Curry PC World was (briefly) selling a new Apple iPad model for £4 at checkout.
The pricing, which was caused by an error in their systems, meant the tablet received a jaw-dropping £285 discount.
The unbelievable deal went live as part of the high street retailers’ Black Friday 2019 deals. The deal appeared in online shoppers’ baskets when using the discount code FREECASE which was designed to offer customers a free £30 case for their brand-new iPad when buying the 9.7 inch 2018 Apple iPad (32GB), which usually carries a price tag of £319 – although it has been reduced to £289 in the sales.
Unsurprisingly, news of the £285 discount spread across social media in seconds, with shoppers desperately trying to race through the check-out process with the FREECASE code before Currys PC World Head Office noticed the mistakenly generous price.
“Half of Blackpool just got an iPad for under a fiver from Curry’s. Someone’s getting sacked in the mornnnn,” one chuffed shopper wrote on Twitter .
Another agreed, adding: “Got my £4 iPad. Cheers currys!”
It’s unclear exactly how many iPads sold for less than the price of a pint and a packet of crisps, but the Apple-designed tablet was soon unavailable for either delivery and collection. Currys PC World is currently not offering the free £30 case deal on its website, either.
And what about those lucky enough to speed through the check-out process and bag an iPad for £4? Well, some shoppers are reporting that Currys PC World isn’t honouring the Black Friday price.
“I get that I was probably never going to get the £5 iPad,” one Currys PC World customer tweeted. “[But] they could at least have the decency to email me, the only reason I know it has been cancelled is due to having checked DPD, Thoroughly disappointed in Currys, Thoroughly dissapointed.”
It’s a common misconception that retailers have to honour the price listed in their stores. If you’re in a brick-and-mortar high street store and have already finished the transaction and walked out with your item, shops aren’t allowed to demand that you hand back the item for a refund because it was listed as an incorrect price.
That said, if the mistake is noticed before you’ve finished the transaction there is no obligation to sell you the item at the price listed. That’s something that bargain hunters learnt the hard way back in 2012 when Tesco mistakenly listed an iPad for £49.99 – rather than the RRP of £499 – only to see the Tesco stores refuse to honour orders.
In some rare instances, high street stores have stood by the (wrong) prices to keep customers sweet. Marks & Spencer advertised a Panasonic 50-inch TV worth £1,099 for £199 and honoured the existing orders following a huge amount of pressure from shoppers.
We wait with baited breath to see what the response from Currys PC World will be… but one thing is for sure, we’re unlikely to see a Black Friday deal like this again between now and the sales event itself, which falls on Friday November 29 this year.
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