Mum’s anger after Argos advertises XBox One for £90 on its website – only to blame it on a glitch and refuse to honour sale
Corey Cunningham, 10, was thrilled when his mum spotted a great deal on the Minecraft Xbox One, but it ended in bitter disappointment
A SCHOOLBOY, 10, has been left devastated after spending his birthday money on an Xbox One only for Argos to cancel the order and bump the price up by more than £200.
Corey Cunningham was thrilled when his mum spotted a great deal offering the Minecraft Xbox One on sale through the retail giant for just £89.99.
But 12 hours after placing the order mum Emma Watkin received an email saying it had been cancelled due to a pricing mistake.
Mum-of-six Emma said: "I just assumed that was the price. I had Corey with me, he had his birthday money and I said 'we will get this'.
"It went through and we got the confirmation.
"Corey was happy, really excited and everything - that was it as far as I was concerned."
But at 7pm that evening Emma was forced to deliver her keen gamer a damning blow as Argos refused to honour the advertised price.
She added: "I got an email saying your order has been cancelled due to a price error and I had a really disappointed little boy.
"He likes playing on his computer, he likes the Xbox and plays with his brother."
Emma said she struggled to explain to the 10-year-old why he wouldn't be getting the console.
She added: "If you say something with Corey he has it in his head and it has to be that way. He likes things to be a certain way.
"He's absolutely devastated. He was like 'well I want it'.
"It's £350 I can't afford to make that difference - he's just really disappointed.
"He just could not get his head around it. His money has gone but he's not going to get the games.
"If it's a price error I get it a little bit, but do not just send an email saying your order has been cancelled. If it was for me it would have been acceptable, it's because it's for my little boy."
Emma filled out a customer survey and asked for someone from the store to contact her, but as of yet has heard nothing.
When contacted by Sun Online an Argos spokesperson said, “Due to a technical error this product was temporarily displayed with the wrong price. We contacted customers individually to explain and apologise for the confusion. We’re sorry for the disappointment this caused Corey.”
The store’s site crashed for several hours after marketing agency PTM Media flagged up the price on its Facebook page “Extreme Deals, Bargains, Discounts”.
PTM Media director Daniel Dalley said: "We posted the offer on our Facebook page - which has more than 60,000 followers - and we know that thousands of people clicked on it.
"We estimate around 200 to 300 people may have actually managed to buy one for this price.
"By the time I had got into the office this morning I decided to try to redeem the offer myself, but when I tried to get on the Argos website it was completely offline."
Daniel said these errors are known as "retailer glitches" and are often caused by employees incorrectly entering prices.
He said: "We see this quite often with lots of online retailers.
"Some will honour the deal, others won't. It all depends on each particular websites terms and conditions.
Last week the retailer confirmed all wrongly priced orders will be cancelled and apologised to customers “inconvenienced by the technical error”.
The website's, terms and conditions state under point "4.3 a" what the website does when it comes to pricing errors.
It reads: "If we discover an error in the price of goods ordered or reserved, we will inform you as soon as possible (e.g. prior to the goods being dispatched or in store prior to the collection of good).
"We will provide you with the option of reconfirming your order at the correct price or cancelling it. If we are unable to contact you we will treat the order as cancelled.
"If you choose to cancel and have already paid for the goods, you will receive a full refund."
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