10228 Haunted House: Even the price is ghost ...

Well, I waited to have a little perspective on the thing before writing here and I want to be precise not to say anything ...

As some of you already know, the set 10228 Haunted Houses of the Monster Fighters range has suddenly seen its price increased by 40 € on the official LEGO site to go from 139.99 € to 179.99 €.

Recall the facts:

The Haunted House set 10228 went online in early July 2012 on the LEGO Shop UK at the attractive price of 139.99 €, with the impossibility of ordering it due to its availability date fixed on September 1, 2012.

The version of the set page still present at this time in the Google cache is dated August 17 and still displays the price of 139.99 €.

As soon as the price changed to 179.99 € (i.e. 40 € difference) by LEGO on the night of August 20 to 21, 2012, the AFOLs realized this significant upward price change and decided to request an explanation from the manufacturer via the contact form on the official website.

Un Brickpirate forum member got a response from LEGO to "explain this rate change".
The customer service person responsible for responding to the query includes this sentence in their response: "... I was amazed to read that the price had changed, so I checked with our product specialist and she confirmed to me that the price in Euros was posted at € 179.99 on our site from the start. .."

However, on August 17, 2012, the product page displayed the price of 139.99 € as I indicated to you above.

It therefore emerges that the person who answered gave false information. Blatant lie or incompetence? At this stage, difficult to judge, only one response of this type has been sent for the moment. Others who also contacted customer service by email have yet to receive a response.

What to think of this price change made long after the product was put online and just before its actual availability?

Error when uploading? It's hard to believe. This set has fueled all conversations and the price difference seen with other countries has been mentioned often on the forums. Someone at LEGO should have known this long before.

Rate change planned in advance? I find it hard to admit that LEGO uses this type of marketing technique to create demand and buzz around an upcoming product and then reindex its price discreetly overnight.

Note that the official LEGO press release, extensively relayed by the various sites dealing with the latest news from the manufacturer and sent for the launch of the product in early June 2012 mentioned the following prices:

"... US $ 179.99 CA $ 199.99 FROM 149.99 € UK 119.99 £ DK 1499 DKK ..."

It clearly contained an error because the price of the set on the German site is currently 179.99 €.

Anyway, it's bad publicity for the manufacturer with French AFOLs who are already some to have expressed their dissatisfaction by email. A gesture on the part of LEGO would be appreciated.

Error is human, correcting it is legitimate, recognizing it would be honest, compensating for it would be smart ...