Rockauto bait and switch on brake rotors -- how to proceed?

If you didn't get what you paid for, go through the return process and send them back. RA did that to me with a fuel pump last summer. They stuffed a different cheap brand pump inside a Bosch box. I was told by Bosch, since RA was not an authorized reseller, they can do it and get way with it.
 
They made it right with you so all is good. Human error. Wrong item sent.. it’s hardly a bait and switch as the title of the thread says. We have a mod here who likes to change thread titles as they see fit. I’m surprised this hasn’t happened yet so confusion is avoided.

You needed serious intuition to get through the automated CS process and yet it was somehow achieved with little difficulty. It sounds like you won. 👍
 
Did you purchase these as a close-out item? I have received repackaged items from RA under those circumstances. If not, clearly return them.
Edit- Just re-read and saw that you had.
 
They stuffed a different cheap brand pump inside a Bosch box. I was told by Bosch, since RA was not an authorized reseller, they can do it and get way with it.
Authorized or not, no, they can't get away with it. That's called false advertising.
 
Purchase my brake stuff from TireRack. I like the cryo rotors for longer life. While you may pay a bit extra, they usually get it right and are easy to work with if there is a problem. Buybrakes.com is also a good resource for specialist pads/rotors like the EBC brand.
 
I had to just recently return a new non functioning motorcraft purge valve, pretty straightforward just told them it didn’t work and no other questions were asked and now I got an $89 store credit lol
 
Not bait and switch just typical RA incompetence.
I'd like to believe that, but I struggle to understand how someone could look at an order of two identical components, and somehow throw these two items in the box without it being at least halfway deliberate. Maybe they had good intentions of getting rid of old inventory, sort of how you rotate stock... but these are clearly two very different parts. A blind person could probably figure out they're not the same thing by box size alone.

I opted for the replacement, I'm interested to see what comes in the second go around.
 
I'd like to believe that, but I struggle to understand how someone could look at an order of two identical components, and somehow throw these two items in the box without it being at least halfway deliberate. Maybe they had good intentions of getting rid of old inventory, sort of how you rotate stock... but these are clearly two very different parts. A blind person could probably figure out they're not the same thing by box size alone.

I opted for the replacement, I'm interested to see what comes in the second go around.
Where did the parts ship from? Google the return address - mine usually come from Parts Authority.
 
I'd like to believe that, but I struggle to understand how someone could look at an order of two identical components, and somehow throw these two items in the box without it being at least halfway deliberate. Maybe they had good intentions of getting rid of old inventory, sort of how you rotate stock... but these are clearly two very different parts. A blind person could probably figure out they're not the same thing by box size alone.

I opted for the replacement, I'm interested to see what comes in the second go around.

Bait and switch occurs when a store baits you into the store with a low cost advertisement and switches you to a higher priced item.
 
Bait and switch occurs when a store baits you into the store with a low cost advertisement and switches you to a higher priced item.
Guess I have the terminology wrong.

Selling a higher priced item and sending a cheap knockoff that's been sitting on the shelf for years and bounced around in shipping many times (judging by box deterioration and amount of tape holding it together) is called _______? Fraud? I'm curious.
 
Guess I have the terminology wrong.

Selling a higher priced item and sending a cheap knockoff that's been sitting on the shelf for years and bounced around in shipping many times (judging by box deterioration and amount of tape holding it together) is called _______? Fraud? I'm curious.

Yes, that's just flat out fraud.
 
Guess I have the terminology wrong.

Selling a higher priced item and sending a cheap knockoff that's been sitting on the shelf for years and bounced around in shipping many times (judging by box deterioration and amount of tape holding it together) is called _______? Fraud? I'm curious.
Sounds about like my last couple experiences with them, which ended up requiring me to dispute the transactions with my credit card company to get all my money back. Junk parts that didn't fit the vehicle with no part #s or info on the boxes as to what they even were. RockAuto's customer service refused to refund my money fully and wanted me to pay to ship them back, which they were told wasn't acceptable at all when they didn't even send me the right parts. They used to be good for their prices but not anymore, especially when I end up having to go to the local parts store to get the right parts anyway.
 
This might have just happened accidentally...

Typically parts are pulled by people who are given a bin and location, sometimes description. The average order picker usually does not know any better and just grabs an item from that bin and location, right or wrong, and places it in the box to be shipped to you.

I ordered a transmission pan from RA for my grandmothers old Jeep Liberty a while back and was shipped what looked like an internal transmission part. Close, but not quite. Ironically the tag on the plastic bag of what I got said "transmission pan part #xxxxxx". Carefully filled out the return request and was able to ship back the wrong part without any extra cost as they provided me a return shipping FedEx label.

That said a lot of who is stocking these bins and locations, but sometimes things happen.

Just throwing this out there.
 
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This might have just happened accidentally...

Typically parts are pulled by people who are given a bin and location, sometimes description. The average order picker usually does not know any better and just grabs an item from that bin and location, right or wrong, and places it in the box to be shipped to you.

I ordered a transmission pan from RA for my grandmothers old Jeep Liberty a while back and was shipped what looked like an internal transmission part. Close, but not quite. Ironically the tag on the plastic bag of what I got said "transmission pan part #xxxxxx". Carefully filled out the return request and was able to ship back the wrong part without any extra cost as they provided me a return shipping FedEx label.

That said a lot of who is stocking these bins and locations, but sometimes things happen.

Just throwing this out there.

For sure that's what happened, something was mislabeled. Those boxes look pretty rough too, like they were a relabeled return.
 
This might have just happened accidentally...

Typically parts are pulled by people who are given a bin and location, sometimes description. The average order picker usually does not know any better and just grabs an item from that bin and location, right or wrong, and places it in the box to be shipped to you.

I ordered a transmission pan from RA for my grandmothers old Jeep Liberty a while back and was shipped what looked like an internal transmission part. Close, but not quite. Ironically the tag on the plastic bag of what I got said "transmission pan part #xxxxxx". Carefully filled out the return request and was able to ship back the wrong part without any extra cost as they provided me a return shipping FedEx label.

That said a lot of who is stocking these bins and locations, but sometimes things happen.

Just throwing this out there.
This. Plus people fail to account for the Fight Club factor - some employees TRULY don't care and/or deliberately want to sabotage the company or are just angry at the world. Those people used to wash out much sooner before '20. Now, employers are just happy to have a warm body who shows up every other day and can almost spell their own name on the job application
 
Back in the day and I'm sure not much has changed - Have you ever been able to take a look at some auto repair places where they have a random pile of cores? When the pile starts taking up too much space (or at the end of the month), someone grabs random boxes and stuffs them with random parts. I've seen this with new returns as well. Traceability has been lost.

I would venture to guess that parts returned to RA in taped-up open packaging can suffer that same fate. It's still on RA to figure this out I doubt they're going to spend a lot of time on sorting this out.

I've been on both ends of this process. I had distributor reps tell me it isn't worth the effort to sort this out; pitch the unknown cores and they'd reimburse us the core charge.
 
RA on their closeout parts deal with a lot of bulk parts bought from going out of business independent parts stores that may or may not been properly marked or inventoried for years. I am probably 50/50 for getting the right parts from them bought on closeout.
 
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