Unethical Bait & Switch Website Popups

We’ve all seen it in one form or another; visit a website and one or more popups pop up in your face trying to get you to click and share your email address, cell phone numbers and other personal information so companies can target and inundate you with spam. Here is my recent experience with one such company.

I’ve recently been in the market to purchase a set of golf clubs so I can go golfing with my son and my oldest grandson. I haven’t been golfing for over forty years. I wasn’t anything special as a golfer but I could generally golf at or at least close to PAR. I got rid of the fire and smoke damaged clubs I had a long time ago. I figured if I’m going to be doing any kind of regular golfing with my family, I might as well get a set of clubs instead of renting a crappy set at a golf course. After going online to check out clubs, I noticed some changes in club design and styles that have taken place over the last forty-five years, shocking, right?! Well it was clear to me that I needed some help to steer me in the right direction so I didn’t waste a pile of money and get a bunch of stuff that I really didn’t need.

I headed out to an area brick-n-mortar store that specifically deals with all things golf and nothing but golf. I walked around the store staring at the equipment with that “I have no friggin clue” look on my face. There were hundreds, yes hundreds of putters and racks and racks of drivers, things that sorta looked like drivers, and irons and the prices were more for one club than I wanted to spend for an entire set. I didn’t want all that flashy expensive stuff, I just wanted a set of golf tools to so I could spend some more quality time with family. To say that I felt out of place was an gross understatement, I later told my wife that I felt like I was in an old man in a ballet store trying to buy a tutu. I was clearly ignorant about all the stuff that looked “new” to me, it was rather embarrassing but I sucked it up and moved forward. Finally a nice young man did what customer service people should do, he politely ask me if I needed some help and then he effectively provided the exact help I needed. I walked out of there with a new understanding of all the “new” stuff I was seeing and it only took him about 10 or 15 minutes to explain it to me. Unfortunately they really didn’t have a set of clubs that seem to really fit my needs. I thanked him for all the help and told him that if I couldn’t find what I needed at the price I was reasonably comfortable with, I’d be back.

Later that morning, I went back online with a new understanding of the clubs and began to narrow down the set of clubs that seemed like it would fit my needs without having to dive into my retirement account to pay for it. I ended up narrowing it down to what looked like a decent starter set from Wilson, even though I can still hit a ball straight and reasonably accurate at a driving range with the clubs they provided, I really am starting all over again and a starter set seemed appropriate. The problem was that I couldn’t find this Wilson starter set in stock anywhere, so off to Wilson’s website I went.

Wilson’s website was reasonably easy to use and I found the golf club set I was looking for and it was exactly the same price I had seen everywhere else and they offered free shipping for anything over $50.00. While I was on the product page on Wilson’s website, I notice a discount popup in the bottom left corner of the product page I was viewing. I figured that this is the product I wanted to purchase, they’re offering a discount for a first order so I might as well get a discount for being a first time customer too. I clicked on the link.

After I clicked the link I noticed right away that they were offering a 15% discount associated with the popup link. I’m thinking that’s a reasonable discount off their MSRP deal and reasonably typical for what I get off MSRP for other non golf related products that I have quoted. Everyone should always ask about discounts off MSRP! I did noticed the wording on the form said “Equipment Deals & Regularly Priced Apparel” and the form no longer said anything about being an offer for first purchasers, I thought that was a little curious. Since the popup link was on an actual product page and not some “equipment deal” page (whatever that is), I figured their wording was just a bit off and everything must be an equipment deal, I’ve seen that kind of language used on websites before. So I’m thinking that 15% is a reasonably decent deal but I’m not going to fill out this form giving them permission to start spamming my email and cell phone text messages until I know for sure that they have the club set in-stock. Here is the form…

Since I needed to make sure they actually had the set I wanted to purchase in-stock, I got on the phone and called them direct. The customer service person was nice enough but the really thick accent made communication very difficult, both of us had to repeat what we said multiple times so we understood each other. (Side Note: even the phone tree to get through to an actual customer service human being had a strong accent.) The customer service agent and I were both patient with each other and we eventually got through it and I found out that, yes, they had the set I was looking at in-stock and it usually would ship in a few business days after they received an order. So I told the customer service person that I’d make the order online so I could get the first time purchaser 15% discount that was offered on the website. We ended our conversation and I went back to the website.

I filled out the discount form. I put the golf club set in my order “bag”, opened a new account, filled in all the appropriate information for them to properly ship and bill me. I received a text message containing the code to use at checkout…

I immediately noticed the text they sent with the code referred to a “deals page” and “full-price sportswear” and “next order” which was inconsistent with the previous messages that were “Discount On Your First Order” and the fill out form that didn’t say anything at all about first or next order. I’m thinking at this point that Wilson’s left hand doesn’t really know what it’s right hand is doing but it’s too late now, they’ve got my email address and my cell phone number and I’m going to be spammed. At this point since there was genuine inconsistency in the information I was being provided, I had absolutely no idea if the discount code they gave me was actually going to work but I was going to give it a try.

I did everything needed to purchase the golf club set, entered the “promo code” in the appropriate box, clicked the button to apply the code and got the following message…

It was really clear that I had been duped with a “bait & switch” ploy, they had my information, short of giving them any credit card info, and I didn’t get the discount they promised. Classic unethical bait & switch, they get what they wanted and I didn’t get what was initially promised.

I immediately called the Wilson customer service line and explained that the discount code I was given didn’t work. The customer service agent had to pass this on to his supervisor to be resolved. After a couple of escalations from one of their departments to another, and me providing them with actual screenshots of everything, I also included a note in that email that read…

“It’s 100% clear that the messaging trying to get potential customers’ email addresses and cell phone numbers is inaccurate to the point of being an apparent intentional bait and switch misrepresentation. What you’re doing is unethical, fix it!“

A few hours after I sent the screenshots and my “bait and switch” message, I got an email informing me that…

“…the code is valid only for items listed in the Apparel and Equipment Deals sections of our website.”

Yup, they completely jumped over and ignored their bait & switch without a single word about it and went almost parroted the message I got in the text message. Wilson intentionally provides an unethical “bait & switch” popup link on completely unrelated product pages promising potential customers that they can get a discount off their first purchase and then suckered potential customers into providing their email address and cell phone numbers so they can spam them without giving them the discount that they promised in the original popup. This is an unethical “bait & switch”.

Just a little side note; I finally found their “deals page” and it offered four different individual golf clubs (irons) and if you add up the price of the four clubs it totaled $3,899.96 which is seven times more than the price of the complete set I wanted to purchase.

Needless to say, I canceled my plan to order from Wilson’s website and sent them an email that reads as follows…

This is an “interesting” outcome. I specifically pointed out your unethical “bait and switch” advertising tactics using actual screenshots from your website and you choose to double down on your unethical tactic. I intentionally gave you a chance to make an ethical choice and rectify your unethical tactic, but instead of apologizing using a true #1 on the Apology Scale and making an honest effort to fix your website, Wilson chose to double down on its tactic. That’s right, you doubled down on an unethical advertising tactic, that’s morally bankrupt behavior.

Please note; there is a huge difference between #1 and #7 on the Apology Scale I shared.

You obviously don’t care very much about losing one annoyingly outspoken potential customer like me over a measly 15% of a $549.99 sale, but how many more potential customers take their purchasing dollars to other companies because of your intentional misrepresenting “bait and switch” advertising tactics and say nothing to you about their displeasure. I choose differently, I choose to be the pebble in the pond…

Advertising choices can have unforeseen real world consequences and one of them is to drive potential customers away because you’re using unethical “bait and switch” advertising tactics, this IS a real world consequence. There are also other consequences to using unethical advertising tactics.

I plan to present the relevant facts and my opinion regarding my experience with Wilson’s online store in a new Society’s Building Blocks essay and I’ll be including something close to the following tagline as a prominent part of the essay…

“Consumers beware; if Wilson online store is willing to openly use misrepresenting unethical “bait and switch” tactics on potential customers and then double down when confronted with their unethical tactic, what else are they willing to misrepresent on their website?”

Part of my engineering job for over 30 years was providing direct customer service to customers and I personally know what old fashioned ethical customer service and genuine integrity is supposed to look like. Wilson Sporting Goods’ “customer service” department didn’t make the ethical “customer service” choice and instead chose to double down on an unethical tactic being used on their website all in an effort to save the company 15% on this potential sale, a whopping $82.50. Sure this might look good on someone’s daily balance sheet but only if I had chosen at this point to follow through with my planned purchase of the item I sincerely wanted to purchase, but your so called “customer service” department has literally talked me out of it and now there won’t be sale plus there will be negative press due to the unethical choice of Wilsons’ “customer service” department. This could have been a really simple choice for an ethical customer service department; make the choice that was truly oriented to “customer service” and then make an honest effort to fix or remove the unethical “bait and switch” advertising on your website.

Wilson has done what so many other companies in the 21st century have done, forgotten what real customer service and ethical choices are all about in favor of the bottom line in the ledger book. This experience won’t reflect very well on Wilson’s “Customer Service” department for a bit longer than this brief moment in time when they lost a sale to one outspoken potential customer. Good job.

Fix your website to remove the very intentional “bait and switch” advertising tactic that I specifically pointed out.

You had a choice. You chose. Choices have consequences.

After I sent that email, I did get a response and here is one sentence of that response…

“We are very sorry for the frustration, the disappointment, and the missed opportunity to show you the kind of customer service you clearly value and expect.”

The author of that sentence had the gall to imply that they have the kind of customer service I value and expect, but yet when they were actually presented with a real world opportunity to show “the kind of customer service [I] clearly value and expect” they failed miserably.

I would not recommend doing business on Wilson’s Sporting Goods website because, “if Wilson‘s online store is willing to openly use misrepresenting unethical “bait and switch” tactics on potential customers and then double down when confronted with their unethical tactic, what else are they willing to misrepresent on their website?“.

It’s very clear to me that there is a business ethics void behind the scenes at Wilson’s Sporting Goods website. I will not be doing any business with Wilson’s online Sporting Goods store. You are free to make your own choices.