discussing in my earlier messages, whether the
contract has actually been made.

> as I feel I have done in this
> instance, with a manufacturer or insurer in my business and I make a
> mistake with the pricing then too bad, my mistake...my loss!
>
> Okay, I accept that Kodak made a mistake with this offer and that
these
> kind of things can and do happen. I do not accept Kodak's view of the
> situation in that everybody that ordered can just bogg-off with no
> recompense for the mistake other than the offer of a paltry 10%
> discount, particularly in light of the fact that the offer was open
for
> far longer than their own press statement acknowledges and proves!
They
> *knew* that page was active and they should have done something far
> sooner to resolve the situation.

AIUI, the original mistake was on their home page. I assume ineptitude
resulted in the actual page remaining active while the link(s) was
destroyed. Having seen the "news" reports and the various
messages around
the net, the fact that this "offer" was pretty much not, should
have been
obvious and a lot of the chat on newsgroups and message boards introduced
the fact that the offer had been withdrawn but you could get to the page by
going to a particular URL. This is comparable to switching a price on a
shelf in a shop and trying to get them to sell at the cheaper price. It was
known to have been withdrawn to, I would suggest, a majority of those who
ordered after the original link was removed. I make no accusations against
UKHA members, but some of the Usenet/message board people obviously knew it
was not available at that price from their own messages hence my comparison
with in store price switching!

> Had Kodak come back and said "okay we arsed it up and it's our
mistake
> but we'll let you have the goods for £***.**", so long as the
offer was
> reasonable most people would have been happy enough. However they did
> not! They effectively said "p*ss off, we ballsed it up and you're
not
> getting anything for us making a mistake" (BTW, I consider the
offer of
> a 10% discount a bit cheap and tantamount to 0) I and, I am sure many
> others, find this insulting.

What would you have considered reasonable? My partners and I generally
offer
to sell at cost in the event of a mistake in web pricing as a gesture of
good will, but we couldn't afford to do that for several thousand people if
that scenario happened. In our case, cost would not been much, if any,
better than the 10% discount depending on the product. We have also in the
past given a customer a "voucher" for discount as thanks when
they informed
us of an obvious mistake on our web site involving a price for an item.
Fortunately, mistakes are few and far between but could prove costly so we
attempt to do what we can to avoid the situation becoming inflamed.
However,
had our mistakes been on news sites, Usenet, mailing lists and message
boards, they would likely have grown to exponential proportions and had
they
been enforced on a scale such as the Kodak one, would likely have put the
business under.

The closest application off the net is that of catalogues. In such cases,
under law, the customer is usually expected to pay a reasonable price for
the item and is not entitled to rely on the catalogue as the price when
ordering. (Misrepresentation within a catalogue is ignored since it is a
seperate issue)

At least you do acknowledge their mistake though, rather than claiming
misrepresentation as some people (not necessarily on list) have claimed. If
you genuinely beloved the offer to be good, then I can understand your
frustration. I do hope you can see where I am coming from as well. WRT the
camera deal, not affected, but in many ways, it could affect me.

> I reckon this is what has created
> overworked tempers on this issue more than the fact that Kodak made a
> mistake.

Personally I think the Internet did two things in this case. One, propagate
a mistake to an unprecedented extent, and two, propagate a demand for it to
be held. Both were down to the simple fact that the experience was shared
not with a few friends/locals but with the entire country. Usually people
will just think "I tried it on, it didn't work, no loss".

> On looking about the web you can pick up a Kodak DX3700 with dock for
> £240 so whilst £100 seems a very low price, if the manufacturer was
> directly clearing stocks it is not unreasonable IMO, it just looked to
> be a great buy! Just look back at some of the bargains we have had
> posted to this group from all over the globe...is it unthinkable that
we
> could get a decent digital camera for this sort of money, I don't
think
> so.

Like epods? Which went from a great price back to full price. Surely any
manufacturer clearing product would have thought that after several
thousand
orders that they could put the price up some. Surely a clearance of such
magnitude would take pride of place on their home page since despite
Kodak's
flaws, for the lower price these flaws were not such an issue and could
easily get a lot of sales, rather than be hidden on a URL that is *only*
accessible to those that had been given it. I don't mean to suggest
anything, but IMO, it's lack of accessibility via the site itself seemed
somewhat suspicious. What adds to my thinking is one of the news articles
reporting it, highlighting the difference in UK vs US pricing which was
overturned by this "offer".

> Of course all this is just an opinion and a personal view of the
events
> and what will count is what the lawyers and Trading Standards have to
> say about it all.

Opinions we all have, mine I suspect will be unpopular since it goes
against
the general trend, but I can live with that :)

Well, to be honest, so far Trading Standards is giving out very conflicting
information (as always). Their own "advice" to consumers on their
.gov
website states that a trader is within his rights to refuse to sell an item
if the displayed price is a mistake. Also, Trading Standards, for all that
they do, have no power to force a conclusion that has no statutes to direct
it and no case law to back it up. All they can really do in this situation
is try and assemble a case for a court to rule on.

As for lawyers, they are a rule unto themselves. They will talk a lot, but
have the same limitations as Trading Standards so although they might reach
some form of settlement, without taking it before a judge, no ruling can be
made.

>from
camera deal will not actually affect me either way, a ruling on it could
since it could have major repercussions on ecommerce within the UK. If a
mistake on a web site is enforceable, but one in a shop is not, then the
fledging ecommerce market will likely remain no more than that, if not die
completely. This will affect me both on a personal level and on a business
level.

As Consumer Protection grows, retailers often suffer, especially with
things
like credit card fraud. Until we remove humans from retailing, mistakes
will
happen and is it fair to punish for a mistake?

I think Kodak handled it badly, but I also think a lot of people (not
necessarily here) are trying it on. I hope some satisfactory conclusion is
reached for thos affected, but I hope it is not so drastic as to close down
the rather fragile online world of ecommerce or discrimiate online retail
to
a larger degree than high street. Ecommerce is already more difficult than
high street for many reasons without making the whole situation worse.

I was going to conclude with a short dilemma, but since I seem to have
written so much, have sent it to the list seperately since I did not want
the length of my text to put off anyone who might want to contribute to it
:)

Mark.