Update: AAFES officials tell us that they will be sending the customers with canceled furniture orders a coupon for 30 percent off a future furniture order.
If you were one of the apparently hundreds thousands of AAFES shoppers who thought they scored astoundingly cheap furniture over the weekend, you're about to be disappointed.
A glitch on the Army and Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES) website over the New Years weekend showed certain items, many of them Ashley brand, as having deep discounts. For example, an Ashley couch set in the color "sage" showed as marked down from $939 to $199.97. An Ashley bed frame set price $329 was marked down to $49.97, according to the site.
That's enough to make anyone excited. I even thought about placing an order.
But those prices were, sadly, too good to be true.
"The prices were incorrect" Christopher Ward, an AAFES spokesman told me yesterday. But any additional details -- like what caused the glitch, how many pieces of furniture were impacted and how many orders were placed with the faulty pricing, won't be available until later today at the very earliest. We'll update you when they are.
Update (Jan. 5):
AAFES officials just sent us this:
"On Friday, when applying discounts to dented, damaged and returned furniture in the Exchange’s main stores, discounts were mistakenly applied to undamaged furniture on shopmyexchange.com, the Exchange’s online store. The mistake was discovered Sunday, and the incorrectly priced items were immediately removed from the online shopping site."Pricing mistakes on the Exchange’s shopping site are rare. We apologize for the error. The Exchange is in the process of emailing the more than 5,000 customers who placed orders for the discounted furniture, explaining why their furniture orders were canceled and offering those shoppers a one-time discount of 30 percent off their next furniture order, and the offer code will be sent soon via email."
Meanwhile, many shoppers who thought they scored the deal are reporting their orders have been canceled. That's because the Exchange's site carries a legal disclaimer allowing them to correct any pricing errors at any time.
But some shoppers still haven't received a cancellation notice. Others said they went to their local Exchange store, showed them the web sale, and got the items price-matched in store.
Unfortunately, like many things -- if a deal like this seems too good to be true, it probably is. Sad day.
