Wishlist.com.au has been established for almost 10 years, although I could not remember when was the last time I bought from them, because of their high price (which is probably why they are called “Wish” list). The story started 2 months ago in September when fashionvista78 posted the coupon code to get free $10 Wishlist.com.au voucher. It’s a generic coupon code for their new weekly email subscribers, and the first comment by pauly is — excellent for buying Hoyts tickets!

Then Wishlist.com.au ran 2 days of free delivery promotion — result? Someone found that you can get a Hoyts movie ticket delivered for free! Thanks dansor (who won last week’s bargain hunting competition). Wishlist did not find out until the morning afterwards, and I wonder how many orders of “free movie tickets” have gone through. They immediately removed the product, killed the coupon code, rejected OzBargain as an affiliate and then mass-emailed all those who ordered that the coupon has been cancelled as it does not meet their terms and conditions…

I thought the Dell fiasco two weeks ago was enough. Now this?

And just like the Dell event, bad mistakes don’t come alone. Wishlist.com.au ran a free delivery day again yesterday, and someone discovered another free $10 voucher (thanks to qwerty and Rev Milk). Result? Free Hoyts tickets again!!! It was posted at 9:16am in the morning, the deal got killed 3 hours later, and the cancellation emails sent later in the afternoon, stating coupon code wasn’t valid and could not be used together with free shipping offers.

Yet their checkout system had no problem taking the code and charging customers’ credit card?

FAIL! Please fix your cart + coupon software.

Both CotD and Dell’s reputations have been damaged so much due to those recent events. Now I can’t see myself ever going to shop at Wishlist.com.au…

I would be fine if that’s all that was. Everyone makes mistakes, and I am glad that most people I’ve dealt with were very forgiving. However, before asking whether the order should be cancelled, Dell tried to sell the same system at $799 (+%5-%10 discount) — a clear bait and switch tactic. They should have apologised and then cancel the order, and at least for me I’ll be fine with their honest mistake. But don’t try to take the opportunity to sell me the same box at a much higher price.

Well. I am lazy. Meh. Most time I can’t be bothered. But from the discussion comments, people won’t let Dell get away easily. Worse, not that they had made a pricing mistake once, they did it again 4 days later, selling the same system at an even lower price. Same things happened — offer pulled and phone calls started. That’s one sure way to get all the OzBargainer fired up!

It’s also actively discussed on other forums. Then it got submitted to Slashdot on Monday, featured in Sydney Morning Herald on Tuesday, and other online media.

It will be interesting to see how everything developed. You can get more info on this fiasco on the OzBargain Wiki.