An online retailer accidentally priced a 51-inch 3D television for €6.49 instead of €649 during the weekend.
The offer was online throughout Saturday and most of Sunday before Viking Direct disabled the purchase function, but not before several thousand orders were made.
However, purchasers who thought they got a bargain will be left disappointed, as Viking said yesterday it was unable to fulfil orders placed for the televisions at the incorrect price. Customers who placed orders will automatically be given full refunds.
“As per Viking’s terms and conditions, the company is entitled to cancel any order if the ordering web pages contain any error, including in relation to the description or price of any goods,” the statement said.
“We are in the process of contacting those customers who placed an order for the wrongly priced television to advise them of the misprice and their impending refund. We would like to apologise to our customers for any inconvenience this has caused.”
The company does not yet know whether the price mix-up was a computer glitch or a human error.
Entitled to cancel
Despite calls by many purchasers for Viking to honour the orders, a spokeswoman for the National Consumer Agency said the company was entitled to cancel them.
“In cases where there was a genuine pricing mistake, consumers are entitled to a refund of money paid but are not entitled to receive the goods at the incorrect price. In cases of genuine pricing errors, traders are not obliged to fulfil orders which are placed at the incorrect price,” she said.
The offer web page was shared more than 50 times on Twitter as people encouraged others to avail of the offer before website administrators noticed.