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McDonald's app bug let people order for free in France

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Re: McDonald's app bug let people order for free in France

#81

Post by milankragujevic »

grecy wrote: post #80
milankragujevic wrote: post #74

I ordered a MacBook Pro (though Pink/Rose Gold) for 29999.99 RSD (255.46 €, 279.63 $). It was supposed to cost 299999.99 -- 2,796.29 $ or 2,554.55 € (extra 9). The order was cancelled with no explanation, obviously. Laws in Serbia do allow for a sale to be cancelled before delivery if the merchant entered the wrong price, or the device is not available in the warehouse, etc. It was funny :)

That kind of thing happens in Australia and the sale must go ahead by law. The advertised price is the price, end of story.

I know, it's like that in the USA and a lot of the world, I think even European Union, that's why I mentioned it. Not in Serbia, yet.

I think I've read about people in USA suing companies for refusing to sell, or requesting return, of products that were advertised with "incorrect" prices and ordered/purchased by the customer.

Re: McDonald's app bug let people order for free in France

#82

Post by commoner »

milankragujevic wrote: post #81
grecy wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That kind of thing happens in Australia and the sale must go ahead by law. The advertised price is the price, end of story.

I know, it's like that in the USA and a lot of the world, I think even European Union, that's why I mentioned it. Not in Serbia, yet. I think I've read about people in USA suing companies for refusing to sell, or requesting return, of products that were advertised with "incorrect" prices and ordered/purchased by the customer.

It's actually not like that in the USA. Amazon and other retailers have made numerous price mistakes in the past that were canceled without shipment. If you ask customer service, they might offer you a small gift card as a consolation. It's rare for companies to honor their price mistakes, especially major ones that incur them significant losses.

If the retailer charges you a different rate than advertised, that's a different issue, but it generally doesn't happen.

Re: McDonald's app bug let people order for free in France

#83

Post by milankragujevic »

commoner wrote: post #82
milankragujevic wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know, it's like that in the USA and a lot of the world, I think even European Union, that's why I mentioned it. Not in Serbia, yet. I think I've read about people in USA suing companies for refusing to sell, or requesting return, of products that were advertised with "incorrect" prices and ordered/purchased by the customer.

It's actually not like that in the USA. Amazon and other retailers have made numerous price mistakes in the past that were canceled without shipment. If you ask customer service, they might offer you a small gift card as a consolation. It's rare for companies to honor their price mistakes, especially major ones that incur them significant losses. If the retailer charges you a different rate than advertised, that's a…

You can sue for false advertising, at least in the USA. Well, unless the company has "prices and specification subject to change without notice" and mandatory arbitration.

Re: McDonald's app bug let people order for free in France

#84

Post by commoner »

milankragujevic wrote: post #83
commoner wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually not like that in the USA. Amazon and other retailers have made numerous price mistakes in the past that were canceled without shipment. If you ask customer service, they might offer you a small gift card as a consolation. It's rare for companies to honor their price mistakes, especially major ones that incur them significant losses. If the retailer charges you a different rate than advertised, that's a…

You can sue for false advertising, at least in the USA. Well, unless the company has "prices and specification subject to change without notice" and mandatory arbitration.

If the retailer cancels your order and refunds you the amount you paid (or releases the authorization hold on your payment card, since most retailers don't charge until the item is shipped), you won't have any damages to show. Price mistakes happen all the time, and I'm not aware of any US court case that penalized a retailer after they issued a refund.

Re: McDonald's app bug let people order for free in France

#85

Post by milankragujevic »

commoner wrote: post #84
milankragujevic wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can sue for false advertising, at least in the USA. Well, unless the company has "prices and specification subject to change without notice" and mandatory arbitration.

If the retailer cancels your order and refunds you the amount you paid (or releases the authorization hold on your payment card, since most retailers don't charge until the item is shipped), you won't have any damages to show. Price mistakes happen all the time, and I'm not aware of any US court case that penalized a retailer after they issued a refund.

I understand, I'm misremembering it then.

Re: McDonald's app bug let people order for free in France

#86

Post by JoshuaDavid »

WalterBright wrote: post #47
orf wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Using sanity checks in software is normal practice, especially in software that calculates critical things. It works. Literally the whole point, that I've repeated to you 3 times now, is that a single cent is not critical if it means losing the entire order. This isn't a rockets trajectory or a an MRI scanner, it's a glorified tablet selling high-volume impulse food at a good markup, so stop pretending as if the co…

> that I've repeated to you 3 times now I explained how to deal with that. BTW, crooks have stolen millions of dollars by adjusting software to shave off a penny here and there. The idea that McDonalds can afford to be unaware of a missing penny in a transaction, when they have billions of those transactions, is wrong. In accounting software, it's critical to be accurate to the penny. Having the POS software be off b…

> I once read a story where a prospective engineering hire was given a plant tour at Ford. He noticed an inefficiency that was costing Ford 5 cents per car. He was promptly hired.

This seems implausible at best, unless it was long enough ago that 5 cents was a meaningful amount of money. Ford only sells about 5.5 million vehicles per year, so even an inefficiency which affects every single vehicle would only cost $280,000 / year, which is almost certainly not an amount that justifies a process change across all ford assembly lines.

It's important to keep in mind what the acceptable margin of error is. It's very easy to say "no discrepancies are acceptable," but in sometimes you have a legacy system that mostly works and it's not worth the person-hours to stamp out every inconsistency.

Re: McDonald's app bug let people order for free in France

#87

Post by Jack000 »

a few years ago there was a local promotion for packs of nestea, where each case contained a coupon for a free case of ice tea. The coupon didn't say you couldn't redeem it for the same box (which contained another coupon)

A bunch of people (me included) went around and basically cleaned out all the stores that sold it. There was a hilarious thread on red flag deals where people posted pictures of SUVs packed to the brim with ice tea.

Re: McDonald's app bug let people order for free in France

#88

Post by dnautics »

mrleinad wrote: post #28
dnautics wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please explain concretely what your definition of stealing is? To most sane people, it is not stealing when a transaction price is set, and that price is paid. If you buy a car and complete the transaction and as you're driving off the lot the dealership says, sorry, that car is 200,000 not 20,000; would that be stealing? Why or why not?

Could it have been obvious the price was 10 times higher than you paid? If yes, then it's stealing. If no, then no.

can you not think of corner cases to your vague notion of "obviousness"?

Re: McDonald's app bug let people order for free in France

#89

Post by dnautics »

Kinrany wrote: post #59
astura wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These sorts of "cutesy" arguments don't hold up in a court of law. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/21534526/ns/technology_and_science...

That wasn't a glitch in negotiating. The system knew that the purchase was cancelled but sent the items anyway. It makes perfect sense that the system can legally ask to get those items back.

It depends on what the cancellation policy is, if the cancellation policy says that the responsibility to return is on the buyer, then absolutely it's stealing.

Re: McDonald's app bug let people order for free in France

#90

Post by playeren »

JoshuaDavid wrote: post #86
WalterBright wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that I've repeated to you 3 times now I explained how to deal with that. BTW, crooks have stolen millions of dollars by adjusting software to shave off a penny here and there. The idea that McDonalds can afford to be unaware of a missing penny in a transaction, when they have billions of those transactions, is wrong. In accounting software, it's critical to be accurate to the penny. Having the POS software be off b…

> I once read a story where a prospective engineering hire was given a plant tour at Ford. He noticed an inefficiency that was costing Ford 5 cents per car. He was promptly hired. This seems implausible at best, unless it was long enough ago that 5 cents was a meaningful amount of money. Ford only sells about 5.5 million vehicles per year, so even an inefficiency which affects every single vehicle would only cost $28…

Disregarding the point op was trying to make; the ability to spot the inaccuracy might have had more to do with the hiring decision, than the monetary value of the bug itself.
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