Unsupported Speculation

In the New York Times, I read (subscription may be required) about a man who lives in Mexico who was browsing the luxury items for sale on the website of the French jeweler Cartier, when he came across a pair of earrings priced at 237 pesos, which apparently is $13 US dollars.

That pricing was a mistake of Cartier’s, and the actual price of the earrings was $13,000.

The man ordered two pairs, and then began a legal battle over whether Cartier would fulfill the order at the much-reduced price that the man actually bought them for. Cartier eventually relented, and the man received both pairs of earrings in the mail.

The article in the New York Times also contained information that the consumer protection law which eventually Cartier had to bow to is very well known and used in Mexico, and that pricing errors on the internet are shared a lot amongst the population before retailers correct their mistakes online.

And I can understand why.

To understand what is happening here, you have to think about being one of the millions and millions of Mexicans that happens to live in a country that borders a superpower, and that the weird economic effect this has for neighboring countries is that their own economy is trashed and they end up being exploited.

Then what happens is that the pervading attitude of virtually everyone in this country is that if they can catch out another country making a pricing error on their website, and buy lots of their goods at what is essentially an outrageously discounted price, and then use the consumer protection law to make sure the orders are fulfilled, then they obtain goods that they can flip for their full value afterwards.

Imagine living in Mexico, and being lucky enough to be able to purchase $26,000 worth of earrings for only $26, and then give one of the pairs to your mother to basically assist her own household, while you use your own pair to assist yours.

$13,000 probably goes a long way in Mexico.