Anyone else ever been SCREWED with a pricematch?

[stonecold3169]

So I'm in the market for a new digital cam. I decide upon the Olympus c-700, mainly because the only local place that sells cameras is Officemax, and I could play with one there.

So I go online, find the camera for $350 + $60 overnight shipping, print it out, bring it to the manager, and he refuses the pricematch, stating it isn't a local competitor. Okay, I'm fine with that, it's his discretion.

I go home, pull up officemax.com, and see that they have an email template for requesting a pricematch, you just fill in the item number, and the competitors add, and they email you back telling you if it got accepted or not. If accepted, you just order and thn email them with the order number and they credit you back 115% of the difference.

So I call them up, because I wanted to also use a $50 off of $250 coupon, the girl accepts it, I ask to VERIFY that the email saying the pricematch was accepted would work, she says that it's fine, gives me my order number, so all is good, right?

WRONG. When I ordered, they sent the order to my local store, and they sent it to me. Officemax.com refuses to grant the pricematch because they say it went through my local store (Which I was told by the lady on the phone it would work), and was told I would have to go through my local manager. My local manager still won't budge, and I've been told that because the camera is not broke, I CAN NOT return it for my money back...

Am I right and saying that I just got screwed???

By the way, the price difference was pretty significant, $150, and I wouldn't have gotten it otherwise. Also, I was told I would be credited back in 24-48 hours by the girl I ordered it from, and even if this IS resolved, it will be much longer then that now.

 

[d33pt]

speak to a supervisor on the phone and in the store.. go as high as you can and i'm sure they'll give you the pricematch or your money back. but dont let them get away with it

 

[stonecold3169]

I will fight the good fight. I can't let them do this, I'm a 19 year old college student. $150 is a hell of a lot of money to me!

 

[iamwiz82]

i dont like OM. I bought a Nikon 775 from Staples, PMed with a very shady dealer, used a coupon, and got it for like $200 cheaper, including shipping, which they charged me

 

Oh my Gosh! Stonecold3169, sorry you were not around during those days I wrote my long horrour storiess about pricematching with Officemax.com. You'll end up appreciating Staples after you've had a taste of Officemax.com.

They are a pain in the a$$. The only reason I stuck with it was 'cuz the things I was getting were invaluable. I got 4 nice bookshelves and something else I forget. I got them for a very nice price, thanks to price matching at Officemax.com. At the same time, I lost an opportunity to get PDAs as a gift for my family members 'cuz OfficeMax would not pricematch it in a timely fashion. And then when I received the e-mail for verification (further proof, that is), I contact them and got tossed around. And then finally they claimed to me they had no records of or could not access the records on some e-mail sent to me from Officemax.com which would have verified my info. instead of starting from scratch again. In other words, I was shut up! See, I had to go through the trouble of returning all of those items. And by the time I did that, it was past the 30 days limit. I had to make a scene with the store managers and then they called the OfficeMax call center to verify my claim. After all of the scene, they apologised to me for the conducts of OfficeMax.com, gave me a refund and said they hoped I shop with them.

It was really pathetic 'cuz I had gone through the same trouble with them to get 4 nice bookshelves. I got tossed around, but luckily I finally got a nice CSR who finally accepted the price match. Problem is, they took forever to finally send me the price difference. About 6 months later I was still chasing the OfficeMax delivery center to refund the price difference. The CSRs each time would tell me they would tell the delivery center to refund me 'cuz they were responsible for it. Weeks later, I would call back to find out why I had not received a refund. And then finally they would transfer me to the delivery center for contacts myself. Well, delivery center would tell me they have no records of a refund request, so apparently the call center was not doing its job of communicating my request. It took six months to get this folks to refund me the amount due me. Oh and I'm not kidding: No tax was refunded. I had to eat up the amount they gave me.

I had a similar horrour story with a return. The regular store won't refund me my money, the officemax.com won't refund me my money. It was hell of a pain. At the moment, they still owe me. And some of the CSRs basically told me they couldn't care the least. It's been abotu a year now. I finally got a reasonable CSR from officemax call center. She said things like this have been going on with the regular store refusing to refund stuff from the 'net. The problem is, she said she had arranged for me to get my refund from the store, but when I contact the store, they claim no such manager exists. I have to go through the whole routine all over. I was quite lazy last year , but I know the best remedy that always works: write them a nice legal looking and sounding letter. They usuallly act quickly. I'm afraid I have to take that step to get them to give me what they owe me.

 

[aphex]

It shouldnt have to be broken to return it, thats BS if ya ask me...

 

[stonecold3169]

The manager told me the reason the broken only returns on camera is so that people can't take them on vacation and then return them, basicly "renting" them.

Luvly, your story sounds almost identical to mine. Unfortunetly it looks like I'll have to go through exactly what you did. Thanks for sharing though, it's good(well, not good, but something...) to see it wasn't just me.
The more people this happens to the more power we have to complain and get things changed.

Another way I think I got screwed over: Pricematches online have to add overnight shipping. If they're going to give me this much of a hard time for it going through my local store instead of them, shouldn't I get that overnight shipping refunded? It seems logical to me, seeing as how the way this is going I might just as well have gotten it from the B&M...

I'm just so frustrated right now

 

[toant103]

you cant' return an item? SCrewed him

 

[fr]

WTF? You can't return an unopened item?


In a way, that camera is broken. 27X zoom with no image stabilization.

 

[Lucky]

<< WTF? You can't return an unopened item?


In a way, that camera is broken. 27X zoom with no image stabilization. >>




thats why they make tripods.

 

[Passions]

I pricematched my S110 back in the day with OfficeMax, they took it and I was expecting a bill of $320, but it was actually $297!!!!!!! WAHOOOOOOOOO! OFFICEMAX OWNZ

 

[stonecold3169]

update:

So after repeated calls, I finally talk to a head manager on the phone division of Officemax.com . I talk to her for a bit, and she agrees that it sounds like I've been getting tossed around. She tells me that she will call the head manager of my local store, and I will get a call back from her.

Two days pass. Not hearing anything, I call back officemax.com, and have them look at my order. They tell me that a resolution has been reached, and I just need to call my local manager. Great, I think. Well, no. I call them, and the man was very snippy with me. First of all, he told me that I have no need to have to talk with him again, as it should be evident by now that the price I will get it for is the price I had originally paid. He tells me neither himself or officemax.com is willing to fork out the $$$. Then he tells me to either return the camera, or stop calling, to which he hurridly says bye and hangs up on me.

So I'm going to the store today to return this damn camera, it isn't worth $500, I would have gladly kept it for the $350 we had agreed upon. Unfortunetly, now I need to go into town for the third time for no reason except to fight over this damn camera. Also, my card is a debit card, so they are actually dealing with my cash. I probably will not get it credited back for another 2 weeks after I go in today. What a crappy deal and experiance.

 

[amdskip]

I absolutely hat office max for price matching. They won't accept competitors coupons of any sort and they are usually just a bunch of stuck of people who know nothing about computers!