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Report: #346030

Complaint Review: Target - Escondido California

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  • Reported By: Escondido California
  • Author Confirmed What's this?
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  • Target 1280 Auto Parkway Escondido, California U.S.A.

Target advertises products (wii Fit) in Sunday flyer with none in inventory to sell and then blames manufacturer Escondido, California

*UPDATE Employee: Can't Really Fault the Store

*UPDATE Employee: Ripped off?

*UPDATE Employee: Re: the ad

*UPDATE Employee: Well..

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On Sunday June 29th Target advertised the wii Fit in it's newspaper flyer but the sales staff in the electronics department confirmed they had never received the item in the store and didn't know when they would get any in. (I have the salesperson's name I spoke with).

I spoke to the store manager (I also have her name) and before I had told her I had already confirmed there were no wii Fits avaialbel for sale at the time the advertisement ran she indicated "well, we only got a few of the itme in and they went quickly". I then told her I had already spoken with the electronics department and they had told me the store never had the item. The manager then backtracked and said well we didn't have any in so if we didn't get any in on Sunday morning then we didn't have any. I said this would be a very easy thing to confirm because with computerized inventory systems, the status on the availability of the item should be readily accessible. I said I felt this was an unfair business practice to advertise an item you do not have in the store (especially in light of gas being $5 a gallon - it now cost me about $5 to run to the local Target store). The manager basically said they don't have any control over the weekly ad, what is advertised, or the in store inventory at the time the ad is run - that corporate is reponsible for that. I clarified this statement with her and said I wanted to make sure I understood what she was saying as I would be conveying that to the corporate office and she stood by that statement.

I then contacted the Corporate Customer Service 800 number and spoke with Mike who after hearing my story and placing me on hold for an extended time passed me on to a Cutomer Service Supervisor, Julie. Julie, basically said the flyers are made months in advance (I pointed out to her that the wii Fit hasn't been out that long) and Target depends on the manufacturer to provide the quantity of items needed to support the ad. In other words, the manufacturer, Niintendo, is at fault because they agreed to have the product available to Target and they didn't. We went around and around with Julie being very dismissive and saying she was sorry she couldn't assist me today althought she had made no attempt to assist me with anything. She basically said these are high demand items and so stocking them is hard and they depend on the manufacturere to supply them. I pointed out to her that was my point exactly - they are high demand items that everyone is looking for so advertising them gets people into the store only to find out you don't have them but then you're there and you spend money on "other stuff".

We resolved nothing!! I feel ripped off and just wish there was some legal recourse against these advertising practices. The store blamed corporate, corporate blamed Nintendo and in the end nothing happens!!!

Karen
Escondido, California
U.S.A.

This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 06/30/2008 04:29 PM and is a permanent record located here: https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/target/escondido-california-92025/target-advertises-products-wii-fit-in-sunday-flyer-with-none-in-inventory-to-sell-and-th-346030. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year. Ripoff Report has an exclusive license to this report. It may not be copied without the written permission of Ripoff Report. READ: Foreign websites steal our content

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REBUTTALS & REPLIES:
0Author
4Consumer
0Employee/Owner

#4 UPDATE Employee

Ripped off?

AUTHOR: Danny M. - (U.S.A.)

POSTED: Friday, July 18, 2008

Exactly how do you feel ripped off? There are no wii fit's there. boo h*o. go to another target store. In fact why don't you go to a Wal-Mart instead since you feel "ripped off."

It's kind of hard to sell you an item when we only get like 3 in stock, and their all gone within 5 seconds.

Whine. That's all people who shop at Target ever do.

- From a Fed Up Employee who works in Electronics at Target

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#3 UPDATE Employee

Can't Really Fault the Store

AUTHOR: Alias - (U.S.A.)

POSTED: Friday, July 18, 2008

I was stuck working in the Electronics department at Target everyday in the run-up to the launches of the Wii and the PS3, and for several months afterwards. Even though I was in the department, I wasn't told when the items would arrive in shipments, and was forbidden to sell the items except on Sundays by my store manager.

Nintendo hasn't done a very good job of keeping Target stores (at least not in my area) stocked with the items as they come out. The additional controllers were MIA for over 6 weeks at one point and when they finally arrived, there were only 24 when over 100 customers wanted them. Needless to say, the Electronics employees were reamed out daily by angry would-be customers, even though we have no control over whether we get a shipment or how large it is.

I have found that the best time to find high-demand items is mid-week around 3 to 4 weeks after an ad. That seems to be when we always get them in stock.

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#2 UPDATE Employee

Re: the ad

AUTHOR: Electronics 1174 - (U.S.A.)

POSTED: Tuesday, July 08, 2008

It is true that the wii fit has only been out for a short time now, but they have been in the works for a good deal of time, thus the makers of the ad knew about it and could put it in the ad. We get stuff like this all the time about anything regarding the wii , just think about it if we had the item why wouldn't we sell them? Selling products is how Target makes money. Target does what it can to have the product available, but yes the ad is made early cause it takes time to get that many printed and sent to the stores and newspapers.

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#1 UPDATE Employee

Well..

AUTHOR: Qwerty777 - (U.S.A.)

POSTED: Tuesday, July 01, 2008

What time did you get there on Sunday? At my store, we had people waiting in line outside to buy them, and we only got 10, so they were gone right away. Unless you got there plenty early, you weren't getting one. Also, if you live in an area with more than one Target, it is possible that not all of them got the game, but because the stores are close enough it is still in the ad, in case people go to a different store. And if you did get there too late and spoke to an employee who didn't open, he may have thought none came in because they would have been long gone. I was lucky enough to have found mine at guest services (where I work) because someone had returned it that day---I just pulled it out of the cart and paid for it. Above that, the absolute best way to find out is to call them. They will gladly tell you if they are getting any that day or the next (I'm not sure how far in advance they know, but this is how I found out they were getting Wii's in) but if they know, they do tell you. The paper isn't generally a very reliable way of knowing they are in.

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