Complaint Review: Office Depot

I tried to update this the following morning after successfully purchasing the item online for $299.99 very early Friday morning. I am attaching a screen shot showing the price hike to $699.99. Although this instance does not meet "official" definition of bait & switch as so kindly pointed out by the Office Depot employee, it did approximate the criteria of the term by baiting a consumer and then switching the terms. As for the item not being available online, it was, and was always advertised that way. You will notice from my screen shot the date and time are still 11/24/2011 and that is because I am on Central time. The paper advertisement and online both indicated Black Friday times based on Eastern time and this is why I logged on at that time. Right in front of my eyes the "regular" price switched from $499.99 to $699.99 with a $200 discount, bringing the price back to $499.99. My point is that this "regular" price should not change. If you do not want to accept this as a bait & switch then the only other option to qualify it is blatant false advertisement. Neither is acceptable and once I called it to the attention to the Office Depot service desk the response was unacceptable. The only saving grace is that someone with the ability to make a rational decision corrected the error. Kudos to whoever fixed the issue and got the product listed correctly. Maybe they got so many calls about the issue; they realized something had to be done.
Office Depot getting the price corrected: 10 out of 10
Office Depot employee knowledge and support process: 3 out of 10

First of all, this isn't a bait and switch. A bait and switch is where a company advertises an item at a certain price, intentionally does not stock it (bait), and then offers to sell you a much higher priced item instead (switch). Now...

Looking at the website, this item shows the regular price is $499.99, not $699.99. The SKU is 115-249, if anyone would like to verify. This item was also NOT available online at the $299.99 price on Black Friday, as it was a doorbuster item. The advertising insert does say "instore and online". However, that applies to the ad in general, not the items that list "In store only, quantities limited, no rainchecks". The doorbuster items were turned off Friday on the website to prevent people from trying to place orders for pickup instead of waiting in the lines.

I can speak only for my region, but I know that there were none of this computer in the warehouses and distribution centers that service the Southeast. Every single one was sent to the stores to support the Black Friday ad. If you did manage to get one ordered, on Black Friday, AND at the sale price, then you were incredibly lucky.

Hello,

The Office depot add for the Gateway NV55S17U for $299.99 did show the correct price for me online Thursday night 11/24/11 but the "buy" button was not available yet.  The newspaper add said that the item would be available on Friday 11/25/11 online at 7AM.  

I went online this morning and at 7am the buy button was available but something was wrong with their website and it would not allow me to continue to purchase the item.  So I just called Office depot at 1-800-GO-Depot and was able to purchase the item for $299.99 for their advertised price.  My order is due to be shipped on 11/29/11.   I mentioned to them about the problem with their website with the "buy" button not working for this item and she stated that they were currently making updates to it.  So if you still want this item the agent stated that at this time they had availability.  
No scam or ripoff here.  Good deal if you can get through to an agent before they run out.  I will post an update if the product was delivered as promised and in good condition.  I hope this helps.