Scam? Mistake? Disgruntled employee? Phishing attempt?

Yesterday evening, Planet Multimedia had several TVs of varying sizes and brands, ranging from 32" up to a Samsung LED 55" TV, advertised at CHF 16.75, including MwSt and free delivery. This seemed like quite a good deal to me. It also seemed possibly, ever-so-slightly fishy, but I was determined to find out if it was real -- you never know, maybe it was some sort of marketing ploy to attract new customers with amazing deals on very limited stock; or maybe a bait-and.switch campaign, but I would definitely not get suckered into buying a more expensive model.

So, I checked out Planet Multimedia's satisfaction rating on toppreise.ch -- not too bad, they seem a reputable company. I read their terms and conditions carefully -- no sign of any requirement to pay more than the advertised price (although, of course, there was the standard "errors and omissions excepted" clause). I googled "Planet Multimedia" -- nothing negative about the company at all. I checked with my credit card company -- no reports of fraud involving this online retailer.

Naturally, I then proceeded to buy the biggest TV they had at that price: a Samsung UE55ES6300S. The sale went through, no problem.


I promptly received three emails:

• confirmation of my new account at Planet Multimedia
• receipt (as pdf) for the amount paid, confirming the order status as "Ordered" (see extract below)
• confirmation that payment had been received.

I sat back and waited my TV to arrive within the promised two days.

Of course, two minutes later a fourth email arrived with another pdf attachment, identical to the first receipt but updating the order status to "Cancelled". No explanation given, and the helpline number is unmanned until Monday. Someone is definitely working at Planet Multimedia over the weekend, though -- the bargain prices are no longer on the website.

I wasn't at all surprised to find my order cancelled, but I'm curious: what was Planet Multimedia playing at?

Maybe it was just a decimal point in the wrong place. Mistakes can happen

Clearly an error, Nevertheless the OP deserves and explanation after cancelling the order, at least...

There were many models and sizes of TVs, all at the same price: CHF 16.75. I doubt it was a decimal point issue, as that would mean that a 32" LCD TV was supposed to be the same price (CHF 1,675) as a 55" LED TV.

Could be someone broke into their website and changed the prices to mess with them. Could also be that some idiot updating the prices via an SQL command dint check his syntax before hitting enter.

not being careful with the SQL where clause, updates maybe destined for the price of a piece of cable but wrongly hit the TV product group

Ooops I hope you at least get an apology, it seems it was a mistake (well obviously) but still...

I have the 55D6530, such a great TV. Shane you didn't get it, I paid 2.5k :-)

My question is...how come you did not let us know last night? It would have been a successful story like the one with Ipad 2 for 300 chf. Their servers would have been blocked with orders flooding from EFers

It did cross my mind, but since I was 99.9% sure the offer was not legitimate, I didn't want to get others caught up in it. Especially if there was some sort of scam going on.

It does not matter it would have been fun and your groans quota would have hit the roof

There's a deal going on (not sure if it's a decent TV or not, but some users reviews are ok):
40" TV

SAMSUNG UE40EH5300 for 444CHF in digitech (They pretend it was 899CHF, but other prices from toppreise starts at 574chf):

http://www.toppreise.ch/prod_271757.html

So it's still the lowest price on the market.

https://www.digitec.ch/Startseite.as...se&wert=243071

(could not be bothered making a brand new topic).

Reviews:
http://www.globalmarket.com/sourcing...-tv-14720.html

http://www.digitalversus.com/tv-tele...ge-n22874.html

So it's the latest 2012 TVs, I guess that qualifies for a deal!
(it's full HD, cheap, new, slim, full backlight led, and has wifi compatibility if you have a usb wifi dongle).


Don't know about contrast, image quality, etc...

EDIT: I forgot about the most important!!
It's supposed to be eco friendly and energy saving (they say they use less harmfull material, etc...).
Don't know if it's only marketing.

I do have a 24 inch TV. Original price is 210

When it comes to Planet Multimedia I can say a little bit. I bought a washing machine from them and instead of the advertised 2-4 days delivery it took them more than 4 weeks. They claimed to have it in stock but they didn't.
They often have pretty low prices but if you are under time pressure I would avoid them. Besides after waiting for such a long time I looked up more info about it and found similar complaints from some Swiss Germans.