Complaints

• Initial Complaint

  12/09/2024

  Complaint Type:

  Sales and Advertising Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  This is a complaint regarding deceptive advertising practiced by *** ** Corporation, dba Coolhorse. First of all, Coolhorse displays fraudulent reviews on the front page of its website. Fake reviews violate the FTC’s Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials, so I have reported this to the FTC. Second, Coolhorse deliberately misrepresents items as being in-stock. I experienced this, and other reviewers experienced this. Third, Coolhorse practices bait-and-switch. I placed an order during the Thanksgiving sale. Coolhorse confirmed my order on Tuesday. It should have been shipped the next business day, on Wednesday. Coolhorse failed to ship my order, which is for medical devices required promptly. On Thursday, Coolhorse suddenly claimed that they were out of stock. Coolhorse then attempted to upsell me on the more expensive model, which is a predatory bait-and-switch sales tactic given the necessary nature of the items I ordered. After I complained, Coolhorse canceled my order to retaliate.

  Business response

  12/10/2024

  Dear BBB,

  Thank you for bringing this claim to our attention and explaining how the process works.  As you can tell, we rarely have complaints so we weren't exactly sure how to move forward with Mr. ******* claim.  I will briefly explain the situation,  address the claims Mr. ***** has made against us, and I have also upload the attachments showing the order he originally made with Coolhorse as well as the canceled order and full refund via PayPal.

  On 12/3/24, Mr. ***** purchased two items from Coolhorse at 10:01 PM CST totaling $425.00. He used a promo code and saved $75.00 with this code and we provided free standard shipping. We use the Shopify shopping cart platform for our ecommerce online store.  Unfortunately, we only had 1 of the items in stock and ****** in our Customer Service department reached out via phone call and email to Mr. ***** 12/5/24 at 10:07 AM CST to explain the situation. In her email, she explained that we would not be able to fill his order immediately and that we should have the products back in stock in two weeks or we could offer a 15% discount on a premium brand that does cost more but lasts longer.  Due to several limitations in Shopify software and communications with Google Merchant, we are not able to show our exact quantity in stock on our website. 

  Mr. ***** claimed in the reply email that we were deceptively advertising and he wanted the exact number of products and and exact price (which we have no problem with and agree 100%) in the "time frame" we advertised.  This is where he is incorrect as we have never promised time frames.  There are just too many variables in the ecommerce business that all retailers run into including stocks counts being off, shipping delays, and stolen packages.

  Our assistant manager,  ****** reach out to Mr. ***** offering to try to help solve this problem and here is her exact email:

  
  " Coolhorse Customer Service <******************> wrote:
  
  > In your opinion, what would make it right for you? As I've said, I have one Curragh cup that will be here today and we can get that shipped to you right away. Unfortunately, we won't be able to overnight it because those aren't guaranteed to deliver on the weekends. However, I could see if there's a possibility of getting it to you on Monday. We also have the option of canceling the order and refunding you if there truly isn't something we can do to make this right for you. Let me know what you would like to do."

  As you can see, we were trying to solve this customer's problems and if we can't make them 100% happy, we always refund fully and quickly.  Once Mr. ***** started threatening and chose a hostile tone, and we knew we could not make him happy, we refunded his order fully on December 6th at 12:18 PM as noted in the attachments uploaded with this description.  We have kept the full email thread conversation with Mr. ***** and would be glad to upload this if needed to show what our intentions were- to try to make Mr. ****** happy.

  The following paragraph will address Mr. ****** false claims about Coolhorse.  Briefly, Coolhorse is a 25 year old company that I created in 1999. We sell equine products all over the world and this is the first time we've ever been accused of deceptive advertising, fake reviews, or bait and switch advertising.  Companies simply can not survive this long that are deceptive.  If we are ever unable fill an order because of inventory issues, we immediately reach out and start working with the customer to try to solve their problem and make them happy. This can range from discounts, free shipping, alternative products, expedited shipping, extra rewards points,  partial shipments, products in two different orders, etc etc.   As you can see from our 10,335 review using the Shopper Approved platform we have an average of 4.8 stars.  Shopper Approved will only allow verified customers of ours to place reviews- we are never allowed to enter our own reviews or modify them in any way per Shopper Approved's terms.   What Mr. ***** is referring to incorrectly is a banner we have listed toward the middle of our home page that reads "Over 10,000 Reviews" with a link that takes them to our review page found here: *****************************************************.  The banner on our home page is static and can not change with reviews like the link that I've included.  We've simply screen shot several random reviews and placed them on this banner.

  To address the 'Bait and Switch' claim:  We've never been accused of this nor have we ever attempted this in our 25 years of business. With the reach of social media and how tight the equine community is, we would quickly put our self out of business with these types of shady practices.  Our saying around here is "do unto others as you would have them do unto you".   We were simply trying to solve a problem for the customer because we didn't have his entire order in stock in way that we would like presented to ourselves if it was happening to us.  In hindsight, we should have immediately refunded the order instead of reaching out to Mr. ***** with several options.

  Thank you for allowing us to explain this unfortunate situation. If Mr ***** would like to continue with the order, we would be glad to honor the Thanksgiving Discount of 15% and free shipping for a total of $425.  We have those products currently in stock and could ship them out same business day (as with all inventory this could change daily and we don't have unlimited supplies).  We would ask that he reply to the first email thread we had with him if he would like to go forward ASAP and we can make arrangements to help him get this order headed his way for the same price as before.

  Again, thank you for allowing us a platform to explain this situation and Merry Christmas!

  Matt ****** | Founder
  Coolhorse

   

   

   

*Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business. ↩