Laws on Pricing Errors (aus)?

Vizzaral · March 1

Heyo all, so I found an ASUS Z13 (13900H/RTX 4050) on the Officeworks website, for AUD$2297, where everybody else lists it as $3399, not sale/regular price. So I buy online for pickup, and then an hour later they fix the price to $3397. It was clearly a pricing error, and it's been over a day since I ordered it and they haven't updated it to ready for pick-up, and now I'm worried and wondering if it's legal in Australia for them to cancel my order because their pricing error?

wanderingfool2 · March 1

46 minutes ago, Vizzaral said:

Heyo all, so I found an ASUS Z13 (13900H/RTX 4050) on the Officeworks website, for AUD$2297, where everybody else lists it as $3399, not sale/regular price. So I buy online for pickup, and then an hour later they fix the price to $3397. It was clearly a pricing error, and it's been over a day since I ordered it and they haven't updated it to ready for pick-up, and now I'm worried and wondering if it's legal in Australia for them to cancel my order because their pricing error?

The obligatory not a lawyer, and not Australian

This I would say is a whole "it depends". At least here in Canada pricing errors can be corrected as long as the item hasn't been given to the customer. i.e. If the item was delivered it's too late, even when the item is shipped it could potentially be too late.

If the item is something like you are stating where it has to be picked up, normally their policies will have it stating that they are able to cancel your order at anytime (and usually for any reason they deem).

There actually is an additional aspect of it where if under reasonable belief the customer should have known there was an error things can also change (e.g. If it's $1 for a $100 item); since it can be argued the customer should have known it was a mistake. This though comes more into play if there is damages associated with the error though

e.g. If tons of companies had a particular SSD on sale for $100 (marked down from $150) and another company accidently marked theirs down to $15 and another had theirs listed as $90; then they cancel the order after the sales are over.

In the above example, you could make claim their advertisement cost you the $50 delta...except in the case of $15 you are much less likely to win...compared to $90 where their fault caused actual damages [i.e. You could probably argue and get the $100 pricing]