Toto76 wrote:I think the big issue here is the taking payment for the goods, then waiting five days to notify him that they were out of stock. THEN the real insult in asking if he would like to purchase them from their next shipment at nearly double the original agreed price. That to me is the whole unethical part to this.
I think your summation is pretty accurate. Don't take payment for stock u don't have. If a mistake has been made to allow this to happen, then be upfront and timely in making this known. Don't take the customers money, then wait 5 days, and offer no explanation as to how this has happened. Furthermore, don't offer any remedy to the problem which is never going to be seen as anything but unacceptable ie offering the desired product at double the original price, as that's just plain dumb.
If I had've placed the order, paid my money, and then received an email the next day saying, "look we apologize, but our inventory software made an error, and took your money for something we didn't have... Here's your money back, & once again apologies for this" then who would've cared? Not I, and no one would've ever heard of it... Surely its not that hard, and good business sense...
To put this back in context, let's just remember that over a week has passed, and I've had no further communication, and still there is no sign of a refund (of $1000USD+). Thankfully, due to the protection via the way I have paid, I am not overly concerned.
It might be small change to some I guess, but I'm sure most sales assistants at Sigma Sports would be jumping up and down if some online retailer hadn't promptly returned their 1000$ USD for goods they couldn't produce!