The Good Guys Selling Items That Are out of Stock

I purchased this deal with The Good Guys 11 days' ago for an LG TV worth nearly $3K. I just called the assigned store to see when it might arrive. I was told that the eBay store is not The Good Guys and that they don't have any stock in the whole state (Victoria). I was given a lot of excuses about Black Friday, pandemic and global supply chains. They could not give me an ETA, but suggested that it could arrive around the end of January.

But the fact is that they sold items that they don't actually have. Is that even legal? It seems like my options are to wait an indeterminate amount of time, or demand a refund now and miss out on the deal. I'm guessing that delivery services will be jammed up until after Christmas anyway.

What would you do?

Edit: This practice appears to be in breach of Australian Consumer Law: "Under the Australian Consumer Law, businesses must not accept payment for products or services if… they know, or should have known, they would not be able to supply the products or services within the timeframe indicated or if no timeframe was provided, within a reasonable time." When I ordered I was given an estimated delivery of Tue, 07 Dec - Fri, 10 Dec.

Poll Options expired

  • 32
    Demand a refund
  • 15
    Wait patiently
  • 4
    Something else (add a comment)

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Comments

  • +2
  • +1

    Sounds like you may of read one of my previous PS5 preorder posts by that quote lol …

    Definitely take it up with their customer support at the very least you'd be provided a gift voucher i'd imagine for the inconvenience

  • +1

    Sounds like a dropshipper move

  • +2

    That happened to me in the past maybe 8? years ago on a Good Guys deal on 3DS games.

    They were pretty generous with compensation then. A $50 order that had about half of the items canceled ended up getting a $90 voucher in return.

    Hearing that its actually illegal makes me realize why they were so generous with that voucher.

  • -1

    Give TGG until the end of the year because ultimately, the stock shortage is an LG issue. LG sold container loads of OLED's during Black Friday and they would be allocating them to each retailer based on various "commercial factors".

    Between now and then, keep an eye out for deals on that model with cheaper pricing in case you can cancel the order and buy it elsewhere.

    Also, if you suspect your TGG store has bad intentions, ask a local JB store if they have stock of the same TV. TGG and JB are the same group and will share the same pool of stock

  • +6

    Depends how much you want the item.

    In my experience, The Good Guys does this a lot. Last year I had three orders of five items, and literally all of these "In Stock" items were delayed by three months. I would've cancelled the orders if they weren't such good deals.

    I don't shop at TGG anymore after all that crap though. Even tiny PC stores manage to have live stock levels on their websites, TGG has no excuse.

  • +4

    I purchased an in-stock online-only Samsung tablet from their website earlier in the year, I waited patiently for near on a month before I contacted them through the website, they replied after a few days saying "call us", I called them and they really couldn't care less, "I'll see if I can look into it tomorrow", I had a bit of a rant on the phone questioning the legalities of the situation, the tablet was posted out a couple of days later from a different state…

    I'll be avoiding them in future, the employee care factor is zero…

  • +4

    Harvey Norman pulled this same stunt on me twice. The thing is Harvey don’t even return the money when they realise they can’t fill the order you have to contact them yourself to get the refund organised.

    Some retailers really don’t show there customers a modicum of respect, I’d never buy with Harvey Norman again, not even a sorry for the inconvenience was given.

  • I'm pretty sure I am buying the exact same TV as you. When buying it online, they said the delivery date was Christmas Eve which I am perfectly fine with - at least they were upfront about it. They emailed later pretty much confirming that date too.

    • +1

      If it's just an automated e-mail, it's not worth anything. I suggest that you call the shop and confirm.

      • +1

        Nah it was personalised and requested a reply to double-check we were okay with it. She then replied back to that.

  • LG C1 and G1 are not sellers and LG are having the same import problems as everyone else.
    Wait patiently, it will be worth it. Alternatively get a refund and pay more at someone that has stock on hand.

    • I ment to say "hot sellers"

  • +1

    I've had the same situation with a Hisense TV. The GG ebay store is different to their bricks and mortar stores so don't talk to each other. Even each brick and mortar store is a franchise so don't always cooperate with each other as well. When talking to one of the store people about my order they complained about the GG ebay store not notifying them about new orders.

    It's a very inefficient system and just causes stress in both the customers and store people.

  • +2

    Good guys were 9ut of stock on my tab s7bcase to. It said there was stock. They lie and I barely every shop with them online now.

  • Funny that, I also had a similar issue with an LG product from the good guys but it was a microwave. I had to wait an entire month before it was finally delivered.

  • -2

    Their marketplace wouldn't be ranged from the stock they have in-store, mate. It'd be run completely separately with it's own warehouse

    • +2

      Not true. The store is responsible for fulfilling the order. They all share the same warehousing facilities.

  • When does the warranty start? When you hand over the money? Or when the goods are delivered? Hoping its the latter.

  • Seems to be the norm for The Useless Guys - I have been struggling to get a refund out of them. They only have a "sales" line no support for online orders. Won't be using these clowns again.

  • did you end up getting a refund? trying to get one now after they pulled a similar stunt. if you did go for a refund, how did you go about it and how long did it take?

    • No, I just waited it out and it eventually arrived. Very happy with the TV.

      Their standard excuse is to blame the distributor: "LG promised that they'd have lots of stock and now they're struggling to deliver." If so, their commercial/procurement team need to negotiate better contracts with specific numbers.

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