$30 PlayStation seen in Target app 'glitch', customer wants price honored

ROUND LAKE, Ill. (WLS) -- It looked like a steal: a popular PlayStation package for $30 instead of $350. A Chicago area family found the super low price on the Target app and they want the company to honor it.

Target says this was not an ad, but a "technical glitch" in its app that customers could see when clicking on an unrelated item.

A local man says he thinks Target should give him the PlayStation for $29.99, but the I-Team found that Target has no legal obligation to do so.

You can hear video games every day, in John Barry's home in Round Lake. So when he and his son found the new PlayStation , controller and games for $29.99 on the Target app, they jumped on what they thought was a great deal.

ABC7's Jason Knowles asked: "How excited were you when you saw this price?"

"Oh my God, it's Christmas," Barry said.

Barry said he found the $29.99 price by navigating through the Target app, but that the price jumped back to $349.99 when he got to the checkout on the app. Days later, it was nearly the same situation.

"For 149.99, you click buy it now and it switches the price to 349.99

And Barry had no luck in-person either. Barry says he went to his local Target and managers would not honor the lower prices.

Barry: "The mistake is on them."

Knowles: "So they should lose the money?"

Barry: "Well, you know it is their mistake, it is not my mistake."

Target told the I-Team there has been "a technical glitch on our mobile app causing the incorrect price ...to be displayed. We apologize for the frustration that this has caused our guests..."

Barry: "It's a great, great deal."

Knowles: "But it's not real."

Barry: "Well, it should be."

But unlike bait and switch laws, the Federal Trade Commission and Illinois attorney general's office say there is no specific law that addresses pricing mistakes like this.

The Better Business Bureau also says companies have no obligation to honor price mistakes, especially when the difference is so large.

Barry sees it differently.

"It's good business. I shop there all of the time. My daughter shops there, my wife shops there, we buy their goods and it is not our fault," Barry said.

A Target spokesperson says the price is a firm $349.99. The company says the glitches in the app have been fixed.

There have been cases in recent months where airlines have honored big airfare mistakes that passengers booked online.