On holding companies accountable to their advertising

Hey all,

First time posting on r/frugal so hopefully this doesn't go against any rules.

I wanted to share something which happened this morning that I'm still pretty jazzed about:

My partner and I are subscribers to a service which ships organic produce to you on a weekly/every-other-week basis. When we first signed up a few weeks ago, we received an email which stated that if we were to refer someone to the service, we would receive a 50% off discount on our next box.

Sounds pretty great, right? Well, my mom, excellent cook that she is, was pretty interested in the service and I let her know that if she wanted to try it out, I could send her a referral code and we'd both get money off our next box! I don't make a ton of money at the moment, so every penny counts, far as I'm concerned.

Long story short, my mom decides to try the service and I get a referral discount code sent to my inbox. However, when I go to enter it in, the discount suddenly shows 25% instead of the advertised 50% - I shot a quick email to their customer service to inquire about the discrepancy between the advertised discount and the one I received and was told, "Oh, that was a promotion that ended a couple days ago - we're doing 25% now."

I politely responded that I appreciated their help and that moving forward, perhaps it would be best to let customers know if there is a time frame on such things, as their email stated no such thing. Basically, it was a nice way of saying, "this seems like a bait and switch"

I received an email a few moments later with an apology for the difference in discounts and was given a code for 50% off my next purchase, along with the still-valid 25% code!

My partner makes fun of me (calls me Larry David because I guess I make a curmudgeonly scene every now and again) but in my opinion, a company ought to follow through with what they promise to consumers. Anything less is dishonest, especially when it comes to word-of-mouth advertising for them.

As they say, trash or treasure, but I'm pleased with my follow-through AND the combined 75% off we're now getting on our next order.

Have a nice day, everyone!