MEXICO CITY — Luxury jewelry maker Cartier isn’t known for giving things away, but in the case of a Mexican man, they pretty much did.
Rogelio Villarreal was browsing the Cartier page in a moment of idleness when he came across an offer that seemed too good to be true. “I broke out in a cold sweat,” he wrote on his X account, formerly known as Twitter.
Apparently, Cartier made a mistake and listed gold and diamond earrings for 237 pesos ($14) instead of the correct price of 237,000 pesos ($14,000). Villarreal ordered two sets.
What followed were months of back and forth during which he says Cartier offered him a consolation prize in lieu of the jewels, and during which Mexican authorities supported his position that the company should honor the advertised price.
Villarreal finally got hold of the earrings last week, for their price, and posted a video online of himself unpacking the merchandise. But he soon tired of the public attention – discovering that not all that glitters is gold – and on Monday he posted: “Alright, talk about something else, I’m tired of the earrings being the only thing anyone knows about me. personality”.
The Villarreal case became an online lightning rod during an especially polarized period in Mexico ahead of the June 2 presidential elections.
Some observers criticized Villarreal for taking advantage of what they saw as an honest mistake by the high-end jeweler. Some claimed he should return the earrings or pay taxes on them. Some called him a thief.
Villarreal, a doctor doing his residency, said he had to fight for months for the company to actually deliver and claimed it offered to send him a bottle of champagne.
The company did not respond to requests for comment.
“I have the worst luck in the world and I have never won money, and what I won is because I bought it,” Villarreal wrote on his social media accounts. But now, he was able to buy two sets of $14,000 earrings for just $28.
He says he gave one of them to his mother.
“It feels great and cool not to be the underdog for the first time in my life,” wrote Villarreal.
Jesús Montaño, spokesman for Mexico’s consumer protection agency known as Profeco, confirmed Villarreal’s account of their fight.
“He filed a complaint in December,” Montaño said. “There is a conciliation hearing scheduled for May 3rd, but the consumer has already received his purchase.”
Asked about the ethics of all this, Montaño said that companies “have to respect the published price”. If there is an error, “it’s not the consumer’s fault.”
This story originally appeared on ABCNews.go.com read the full story
