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Sweet Buy.com Coupon Deal . . . My Story

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DaveS

Member
Hello,
I am new and I thought that I would post some information about Buy.com that I felt was sweet. I took advantage of their $30.00 off $150.00 purchase by ordering a $99.99 VCR, a $24.99, and a $25.99 color inkjet cartridge. My total was $150.97 - $30.00 coupon = $120.97. Well unfortunately the VCR was discontinued and after it sitting in the "Processing" Phase for about a week, I cancelled that item. Buy.com charges when items ship, so I had been charged $20.98 for my two print cartridges that were over $50.00. I thought that it was a nice touch to not revoke the coupon from my order. Sweet. There was no shipping charge since it was standard delivery and over $100.00.
It just so happened that I ordered 2 DVD's last week also and 1 was on backorder. I used the $10.00 coupon off $30.00 and found that I was charged $9.43 for a $15.99 DVD (shipping was extra). I cancelled the DVD that was on backorder and got my "Loser" DVD for less than ten bucks shipped.
Now I am not suggesting that this is a "Hot Deal", but I wanted to take the opportunity to thank Buy.com for letting me still use the coupons after removing an item that was not shipped.
Has anyone else experienced this "kindness" with Buy.com, or does anyone else know of any other sites that have done the same to say "Thank you but we are sorry we cannot deliver your item, but we will still let you use your coupon"?

DaveS
- Please be gentle as this is my first post.
 
Thank you for the heartfelt story.

Now get outta HotDeals if yer gonna post stuff like this!!!:|:|:|:|:|:|:|:|:|:|:|:|:|:|:|:|
 
RGN and others,

Things are often not as it seems on the surface.

For example, I ordered a Radeon DDR and a SmartMedia card from Onvia and applied a coupon. SmartMedia turned out to be not in stock, when it said in stock when I ordered and still do say in stock. Anyway, they canceled it. Still, Onvia applied the coupon to my order and I ended up getting the Radeon for $120.

I did not do it on purpose because I needed the SmartMedia as much as Radeon. However, what is interesting is that Onvia let you order stuff even if it's not in stock. Usually, if they do not get the item in about 10 days, they send you an email and cancel it automatically. Still, they honer the coupon even though your order is not meeting the minimum requirement anymore for the coupon. And often, they do not get their stuff in 10 days. Buy.com is more or less the same so as NECX and others.

And please be nice to new people.
 
All,
If I have upset anyone for posting this in the wrong forum, I apologize. I see critics, but no light at the end of the tunnel. What forum would you suggest this be posted to?
Nice to see that Onvia honors the coupons as well. I would have returned the printer cartridges had they not applied the coupon. I really did want the VCR and they were used as a buffer to get me to the $150.00 sweet spot, and I did need them anyway.
As for the DVD I did not get, it was for a Christmas present and I had to pay $30.00 from Best Buy because Buy.com could not deliver. Niether one of these cases were intended to result the way they did, but I thought that honoring the coupon was the cool thing.
I consider this a "Hot Deal" because what else would you call paying less than ten bucks for a new DVD? And how about $20.00 for 2 printer cartridges. This was a "Hot Deal" for me and I am sure that I am not the only one that this has happened to unintentionally.

DaveS
 
Dave8 --

Don't let the hardboiled online buying system gamers bum you out. Yours was a good story.

Some online sites are way better than others in how they treat customers. Buy.com is a real class act. So is onvia. If you don't feel like gaming the system or doing a lot of research on smaller orders, you will just about never get really screwed by the pricing at those two places. Which isn't to say that they are the absolute lowest at everything, but they often are, and they are just about never off of a good discount. And they are very good with things like honoring coupons, etc. It is apparent that both places are willing to loose money to build a large customer following. Well, maybe things will tighten , but that is how it has been.

Buy.com in particular made a name for itself last year by often coming in with super discounts on very hot items that couldn't be had anywhere at discount prices. E.g., the Nikon Coolpix 990; the IBM 75GXP HDD drive series when it first hit.

Now Buy.com couldn't fill those orders either, and clearly listed them as backorder on their site. But they said they would honor their orders on a first come first served basis, even if the price subsequently went up from super discount, reflecting the demand situation.

Net, net is that I order a Nikon Coolpix from them early last year when they just about couldn't be had anywhere at a discount off the MSRP of 999.50 or so. Or much off of it. Buy.com for a while offered it, on a backordered basis at super low prices that slowly went up as their order book filled. I got an order in at $807.50, and $8 or so ground shipping, backordered. I figured I'd let it sit there while I waited to see if something else whould turn up elsewhere for more, but available.

I couldn't find anyone actually getting one for less than $900 anywhere else. So I let it sit. (I have several high end optical Nikon cameras and wasn't in a panic.)

A bit less than two months later my CoolPix 990 arrived at the order price. When I got the email saying it was on the way, I checked their site. The current order price then was 886.00 or so. WHich was still less than just about anywhere else at that time. It was still listed as backordered. But they kept me at my place in line. Multiply me by a thousand or so times say $75 given up and its a nice piece of change on one stock item, to keep their in order policy.

They got my considerable affection with that one. Always had good dealings with them. Good outfit.

But.....You can learn a lot from the discount coupon gamers on this site. THey are pros. Can save you quite a lot, and it can be kinda fun --- if time consuming.

 
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