Beware of Wyze and Buy with prime!

[onemansart]

I was attempting to buy Noise-Cancelling Headphones with the Black Friday pricing. The website came up with the discounted price and said “Add to Cart OR Buy with prime”. Great. I’m a prime member so I’ll get, as the website says, “Fast, FREE Delivery and Returns”. I even clicked on the little “i” to make sure there wasn’t any catch.

Fortunately for me, I noticed that after selecting Buy with prime the price jumped from $44.99 to $99.21!

Oops, I must have done something wrong. I went back and started over several times to make sure I hadn’t missed some promo code or something that I needed to enter in order to get the advertised price. I couldn’t find anything and the price changed every time, so I spent almost an hour on CS chat trying to find out what the problem was. After “checking with our order team” and “checking with our specialists” what he came up with was that Order with prime is independent of Wyze and set’s their own prices. Hmmmm.

After that I went to my computer to do a little more research. Turns out that even if you go to the dedicated Wyze “collections” page for Wyze products available on Buy with prime, it still shows the discount price.

But of course, if you actually try to buy with prime, you won’t get that price. Now in my book, the first and third images represent the “bait” and you can guess what the second image represents.

This is the kind of thing that makes consumers like me crazy and ruins a brand’s reputation. So, beware of Wyze and Buy with prime!

Update: Just did a little more playing around on that collections page. Even items that are not on sale come up with a different and (in every case that I tried) higher price when you click Buy with prime. As an example, the Wyze Buds, not on sale and advertised at $53.99 on the Wyze “products available on buy with prime” page, come up as $59.98 (before tax) when you actually try to buy with prime. And by the way, at the bottom of the page with the higher price (second image) notice that it says “Sold by Wyze”!

[Edited for grammar and to add Update]
[Edited to correct “Good Friday” to “Black Friday”]

[jacobr]

I remember seeing this happen when I was looking at lightbulbs. Not as big of a jump in price but a difference. I was thinking I bet the Attorney General would be interested in this practice.

[Customer]

Looks as if they just went out of stock anyway. Also, Amazon is listing them for a $59 Cyber Monday deal at present, even as the listing page features the original Wyze video touting a $50 price.

[onemansart]

This really has risen to the level of pure bait and switch false advertising. I just received an email from Wyze that includes this:

It clearly states that you are buying “on wyze.com” “with Prime” and that you “Get Black Friday deals”. But click that Shop Now button, scroll down to the Noise-Cancelling Headphones, which will show a Black Friday special price of $44.99, click on them and then click “Buy with prime”. The price will jump to $89.99 (before tax). No Black Friday deal!!

@Customer Black appears to be sold out, but as of this post time white it still available. Yeah, they’re $44.99 if you buy them on Wyze, $59.34 if you buy them on Amazon, and $89.99 if you “Buy with Prime on Wyze”. What a great deal!

[Customer]

Sigh, I hear ya, it’s not great. The Ankers cost much less, and the only real knock against them is they purposely and somewhat mystifyingly removed the ANC for wired access.

I had the Wyze black in a cart and watched them disappear.

[tbagcam]

I don’t think that would be an intentional bait and switch, but rather just an inability to get everything set up correctly for the 11 days of wyze-mas.

Imagine how many man hours goes into planning, designing, scheduling, testing, and, flawlessly implementing every step of the sale duration… which results in reduced profit per device.

I think it was thxgiving day where a wyze employee got distracted with the turkey and forgot to send the email promo.

[onemansart]

I don’t think it’s intentional either. But I do think it’s extremely sloppy that two companies like Wyze and Amazon either don’t understand what they’re co-promoting or don’t have the skills to make it work properly. And the result is a (unintentional) bait and switch, which is still live and being promoted at this moment. So the question then becomes, what are they going to do about it? Customer Service basically apologized that I was confused and told me I should make a wish and add it to their “official Wishlist” on the forums. I don’t even know what that means. “I wish they would honor what they advertise”? Yes, I know, that’s just the poor front-line CS guy doing his best on a crazy Black Friday, but it’s still frustrating.

[Edited to correct “Good Friday” to “Black Friday”]

[tbagcam]

Throw them a (turkey) bone.

The evidence presented has some unintentional mistakes too. Twice, “black friday”, which is a promo in the fall created by the retail industry is being confused with “good friday”, which is a promo in the spring created by the religious industry.

[onemansart]

Dear tbagcam,

Thank you so much for writing to point out where we messed up. We at onemansart are dedicated to providing only the highest quality comments and we appreciate any opportunity to improve. We want you to know that these errors have been corrected. But we also understand that you were impacted by them while they were still live. We would therefor like to offer you something we hope will restore your confidence in us: The Last Word. Please enjoy it on us!

Sincerely,
The Entire onemansart Team

(It isn’t that difficult)

[tbagcam]

The most important take-away from this situation is that…

Wyze never promoted any “turkey 5”, “11 days of wyze-mas” deal as the lowest prices of the year. I’m banking that I can swoop in at years’ end to snag a critter-cam cmon.

[onemansart]

Well, this issue seems to be fixed, (I’ve only tested it on the headphones, but it seems to be working correctly for those).

And now we get this:

Notice that “Lowest price EVER!”?

That’s funny, because I just bought them, from Wyze, last month, for $44.99.

[DanNguyen]

I also discovered this when using Buy with Prime to buy the new Wyze Battery Cam Pro, which offers a $20 credit during the product launch through Aug 7 2023. You have to read the terms:

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Wyze Battery Cam Pro product launch promotions are valid until 08/07/2023 11:59PM PT. Not all offers (deals) are available at the same time and will be released on a cadence as determined by Wyze. Offers are limited to stock on hand. Offers are not transferable - no resale allowed. Offers on wyze.com and Wyze app shop are only valid only on wyze.com and Wyze app shop. Offers do not apply to Wyze services or extended warranties. Offers do not apply to purchases made before the offer was available (Offers cannot be applied retroactively to previous orders). Additional bonus $20 credit will be given once the order ships and is only applied once per order. This bonus credit will sent through email. Additional bonus $20 credit does not apply to Buy With Prime orders. Buy With Prime prices are as listed when checking out with Buy With Prime. Coupon must be used in Buy With Prime checkout in order to apply. Wyze reserves the right to modify or terminate the promotion at any time without advance notice.

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Bottom line: treat Buy with Prime as having. nothing to do with Wyze when it comes to pricing and promotions. You only benefit from faster shipping. No other pricing benefits, promos or offers would apply.