Crescent Electric Supply Company

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2014/08/28) */
Contact Name and Title: *** ***
Contact Phone: XXX-XXX-XXXX
Contact Email: ***@cesco.com
To whom it may concern,
The customer found some heat tape on our website for per feet, but there was an error on our site and
this item is actually per feetWe acknowledge that this was an error on our part, and do not dispute this
As stated in our terms and conditions posted on our website at http://www.cesco.com/contents/footer/termsAndConditions.jsp in section C it states
"All pricing for the products available on our site is subject to changeFor all of our prices and products, we reserve the right to make adjustments due to changing market conditions, product discontinuation, manufacturer price changes, errors in advertisements and other extenuating circumstances."
Below is a summary of our communication with this customer, and our attempt to come to a reasonable resolution:
- The customer placed his order on 8/07/His order was for x feet of wire, for the total price of 28.25, when the actual price for feet is 2,We contacted the customer immediately after his order was placed (within hours)
- Because of the significant price discrepancy, our employee thought that the customer was actually trying to order feet from a foot spool, so he told the customer that we could not cut wire off of this reel, apologized for the inconvenience, and said that he would cancel the order immediatelyThis was not a refund, because we never charged this customer for the orderWe then updated our webpage, so that there would be no future confusion on this item
- The customer responded to our email saying that this was unacceptable, and that he expected us to honor the price on our website, and send him feet for
- We then apologized again for the inconvenience, and did send the customer a copy of our terms and conditions(All communication to this point took place within hours of his order being placed.)
- On 8/09/the customer emailed us and told us that he, and his contractor both knew that this price was very good, and took screenshots so that they could prove what the price was when they placed the orderIt is clear that they knew there was an issue when they placed the order, but placed the order anywayThe customer still expected us to honor the unreasonable price
- The customer's emails were forwarded to management to see if they could help the customer, and we did have an associate contact him, telling him that she would do whatever she could to resolve the customer's issue, and that she would see if she could possibly substitute the wire for a similar product, but she did not commit to anything, and we were unable to make this work
- We compared our pricing with other online stores and offered the customer a price that was lower than any other supplierWe marked this product down from per foot to per foot, which is a total discount of 2,from our regular price
- The customer still refused our offer, and demanded that we honor our original price, at which point our top management stepped in, and told the customer that we would not be able to discount the product anymore, as we are already offering it at a significant loss in an effort to satisfy him, but that as a final show of good will, we would offer him a 10% discount off of his next order in addition to our discounted offer, but he still refused
We never adjust prices or cancel orders without communicating with the customer first, and we always make an effort to offer a very aggressive discount to make up for errors
We also never charge a customer for a product until it ships
We feel that we made more than reasonable offers, and did everything short of giving the customer dollars' worth of product for dollars, but the customer was unwilling to work with us
Thanks,
***
*** ***
Crescent Electric Supply Company
Office: XXX-XXX-XXXX
Internal: X
***@cesco.com
Initial Consumer Rebuttal /* (3000, 7, 2014/08/28) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
The response is true, with one major omissionThe first agent to contact me offered to resolve this to my satisfaction, then made the following offer in an email (Which I still have):
***
I did get a chance to review your orderUnfortunately, we do not have any more of this item available in the 100' sections at any of our locations and the lead time is 7-business daysI know this is time sensitive, so I checked to see if there was an alternative product that we would have available at one of our other locations
I was able to find that this product is also made in a 300' rollI am currently seeing that we do have 1-foot reel available at another location, however, I would need to confirm with the branch that the reel is availableIf it is, by any chance, would 300' work for your current job?
Again, thank you for being so understanding!
*** M***
Ecommerce Product Specialist
***@cesco.com
Crescent Electric Supply Company
Embassy West Drive; Ste
Dubuque, IA XXXXX
I wrote back and accepted the offer, saying that I thought that would be too little, but that I would accept it as a solutionWhen I did not hear from her for days I wrote to her saying that due to the passage of time, I was now in a position to wait for her to order the ft rolls
After having made her offer, and then going silent for almost days, then another agent, not ***, was the first to approach me with an offer of $per roll*** then contacted me with the exact same offer as the second offer, and refused to even acknowledge that a previous offer had been made and acceptedI feel this was a second example of the company acting in bad faith
To speak to the insinuation that I was somehow dishonest because I took screenshots, I resent thatI am a cautious man, and this is not the first time screenshots of online business have been neededI think that shows forethought, not dishonesty
Final Business Response /* (4000, 9, 2014/09/04) */
To whom it may concern,
As the customer states, we did have a representative look into substituting this product for another, but in the email the complainant provided, our representative told him"I am currently seeing that we do have 1-foot reel available at another location, however, I would need to confirm with the branch that the reel is available" she also said "If it is available would 300' work for your current job?" This is not an offer to sell feet for the same price he intended to pay for feet, and the reel was not availableBecause it wasn't available, we came up with another solution, which the customer refused
As per our terms and conditions "All pricing for the products available on our site is subject to changeFor all of our prices and products, we reserve the right to make adjustments due to changing market conditions, product discontinuation, manufacturer price changes, errors in advertisements and other extenuating circumstances."
Even though we have reserved these rights, we chose to try to make some aggressive offers to this customerWe feel that we made more than reasonable offers, and did everything short of giving the customer dollars' worth of product for dollars, but the customer has been unwilling to work with usAt one point we even offered to give him a 2,dollar discount on a 2,orderI do not know how we could have been more accommodating then this
We are sorry we could not come to a reasonable agreement, but it is clear that the customer, and his contractor knew about the issue prior to placing the order, but hoped to take advantage of the error anyway, and are unwilling to accept any reasonable solutionsThis will be our last response to this customer's complaint, as he clearly is not interested in coming to any solution besides him receiving three thousand dollars' worth of product for a few dollars, which we cannot do
Thanks,
*** ***
Product Technical Support
Crescent Electric Supply Company
X-XXX-XXX-XXXX
***@Cesco.com