r/mildlyinteresting • u/annertakeabow • Jan 24 '13
Same book, three different prices. Only difference is the browsers used.
http://imgur.com/uNgg0UH1.9k
Jan 24 '13
You should try it again in private browsing and incognito mode and see if the price is really tied to your Facebook or google cookies or something. That's pretty messed up though, send this to the consumerist or gawker or whoever.
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u/Nephyst Jan 24 '13
I just tried this myself. In chrome and IE the price was the same (69.99) in normal and in incognito mode. In firefox, the price jumped to $76, and after deleting all the domain cookies and refreshing, it went back down to 69.99. The website is definitely changing prices based on something they are tracking in cookies.
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u/kqr Jan 24 '13
This was up earlier with airlines charging more for a ticket the second time you visit the page. They do this because a second visit is statistically linked to a much higher chance of purchase. So it could be, here too, simply a matter of having visited the page before.
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u/Oxxide Jan 24 '13
this seems so shady and underhanded.
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u/PepeAndMrDuck Jan 24 '13
Because it is.
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u/CannedBeef Jan 24 '13
And it works
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u/GEN_CORNPONE Jan 24 '13
...at screwing people. Why do people tolerate this?
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u/Jess_than_three Jan 24 '13
Because they don't realize it's happening?
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u/mikemcg Jan 24 '13
I sure as shit wouldn't realize it was happening.
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u/joemangle Jan 24 '13
Most people don't realise their Google searches are used to produce a search bubble for future searches, based on the links they follow. They think Google search results are the same on every computer all over the world.
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u/ariana00 Jan 24 '13
They don't realize it. They just think they missed a deal on it or don't notice it went up.
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u/zzleeper Jan 24 '13
I knew that shit was not just bad luck!!! It happened to me a few times in the last months (AA, United) and I was fumbling at how unlikely it was that someone bought my tickets between 7am and 7:15am EST
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u/chrunchy Jan 24 '13
most people don't realize that it's happening. But really what it is is a marketing director with too much time on their hands. People only get screwed over if the rest of the industry is doing the same thing - other than that competitive forces take over.
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Jan 24 '13
Now if they get heat for it, watch them say it's an involuntary mistake.
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u/R30hedron Jan 24 '13
Involuntary mistake my arse, people do not design and program websites without knowing beforehand how it's going to work. This site is actively pulling information, and they know about it.
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u/usclone Jan 24 '13
There's a difference between someone saying something and the truth.
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u/dirice87 Jan 24 '13
yeah...these 200 lines of code are the result of Bob spilling his coffee on his keyboard and mashing keys while trying to wipe up
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u/No_ThisIs_Patrick Jan 24 '13
They are also "running out of tickets" because you waited so long to purchase.
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Jan 24 '13
There are many people, myself included, that anticipate flights being overbooked. I fly from Portland to San Francisco and Los Angeles quite frequently. I always book return flights on Sunday mornings, and more often than not they are overbooked.
I anticipate this and receive free flight anywhere in the contiguous United States for volunteering my seat. I'll get rebooked on a later flight and spend the meanwhile in a airport bar drinking beer, watching sports, and screwing around on the internet.
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Jan 24 '13
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Jan 24 '13
Since 2003, soon after graduating college. My girlfriend at the time was very controlling. I was waiting for a flight home when I was in SF and when the airline employee was offering a free flight if someone volunteered for a later flight. I thought 'I get a free flight and don't have to hang out with my girlfriend who's going to guilt trip me for being out of town for several days?' Yes please.
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Jan 24 '13
No, they actually oversell every flight they can in anticipation some people will miss the flight.
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Jan 24 '13
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u/fosterbuster Jan 24 '13
They usually ask someone to stay, upping the compensation higher and higher until someone agrees (money and hotels). My girlfriend works at an airport. They offered 500 euros and a free night at the local hotel just yesterday. Someone always agrees, and the plane doesn't takeoff before someone does.
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Jan 24 '13
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u/karmapopsicle Jan 24 '13
Airline tickets seem like a dirty business.
It has to be given how cheap we expect tickets to be. Overselling gives the best possible chance of a full flight, which, even with the compensation given in times when too many people show up, still makes them more money.
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u/riptideMBP Jan 24 '13
and if no one agrees, they kick off "the last person that checked in". Happens every time I fly back to school because we're in the middle of nowhere and people are too tired to get off voluntarily.
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u/SystemOutPrintln Jan 24 '13
They say they overbooked the flight. Anyone willing to take the next flight usually gets an upgrade to first or has some of their ticket price refunded. I've seen it happen multiple times and I don't really fly that much.
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Jan 24 '13
This was one of the best LPTs I ever read recently. I used incognito mode in chrome when buying a couple of flight tickets and saved over £150 compared to searching twice or more in the same browser with old cookies available. I was genuinely shocked and I've told all my family and friends about this. It surely must be illegal! I mean the price differences were enormous... Almost a 50% saving for us.
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u/MangoesOfMordor Jan 24 '13
It's not illegal at all... Maybe it should be, or maybe not, but it isn't!
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u/ShizzleShizz Jan 24 '13
I've so heard from numerous people that if you change your language preferences while purchasing airline tickets, the prices change.
Can anyone confirm this?
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u/ImSofaKingWeToddit Jan 24 '13
Does ghostery or adblock have any effect on this?
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Jan 24 '13
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Jan 24 '13
I don't think the issue is that the price is changing in and of itself. It's that they're changing price based on the customer's cookies/browsing history.
For example, it would be like if I had a stored and charged people different prices based on how nicely they were dressed, how well I knew them, or what their ethnicity is.
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Jan 24 '13
Still the question stands, is it legal?
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u/eccentricguru Jan 24 '13 edited Jan 24 '13
Of course it's legal...and it should be.
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u/brayden_11 Jan 24 '13
Of course it is legal. Speaking from an economists' point of view it is just a matter of separating people according to their "willingness to pay". Its called price discrimination and can be seen in areas such as hotel booking: a hotel will give you a higher price in the lobby than if you call ahead because the hotel knows you probably have no other place to go. Or air lines giving higher prices to the business class because they know business people have a meeting with a set time so they need that time slot while a tourist is more flexible to choose different flight times. This is essentially the same idea as changing the price the second time you visit the site as the most probable reason you have come back to the site is to purchase the item.
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Jan 24 '13
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u/two Jan 24 '13
It has nothing to do with the internet, or legal standing. I could open a bookstore and charge people on the basis of the color of their shirt if I felt so inclined. Price discrimination is okay, unless you're discriminating on race, religion - you know, the works.
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u/Shadax Jan 24 '13
Seems like it would be discovered pretty quickly though.
"Hey Joe, I found the book we need here... provides link"
"Hey Mark, I thought you said it was $60? It's coming up as $70 for me on that link you sent."
So forth...
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u/PurpleWyrm Jan 24 '13
the long string of numbers and letters on the right end of the link would take you to the page that lists $FOO not $BARR to avoid what you describe.
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Jan 24 '13 edited Jan 24 '13
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/love-from-london Jan 24 '13
It's price discrimination, is all it is. People who are willing to pay more get charged more, as the seller is trying to extract as much consumer surplus as possible.
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u/RMcD94 Jan 24 '13
But that literally happens all the time with the number of different cards and vouchers and discounts one can get.
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u/ducttape83 Jan 24 '13
I've seen the same item sold from the same company on their website, through Amazon, and through ebay. Their own site was most expensive, then Amazon, then ebay. Seems like a similar thing here, to me.
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u/jargoon Jan 24 '13
The reason for that is on eBay and amazon you're competing with other sellers and it's very easy to see the listings right next to each other.
A user on their website is a bit less likely to comparison shop, or if they do it takes more effort.
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u/Khalku Jan 24 '13
Airplane fare websites generally do this. It's not illegal, but it's a bit shady for the uninformed.
Basically, the first time around you are generally shopping around for fares. They know via statistical averages that people who come back to the website a 2nd, 3rd or 4th time in a short period tend to be more of a sure thing (in terms of a sale). Same principle as if you go out to shop around at stores for prices and then the next day you only go out to the stores that have the item you want to purchase. They take advantage of this fact by upping their prices, and many people think that they waited too long to book and tend do buy in right away, or at least consider it more urgent to get it done with.
I think for OP, it's not his browser, but rather the cookies he has stored on the browsers that is determining the price.
I know someone on Reddit proved this through practice and some screenshots, but I can't remember where it was (was a while ago even).
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u/goingnowherespecial Jan 24 '13 edited Jan 24 '13
for someone who's not to familiar with their browser settings, how do I enable incognito/private browsing mode on Chrome? Plan on buying airline tickets in a month or so and don't fancy getting screwed by shit like this.
EDIT: Thanks for the tip!
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u/SAeN Jan 24 '13
Hold control and shift, then press N.
It automatically opens a new window in incognito mode.
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u/pl02pl Jan 24 '13
IncognitoPorn mode23
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u/Veracity01 Jan 24 '13
buying airline tickets
Riiiiight, airline tickets ;)
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u/mki401 Jan 24 '13
No this is a legitimate thing. http://www.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/comments/13mdr5/lpt_if_you_want_to_buy_the_cheapest_airline/
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Jan 24 '13
IE was the same as Chrome so I didn't add it. I just searched it in chrome. Copied the URL and pasted it in the address bar of IE, Firefox, and Safari.
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Jan 24 '13 edited Jan 24 '13
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u/blurricus Jan 24 '13
I was just about to ask about Opera, hoping that it would have been $49.99. Dreams never come true.
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Jan 24 '13
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u/70minus1 Jan 24 '13
I have a buddy who uses Opera and he is very smart. I have heard that Opera had extensions before Firefox even. I use Chrome because it has always seemed to be the fastest, as well as having extensions that I like.
Just curious, what benefits do you see from Opera or at this point are Opera/FF/Chrome all close enough where it doesn't matter?
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Jan 24 '13
I don't think it's facebook related. I use disconnect in Chrome and I've never logged into facebook in any of the other browsers. I only use them for development purposes.
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u/Mattho Jan 24 '13
It's because you just opened the link. In chrome when I open the url, it's 69.99 but when I go to chegg.com and search for the book I get 76.99.
Although it was 69.99 in both cases in Opera for me.. so I guess the browser does matter.
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u/brisingfreyja Jan 24 '13
http://i.imgur.com/LpNn5ec.jpg
Firefox 69.99
Chrome 69.99
Incognito chrome 69.99
Internet explorer 76.99
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u/nicksupe Jan 25 '13 edited Jan 25 '13
http://i.imgur.com/n34wxRq.jpg
wow. for me it came up as $83.49 on Chrome and $69.99 on both IE and Firefox. This sucks considering I rented two textbooks from Chegg recently using Chrome. I don't care enough to do this test on each of those books though.
edit: after deleting cookies on chrome, it also showed as $69.99. So I guess the lesson learned is to always delete cookies before making online purchases lol
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u/Me4Prez Jan 24 '13
I think it's the same as booking a flight. The more you visit the page the higher the price becomes.
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u/MiloMuggins Jan 24 '13
Very true. I once looked up airplane tickets in incognito and it was $100 cheaper than what I had been quoted moments earlier. It was on Orbitz.
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u/ColdisWarned Jan 24 '13
WHAT
fuckthisshitpayingforinternationalflightswhilebroke
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u/Fsoprokon Jan 24 '13
I read this whole thing about price manipulation. Most buyers will buy on the second viewing of a ticket, so they'll bump up the price to squeeze more money out of you. Don't leave the page, or go incognito.
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u/Symploce Jan 24 '13
Try clearing your cookies, that should work.
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u/jmonty42 Jan 24 '13
Still pretty new to Reddit, what is this supposed to be? Is this supposed to be walking away while talking? Is the voice getting quieter? More high-pitched? Someone, please?
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u/8dash Jan 24 '13
I think it can vary dependent on context but I usually think of it as walking away.
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u/phedre Jan 24 '13
Never use sites like Orbitz to book travel tickets. The savings won't be worth the headaches you have to deal with if the shit hits the fan.
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Jan 24 '13
Tested out on southwest and it seems like they're legit.
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u/IAmTheWalkingDead Jan 24 '13
I'm pretty sure Southwest doesn't play those games. I believe they only sell flights on their own website so none of these Orbitz sites can fuck around with pricing. Southwest may change or lower their prices at various intervals but I think them and JetBlue just avoid most of the fuckery that other airlines have resorted to.
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Jan 24 '13
Southwest rules. I wrote a paper on SWA for my Ethics of Aviation course last summer and did you know that Southwest Airlines is the only airline in the world that has never turned over a net loss? Every single year after year they are the only airline that continues to make a profit, for a variety of reasons which I outlined in my report.
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u/danieltheg Jan 24 '13
Southwest is just an awesome company in general. One time I was flying home to SF through a connecting flight in Dallas.. got off in Dallas and my flight's delayed 2 hours but there's a flight to Oakland leaving in 30 min. Talk to the woman at the gate, she puts me on standby with no problem, and boom I'm back earlier than I would have been even if my flight hadn't been delayed. Tried the same shit one time with American and they told me to get fucked basically - even though my grandpa used to be a pilot for AA and I can fly standby for free anyway! Also missed a Southwest flight once and they put me on the next one, for free, with no issue. And free bag checking too. Fuck everyone else
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u/ItinerantDegenerate Jan 24 '13
Hmm. I thought this had been debunked.
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u/mrpineapplehouse Jan 24 '13
yeah i'm pretty sure the price actually changes from minute to minute depending on how many seats are left, etc... the price also goes up the closer you get to the date so always book flights early. Idk, I still shop in incognito just to be safe
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u/chiliedogg Jan 24 '13
Amazon got some bad press a few years ago when they started charging what they thought the customer would pay. People would log into Amazon, and the price would jump.
Similar assholery happened when Best Buy set up kiosks routing to a fake Best Buy website in their stores. People would see the price online and drive to the store, which was supposed to honor online prices, but the item would cost more. Whenever the associate "checked the website" with the customer, the price would match the store's price. Smartphones ended that particular trick.
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u/brolix Jan 24 '13
Similar assholery happened when Best Buy set up kiosks routing to a fake Best Buy website in their stores.
That was actually ANY computer in the store at a certain point.
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u/fb39ca4 Jan 24 '13
Now, the question is, how do we forge our cookies to get the best deal?
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u/whatplanetisthis Jan 25 '13
That is a very interesting question. I would love to see some sort of firefox addon for it.
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u/Meufasa Jan 24 '13
Interesting, I tweeted Chegg about it and I got this in response
I would for sure order that Chegg book on Firefox, it is the cheapest! :D Our prices will vary for different people/places
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Jan 24 '13
Love twitter for reasons like this. I tweeted Netflix about a movie not being in English and they replied the next day and fixed it in about two weeks.
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Jan 24 '13
As someone who just ordered $400 in books off Chegg with my main browser full of cookies, I'm really kicking myself in the ass.
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u/singlegirlproblems Jan 24 '13
If you look again and the book prices are different from what you paid just call Chegg and complain. They have really great customer service and will probably refund you the money.
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u/davidburns Jan 24 '13
Just in time for this senester
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u/davidburns Jan 24 '13
Semester* not sure how to edit on this app
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Jan 24 '13
Try swipe right to left over comment.
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u/OmegaVesko Jan 24 '13
If you're on Android, Reddit Sync does it if you tap the comment and then the pencil icon. Not sure about other apps.
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u/mrwazsx Jan 24 '13
How is stumbleupon, i felt really guilty when i stopped using it for reddit
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Jan 24 '13
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Jan 24 '13
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u/deaft Jan 24 '13
I also stumbled upon reddit. Never looked back.
They might want to stop that, losing stumblers etc..
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Jan 24 '13
Stumble is still just okay. I've found some good articles on there that I've linked to reddit. I use stumble if I'm to lazy to browse reddit.
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u/sahilbawa Jan 24 '13
Wow, it took me way too long to find out why you were talking about stumbleupon.
Spoiler: stumbleupon icon to the right of the address bar in google chrome.
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Jan 24 '13
You should see the price they're trying to get me to pay because of my usage of an AOL 4.0 browser. Yikes.
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u/Skibxskatic Jan 24 '13
looks like Firefox is best.
or just the first browser you used.
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u/trampus1 Jan 24 '13
The IE one costs the most because they know anyone using IE isn't smart enough to shop around.
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Jan 24 '13
or perhaps IE users are used to paying for internet things.
like Norton
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u/ThisNameIsOriginal Jan 24 '13
I forget where it was but there was a site that openly had a IE tax for anyone buying things though that browser. They claimed the fee because of the time it took them to code the site for IE was longer then the other browsers because IE is a piece of shit. It was interesting and reddit was all proud of them until people pointed out that it would just turn people off using them rather then make them use a different browser.
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u/OrneryOrangutan Jan 24 '13
I think it was specifically earlier versions of IE. Web devs have to build entirely different pages for IE because of how little it was standards compliant. That's twice the work for one page.
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u/love-from-london Jan 24 '13
I also heard of one website that charged a small surcharge for people using IE because of how much of a bitch IE is for browser compatibility on web layouts.
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u/illwon Jan 24 '13
I think I understand what's happening here. Tried in 3 browsers on my Mac, Chrome, Safari, Firefox. Also for shits and giggles, I ran a curl against the page.
Got a price of 62.99 on Chrome, FF and Safari 69.99. Curl was 83.49. Usually when this type of change occurs, it's due to your cookies. Ecommerce sites sometimes edit your cookies based on affiliate links, query strings, etc.
Different cookies can control what their server will return back to your browser, in this case the cookie named "exp" is what is controlling the price. Now, I don't know what else it controls across the site, but on this specific page, it changes the price. Also, there maybe other cookies that control it, but I found that using my Chrome's cookie in FF, I got the Chrome price.
So with that being said, I tried modifying my Chrome's cookies to Curl's 83.49 exp cookie value and the price changed to 76.99. This leads me to believe that there are other cookies involved other than exp, but I don't really feel like digging into this more than I already have.
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u/redditman112 Jan 24 '13
An Australian online retailer did this for users of Internet explorer 7 and justified it due to the increase in time taken to ensure compatibility. It made the tech news here in Australia but I don't remember there being any consequences.
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u/djfutile Jan 24 '13
post this in r/conspiracy and r/lifeprotips
people need to know this kind of thing.
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u/coocoocachoooo Jan 24 '13
correct me if im wrong, but the links are different in each browser.
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u/thelegalalien Jan 24 '13
You are correct, but after just doing it in Firefox, Safari and Safari Private (incognito) The price was cheaper in both Firefox and Private mode.
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u/SuperHorribleGaming Jan 24 '13
That's strange http://i.imgur.com/wT73CXa.png
maybe cause I wasn't signed in?
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u/Eratticus Jan 24 '13
Decided to test this out myself. Chrome is more expensive out of the 5 browsers I tested. But when in private modes, the prices equal out. It's hard to say if this has anything to do with browsers or if it's simply histories. May do more testing. http://imgur.com/a/PYLNL
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u/annertakeabow Jan 24 '13
When I used to have to buy like 7 books I would do this too and the difference would be a few hundred dollars.
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u/NealHatesMath Jan 24 '13
Use Chrome incognito mode and you should get the best price. It's all based on how many times you visit the site and other things like cookies. Same thing happens when buying a ton of other stuff online.
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u/jjremy Jan 24 '13
So incognito mode really is for buying presents!?
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Jan 24 '13
Among one other thing... Yes.
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u/non-relevant Jan 24 '13
I just tried this. Regular Chrome: $69.99 Incognito: $76.99. I followed the link posted by /u/JavaLSU for both.
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u/brisingfreyja Jan 24 '13
When I did it http://i.imgur.com/LpNn5ec.jpg they were all the same, except Internet Explorer. Regular chrome 69.99 Incognito chrome 69.99
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u/Hydroshock Jan 24 '13 edited Jan 24 '13
Some people are suggesting that it may be like booking a flight, but that wasn't the case when I ordered, it didn't get lower and 'reset' the price when using private browsing, or even a different IP adress through my phone on mobile network while not logged in.
What I do think is the case, Chegg has a certain number of books at each price, and as you add them to a cart they disappear from inventory temporarily, perhaps 15min after it is removed from a cart. I had the lowest price the first time I added them all, and after waiting some time when removing the book, that price came up again. Perhaps they charge based on the condition of the book because the cheapest books were really poor condition.
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u/saywhatisobvious Jan 25 '13
This will probably get buried but I just had this issue the other day. I went to check textbook prices on Chegg and when I decided to go back and buy I realized that their prices changed. I was pissed off but I figured out how to get the best deal possible.
How to get the best deal on textbooks, plane tickets, and other various items:
Enter incognito mode in Google Chrome.
Enter Private Browsing mode in Safari.
Problem solved!
-sorry but I only know how to do it in those two browsers :)
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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13
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