HOM Furniture ~ Deceptive Advertising Practices!
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My husband and I had been looking for a couch for about a year and weren’t finding what we were looking for in terms of style, comfort and affordability. Finally a couple of months ago I discovered a very affordable and comfortable microfiber couch from HOM Furniture. My husband hadn’t had a chance to see the couch so when the subject came up again this past Saturday, we decided to go take a look with the kids.
As we were walking in the store, signs were plastered all over with Ice Age 3 characters that read “FREE ICE AGE 3 GIFT PACK with ANY $499 purchase!”
And while we weren’t necessarily ready to commit, I pushed the issue. If we are going to buy this $600 couch anyway, why not buy it when we can get the Ice Age 3 gift package with a $92 value?? Since it is on sale as well it seemed like the perfect time to buy.
So we took the plunge and purchased the couch. At the end of the transaction I asked about the Ice Age 3 promotion items and was told this purchase was not eligible because it was listed as a “Colossal Buy”. Which of course means nothing to me. I would have assumed perhaps clearance items or gift cards weren’t included. But given that every sign in the store said ANY purchase, I assume that means ANY purchase. Any does mean any right? Any does not mean only some $499 purchases. It does not imply your $499 may be eligible. It implies that if you make a $499 purchase, no matter what, you get the Ice Age 3 promotion items.
But I must be mistaken. Maybe I am not clear on the definition of any since that is exactly how it was advertised in their store signage.
According to Webster’s Dictionary, the definition of any: unmeasured or unlimited in amount, number, or extent
Hmm…that sounds like I should have walked out of Hom Furniture with an Ice Age 3 gift, does it not?
Now, to their credit, I did find in their ad in the teeniest, tiniest print that Colossal Buys were not included in the promotion. But that exclusion isn’t what is really irking me here. What really started to piss me off as I left Hom Furniture is that all the signage says ANY and there is no verbage indicating exclusions. While there was an asterisk with “see store for details” or “see store associate for details” they left out anything that would tell a consumer that not every (which is implied by the word any) $499 purchase or more was eligible.
To not be deceptive to the consumer, the word any should not be used. They should have simply stated that with a $499 purchase you can get a Ice Age 3 promotion package and included the following, “*Some exclusions apply. See store associate for details.” That’s it. That is all that I would expect from a company that is upfront and honest in their advertising. It indicates that if I am to make a purchase perhaps influenced by this free gift, I should probably double check to be certain I qualify. But leaving out the this disclaimer and using the word “any” in their verbage is clearly deceptive marketing practices. One that made me angrier and angrier after I left the store. At this point it isn’t about the free gift I thought I was getting and now am not. It is the principal of false advertising.
My couch is currently on order and I am seriously contemplating not continuing with the purchase. Which is actually sad since it took so long to find what we wanted. At the same time, I loathe companies using shady marketing tactics and cringe even thinking about giving my business to these types of companies.
I can’t be alone in being sick and tired of being treated in this manner. Lure me in with a special or deal and then take it away. HOM Furniture, you should be ashamed of these practices!
Update: HOM Furniture did reach out to me on 11/16 offering their regrets about my experience and offering me the Ice Age 3 Gift Pack.
I would be uber pissed!
And I would have fought them on it.
If they still wouldn’t let me have the free gift, I would offer to help them take down all of the signs that were obviously misleading.
Grr, it just proves, nothing is free anymore and people will say anything to lure in customers.
“Thank you for the purchase, but I am sorry you are not eligible for this free gift because you didn’t purchase the right product, we wanted you to buy the $1500 set, not the ONE $600 couch, silly you!”
Psh… screw that place!
That is shady! Stuff like this makes me mad too. It’s not so much the free stuff, it’s the principle!
You’re not really missing out by not getting a DVD with your couch. Yea, it’s free, but still… Ok yea I’d be mad. But if I wanted it that bad, I woulda cried in front of the people… literally. Tears and all. It works for me. Maybe you should go back and do it 😉 See if it works. Cause dude. NO ONE can deny a crying mother… oh and take your kids with you for added effect. Hehe.
You would think this company would have done their best to NOT pull a bait and switch in this economy. Apparently not. With consumers being extremely careful with the money they do have, being so deceptive is just one more way to lose good customers.
Well, I won’t be shopping at Hom anytime soon. Not with those kinds of business practices.
Oh, and I like Jenny’s suggestion of waterworks. I so would have done it. ANd I would have made sure The Diva was there crying because she didn’t get her Ice Age DVD. She’s pretty damn cute and NO ONE, not even her Mama, wants to send her into a tantrum on purpose.
What a load of crap.
I would call and ask to talk to a manager and if you get nowhere, cancel the couch.
It says “spend $499 and get….”
Clearly deceptive..
That is absolutely ridiculous! They should make this right! Why disappoint a whole family!
That is crazy. I know not the trust their advertising. What is says is NOT what you get.
I agree with you – they should have made it clear on the signage that it wasn’t ‘any’. I bet you would have asked if you qualified…they would have said no and you’d have thought ‘oh well, no biggie’
But feeling lied to is never good for business.
Since the advertising brought you in, i would say its pretty shoddy of them not to live up to it. Its funny how in the FTC rules we have to be SUPER clear about when we deal w/ a company and they can put little asterisk and see employees for their disclosure policies.
Maybe the FTC is in the wrong direction.
REFUND!
I agree it’s definitely shady practice and surely it’s not about the “free” but more about principal and being responsible for how you offer promotional items. Frankly, I was not fond of Ice Age but if they advertised it and I expected it- darn right I’d be pissed. I hope you WILL contact them and they’ll keep to their word and maybe be more careful about signage in the future.
Yeah that is a load of crap. You are right they need to make obvious that there are certain exclusions.
I’m so tired of companies doing this to families – luring them (and their kids) in with some cute advertising pitch only to say “sorry, that doesn’t qualify.” It’s wrong, underhanded, and horrible of a company to operate in that manner.
I hope you do get somewhere with the head office if you contact them. I, personally, would be cancelling my order. There’s no way I’d want to support a company like that. Oh, and I’d be sure to tell ALL my friends to avoid them too.
I would be totally ticked off too! I agree. They were being very deceptive! They should have made it clear what the exclusions were. To me it seems like they tricked you and everyone else who fell for their ad.
Personally I would tell them to take the couch and shove it where the sun don’t shine. I wouldn’t want to continue with a sneaky company.
Really, you paid $$$$ and they couldn’t give you the Ice Age set? It probably cost them next to nothing to get the Ice Age set to begin with as I’m sure it was more advertising for the movie and the movie company probably paid for most of it.
I hope this works out for the best. I’m sorry you had to deal with this. Personally after reading this I would never shop there. Had they honored the Ice Age promotion I would think better of them.
Wow that’s awful! If we had a Hom Store here (in AZ) I would not go to them. You might want to go ahead and cancel the order, and here’s why. It sounds like this is really bugging you (which it would me too) and you may have made an association in your mind between that particular couch and this incident. Therefore every time you see/sit on your new couch it could bring up those feelings of anger. Just a thought……
My kids would totally be crying if that happened. I would cancel the purchase.
Oh yeah and tell them they spelled their name wrong. 😉
I’m so sorry that happened to you! Yeah, I’d be pissed too.
I know how you feel. I was cranky after the cashier at Walgreen’s didn’t give me my one dollar register rewards. But I vented and felt better. I imagine you’ll feel better about this pretty soon, too.
To protect yourself from things like this happening in the future, make sure you are getting what you want for the price you want BEFORE handing over the credit card.
Sorry about the crummy experience.
I hate it when things like that happen. You would think with the tough economy they would be happy you were buying a couch.
http://www.homfurniture.com/Online/Home/Store/HOMFurniture_HomePage
on the bottom of the site it says ‘contact us’ may be we should!
Dear Babylovingmama:
Thanks for your blog and responses to our Hermantown showroom manager. I wanted to respond as well about your claim concerning deceptive advertising practices. It would extremely arrogant to think in these times that a company could attempt to deceive the consuming public. With open forums to discuss shopping experiences, businesses are more sensitive to marketing practices than ever before. HOM Furniture would never entertain any discussion that would suggest such an activity much less any deceptive outcome.
I am sorry your shopping experience is not what you expected. It isn’t what I would have expected either. I am not sure who you questioned about the gift, however I am aware our manager has contacted you to provide the Ice Age gift pack.
Let me explain the devil in the details about this promotion and other promotions in general. (we don’t like the disclaimers either). First I would like to start with the premise that HOM is an honest company. If you take this approach from the beginning – the blog might read “What happened?” instead of an ugly charge of deceptive advertising practices. Whenever we construct a promotion – all of us, both HOM and the customer would like it to be simple, include everything, and have the promotion apply to every circumstance. The reality is that our relationships with outside influences including manufacturers restrictions, pricing restrictions, different laws in different states (especially offering free sales tax) makes our job to create a universal offer almost impossible.
In addition, as you state, the very small print that lists exclusions almost feels like a reversal of the offer and does exclude Colossal Buys plus other items like gift cards. The reason these are excluded is a simple profit equation. Some items have special discounted pricing which prevents us from offering additional savings.
Further complications for this promotion was the compliance piece with FOX Studios – London. To gain a license for this promotion, we had to comply with all kinds of rules and regulations making this a complicated process. We continually had to gain approvals through our campaign development process and had to purchase the gift pack directly from FOX. In the end, we were not sure if we had a compelling enough offer – so we went to the front lines to improve it. For this promotion, I had instructed our sales management team to include any purchase of $499 even including our usual exclusionary items with the exception of Tempurpedic, Vera Wang Latex, Karastan Rugs and Gift Cards. We are not allowed to offer discounts or gifts on some manufacturers items. When we made that adjustment – obviously it wasn’t in writing and we run the risk of not communicating with all of our people. In your case, it seems you experienced just that.
In short – we missed the target slightly, and we messed up. I can’t go back and change your experience, all I can do is make it right – which I believe we have done at the local level. Companies do goof from time to time, not because they don’t care or are trying to trick people. We goof up because their are so many rules to satisfy everyone. Usually, we do a great job of communicating the restrictions of an offer, and our safety net is always “see store for details”.
I am sorry about your experience. It should have gone much better than it did. So don’t give up on us. All of the great people at HOM Furniture work very hard every day to make sure all of our customers are satisfied with their purchase of anything from HOM.
Thanks for giving me the chance to explain.
sincerely,
Jerry Underwood
Executive Director of Marketing
HOM Furniture Brands
10301 Woodcrest Drive NW
Coon Rapids, Minnesota 55433
763.767.3671