UPDATE: After posting here, filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, and then letting West Marine customer service know about each (where I also mentioned an article I had read about the prevalence of successful class actions against false advertising), West Marine reached out to me, apologized for the misleading ad, and offered me a gift card that covered the amount I would have saved had their promotion of a "15% off sitewide" sale actually led to a 15% sitewide sale.
Perhaps I reached an unhelpful agent originally, or perhaps the bad publicity worked. Who knows? Either way, the final response from them was appropriate, appreciated and a 5 star response. I'm upping to 3 stars my initial 1 star experience -- an average of my experiences.
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CAVEAT: This is about West Marine online. I found no option to review them, so I'm posting this to my local store.
I'm posting my letter to West Marine customer service, to which they basically said: "We understand your frustration and we are so sorry you experienced this." And no remedy. Not even: "Yeah, we shouldn't have done that." So, I'm post my complaint, to put it out there to the universe...
To Whom It May Concern,
I woke up on Thanksgiving morning and found that West Marine was having a 15% off sale. I needed about $500-600 worth of sailing hardware, and so I put aside Thanksgiving responsibilities and kids to figure out my needs as quickly as possible (thinking, measuring, reading) in order to take advantage of this sale. After a couple of hours, I went to make my purchase only to find on the very last page -- where I entered the coupon code -- that the sale had limitations. This was only apparent because the discount didn't seem to apply to many of my items -- Harken items, specifically.
Despite the banner on the homepage saying so, this was clearly not actually a "sitewide" sale. And there was no note about any limitations on the banner, not even an asterisk that would lead one to the exclusions. I've provided a screenshot below -- you'll see it in two places. I called West Marine at that point -- spending even more time -- and was told that IF I click on the banner, I'd see the limitations.
Intentional or not, this was false advertising, and I lost a lot of time, on a special day that I otherwise would not have used to do my shopping. I also likely would have searched many other sites to see where I could find the best price, but was drawn in to West Marine because of the sale -- which is of course the point.
I write to request that you please honor your mislabeled promise of a "sitewide" sale. I've included a screenshot of the items I had intended to purchase.
Thank you. I look forward to your response.
Dave P. read more