Complaints

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• Initial Complaint

  Date:06/27/2025

  Type:Sales and Advertising Issues
  Status:

  ResolvedMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  On June 25th we purchased a patio set from Fireplace Superstore. It was advertised in the store for $6025 for 4 chairs and a fire pit table. (1069 per chair and 1749 for the fire pit). After we left the store, I got on their website to look up how to care for the product. I saw the same product was advertised for much less. (699 per chair and 1239 for the fire pit.). When I called the store, they claimed they don't have a website. Then changed their answer to their website hadn't been updated for 5 years. I noticed the copyright on the webpage is 2024. I asked that we adjust the price the same from the website (so instead of $6025, we would pay $4035). *****, the owner, was not willing to match the price on the website claiming someone had gone in and put those prices in and he can't afford to honor those prices.

  Business Response

  Date: 06/30/2025

  As I explained to this customer, our web site had an issue where an archived version was inadvertently posted by our web services provider.  The web site she found, which may have been up for a day or two, was approximately 5 years old and was a version which showed pricing and e-commerce options which we were experimenting with during the ***** shutdown time-frame. That version of the site has not been active for many years and the pricing is all 5 years old, it was never updated because we decided not to go the e-commerce route.  Nobody at the web servicing company can tell me exactly what happened or why that version of the site was somehow activated, they think maybe a DNS error or something to that effect.  It was a mistake on their part that was rectified as soon as we figured out it had occurred.  ************************ was the one who found the issue, I don't look at my own web site every day so she noticed the problem before I did.

    *************** called and we told her that we don't have pricing on our web site, that is because on the current version of the site doesn't have any pricing.  The version she should have seen has been up for a couple of years and is 3 generations from the erroneous site she found when she searched, there is no pricing on our current site. If we sounded confused and maybe a bit clueless on the phone with her that is why, she shouldn't have been seeing the site she saw and we had no reason to suspect that the web site version she was seeing wasn't the correct, current, version.

    Unfortunately the pricing which Ms ******* saw was much lower than the pricing at which we currently sell these furniture groups, the pricing is as I told her 5 years old.  There has been significant inflation in the last 5 years and tariffs have added to that this year.  I obviously can't sell product at 5 year old pricing, which I never intended to advertise in the first place.  The web site issue was an error on the part of our hosting company, I apologized to her for the confusion but told her that the pricing in the store is the current pricing and not what she was seeing online.  It would seem that I was unable to adequately explain the issue or that she was unable to accept my explanation, one or the other.  We offered her a refund on the sale and she accepted the offer, she has her money back and we have cancelled the transaction.

  We certainly wouldn't deliberately advertise items online at below cost prices which would make our in store prices look outrageous.  This was an error in the web site technology by the hosting company and unfortunately Ms ******* caught it before we did.  That's all there is here, no intent to scam anyone and no deliberate false advertising.