Flash Drive Express

Please repost this to everyone you can. I'm opening this up on my LJ to let everyone repost and link to it.

Several days ago, I was surfing around the Internet and I found a place called "Flash Drive Express".

While surfing on their site, I went to the page listing their Portable Hard Drives with a Leather Case. I looked at the prices and saw a price listing for their 500 GB HDDs that I couldn't believe.

50 pieces: 5.10 each
100 Pieces: 4.80 each
250 Pieces: 4.10 each
500 Pieces: 3.60 each
1000 pieces: 2.90 each

This was with my logo printed on the drive casing, a promotional product. I couldn't believe it, since the CASING was more than that. I clicked on the big button that said "Live Support".

I talked to a lady named Krista. I pointed her to the page in question and asked her if those were accurate prices. She said that it was a HUGE typo and that she would let the people know and it would be fixed. I teased her a bit about the typo and suggested that if she wanted to reward my honesty for this and send me one or two, I wouldn't object.

She told me that she and her company would honor that price if I placed an order. I was stunned.

I started working my backside off to raise funds to pay for many of these. I made promises to my family, to my uncle. I took the money from my daughter for her Christmas so I could finance the purchase of as many of these 500 GB drives as possible, since I could always sell them at a flea market if I had to. This was a financial windfall of EPIC proportions.

I managed to get 4 pre-sales and get the money for them and I had 21 others sold to various people once I had them to give out. I had two people who were willing to invest once I got a sample to show them of these drives.

Today, I went to actually purchase 50 of these and I contacted Krista again. I reminded her about her promise to honor this price when I placed an order. I started the process to place the order.

I get an email back saying that their distributor didn't have the 500 GB drives, but they could send me the 320 GB drives instead.

I asked her if it would be for the same price, the $5 each. I figured I could still sell these, even if it wasn't what the customers I had ordered.

She said that because of the mix up on the website, she could give me the 320 GB drives for a 10% discount, at 86 or so dollars EACH.

This would have been a hell of a deal if I had the money, but since I had been told that the 5 deal would be honored, I was a bit shocked. I told her to talk to her supervisors and to figure out if this was the correct course of action for the customer service to take.

I finally wrote back and stated in no uncertain terms that I either wanted the 500 GB drives for 5 each, all 50 of them and I would pay for them, or I wanted 75 of the 320 GB drives for the same price, namely 5 for 50 (basically they would throw in 25 to make up the difference in drive size) or 10 of the 320 for free to me or I would tell everyone I knew about this Bait and Switch operation.

They just closed. So, having not heard from them, I"m now making a viral post that I encourage everyone to link to, repost and comment on and share with delico, facebook, twitter and so on.

PLEASE repost this to everyone. This is not customer service. They said they would honor a price, and then they snatched that price away. It is not my fault that they made a mistake in their database, they agreed to give me the 500 GB drives at the price they had listed. It doesn't matter that their manufacturer didn't have them to ship, they should have gone out and bought the drives from a computer store to honor their promise.

I understand they would have been taking a bath on these. But if that is the problem, THEY SHOULD HAVE NOT PROMISED TO HONOR THAT PRICE WITH AN ORDER. That virtually guaranteed that I would order from them AT THAT PRICE. When they don't follow through, that makes them liars and a bad company.

So, that's the story. Do as you feel you must. I would suggest spreading this story around and I would also suggest writing their customer service group and complaining.