Normally, Cartier jewelry can cost thousands of dollars, but after spotting a pricing error, a 27-year-old man bought opulent earrings from the French brand for less than $14.
The 18-carat rose-gold Clash de Cartier earrings were on the jeweler’s website when Mexican citizen Rogelio Villarreal, via X, posted on Instagram on April 20, 2023, saying he was going down a rabbit hole while using the restroom. According to Villarreal, the earrings were priced at 237 Mexican pesos, or $13.91, as opposed to the current retail price of $11,600.
Villarreal posted on social media, “I was shocked to see how much the necklaces cost and so on and I said: ‘Someday,’ until I saw the earrings.”
Earrings ‘were not at the correct price,’ Cartier says
Villarreal purchased two pairs of the earrings, but according to another X post, he discovered later that the price had been changed on Cartier’s website to 237,000 Mexican pesos, or $13,890.93.
Villarreal wrote on X that Cartier attempted to cancel his order and claim the items were out of stock a week after he purchased the earrings. The jeweler’s representatives called Villarreal when he chose not to cancel the order, and the X post went on to elaborate.
The Cartier representatives, according to Villarreal, informed him that the earrings he “ordered were not at the correct price” and that they “wanted to cancel the purchase.” Cartier said that in order to make up for the “inconvenience,” they would give Villarreal a gift.
Rogelio Villarreal filed consumer complaint
Using a contact form on the business website, Villarreal declined Cartier’s gifts and cited a federal consumer protection law in Mexico that says a goods supplier can be sued “by not respecting the terms and conditions under which” a product or service is purchased.
Villarreal claimed to have noticed that the terms and conditions for sales on Cartier’s website in Mexico state that disagreements may be brought before the Office of the Federal Prosecutor for the Consumer for “conciliation.” He subsequently lodged a grievance with the federal consumer protection agency’s Matamoros branch.
Villarreal claimed that the CPA attempted to mediate a settlement by calling Cartier for arbitration. Jorge LoÁpez Zozaya, a corporate lawyer in Mexico City, told the New York Times that the agency could impose fines or penalties if it found Cartier or any other company at fault.According to Zozaya, the agency is unable to enforce a listed price on businesses…
According to Zozaya, Mexican law does not provide consumers with protections even in cases where a listed price was an obvious error.
“It is likely that Cartier would have won this case in a court of law,” the attorney told the New York Times.