Thank you for the response Henry. I read/skimmed the The Equitable Doctrine of Unilateral Mistake. Here's my thoughts and I preface they are obviously simply my opinions:
http://www.lctjournal.washington.edu/vol1/a002groebner.html 1. I couldn't find whether the The Equitable Doctrine of Unilateral Mistake is simply that, or if it really has any basis in law. Since the article I read came from a law journal, I assume it must at least have been recognized in legal decisions that set precedents. 2. In either case it is very vague and fuzzy and open to much interpretation. 3. As you mentioned, it speaks of "When online retailers make honest, good-faith pricing mistakes that result in huge losses to the benefit of opportunistic online shoppers, their mistake could be grounds for rescinding the unfavorable contract under the doctrine of unilateral mistake". 4. I question whether the amount of money involved in this transaction, represented a 'huge loss'. Since I don't have near the annual revenue of B&H, and I wouldn't consider it a *huge* loss if I lost $250 personally, I would say it does not represent a huge loss for B&H either. I admit I don't know where I'd draw the line, but I know it would not be at $250. Earlier in the document it cites losses in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and millions of dollars that have been incurred by online retailers, because of pricing mistakes in automated systems. I can certainly understand why a retailer would want to prevent those kinds of losses, and doing so is indeed fair to the retailer. 5. The offer to sell the 2nd speaker at cost with free shipping was a move in the right direction. Not knowing what that cost is, it's hard to judge how much of a concession it was. However, I can understand at least, the principle of compromising so that the buyer gets a lower price, and the retailer does not lose their entire item cost. 6. I still think it would have been better, and in the long term interests of both customer loyalty and B&H's reputation, to simply honor the original contract as it stood. Thank you again. Tom C. > Actually I was emailing replies all along. Unfortunately for me I'd > registered here under hen...@bhphotovideo.com and learned only this morning > that our back-end people had changed me to hen...@bhphoto.com so every > message I'd sent here bounced. Since the topic has died down I don't think > tossing gas on dieing embers is particularly fruitful. The product in > question was not a Pentax product and the customer in question is, as far as > I can tell, not a subscriber to this group. > > I am reluctant to go too far OT, but briefly we sell a particular speaker for > 250.00 each. We inadvertently posted on our site the speaker was selling for > 250.00/pair. The customer placed an order which was transmitted to the > warehouse where they were unaware of the site error and shipped the customer > a speaker. He contacted us and we offered a variety of reasonable compromises > including the chance to buy the 2nd speaker for our cost with free shipping. > Lawyers I know say a compromise is when both parties are equally > dissatisfied. We were unable to reach a compromise with the customer. We > regret the error and regret not being able to come to a compromise. > > Someone speculated about the original review disappearing from the site. The > author of the review revised it. That sent it from active to pending status. > Once the pending period expired the review returned to visibility. B&H had > nothing to do wit that. > > Regarding legalities, our site and our site's disclaimer and our response to > this situation have all been vetted by our in-house lawyer. We are confident > of the legality. I believe my first post, forwarded by another member of this > group, referenced The Equitable Doctrine of Unilateral Mistake. It is germane. > > On a personal note, one person here posted the following at various times: > "Posner's whine ...Posner's just the waterboy for them...B&H lied about their > pricing...So, we now have B&H Photo who come off looking like a bunch of > lying scumbags...attack dog Posner..." > > I'd like to think it's possible to engage in a reasonable dialogue here and > disagree with one another without resorting to venal personal invective and > insults. > > -- - > > regards, > Henry Posner > B&H Photo-Video, and Pro-Audio > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > PDML@pdml.net > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
