Man paid $14 for $14,000 Cartier earrings thanks to website glitch

We all love a bargain – here’s looking at you, supermarket reduced section – but most of us are pleased to just knock off a few dollars or pounds.

And yet, one man in Mexico managed to nab himself a deal worth a staggering $27,972 (around £24,000) thanks to a glitch on a luxury website.

Rogelio Villarreal explained on Twitter/X that he found a pair of diamond-studded Cartier earrings that were meant to cost $14,000 but had mistakenly been listed for $14 (just over £11) instead.

“I seized the opportunity and even ordered two pairs,” he boasted (in Spanish), clarifying that the mistake had occurred on the French jeweller’s official website.

The brand had slipped up when making the pesos to dollars conversion, listing the price of the 18-carat rose-gold cuffs as 237 Mexican pesos — rather than 237,000.

The saga began in December 2023, when Villarreal spotted an Instagram advert for the jeweller and began scrolling through its collection of high-end accessories.

“I was amazed to see how much the necklaces cost and so on and I said: ‘Someday,’ until I saw the earrings,” he wrote on Twitter/X on 20 April.

“I swear I broke out in a cold sweat.”

In a separate tweet, he made a fair point: “I doubt you would have missed this opportunity."

Villareal said he 'broke out in a cold sweat' upon seeing the earrings' impossibly low price(@lorddandy/X)

However, inevitably, Cartier attempted to cancel his order. And what ensued was a monthslong battle between the jeweller and Villarreal, with thousands of social media users and even a Mexican senator weighing in on the debacle.

They told him that “the earrings I had ordered were not at the correct price, which is why they wanted to cancel the purchase, and that because of the inconvenience they would give me a gift,” he said.

Representatives for the brand even offered him a bottle of champagne and a leather gift as “compensation”. But Villarreal refused to accept their bribes and fought back.

Using a contact form on the company’s website, he cited a Mexican federal consumer protection law that states that a goods supplier can be taken to court “by not respecting the terms and conditions under which” a product or service is purchased.

Jorge López Zozaya, a corporate lawyer in Mexico City, told the New York Times that a company can face fines and other penalties if it is at fault.

Yet, it will not be forced to change its prices and if the price difference is clearly a mistake, there is no protection provided.

Either party can request a judge to resolve the issue if an agreement is not reached.

“If this case had gone to a court of law, it probably would have resolved favorably for Cartier,” Zozaya acknowledged.

Fortunately for Villarreal, a truce was reached, and Cartier confirmed that his order would be fulfilled.

Villarreal announced that after months of wrangling, he came out on top(@lorddandy/X)

At last, on Friday (26 April), he announced: “The war is over,” before sharing photos of the branded boxes that had arrived at his house.

He then posted snaps of him sporting his extravagant new accessories, even joking that they "look better as rings".

Still, for anyone hoping to emulate his success, we have some bad news.

The earrings are now listed at the correct price on the Cartier website, and we can’t imagine they’ll make such a costly slip-up again.

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