Extreme price matching gets shopper banned from Kohl's website

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- Banned for price matching: A man in Spring says that's what happened to him when his savings got too great.

Kohl's is like a lot of retailers. If you shop on their website they will price match deals you find on other sites, but one man says he's no longer welcomed at Kohl's website because he says he priced matched too much.

"This television, I price matched it off of Amazon," shopper Israel Mata said.

When it comes to price matching, Mata cannot be stopped. His favorite website for using price matching to get a better deal is Kohls.com. It's a site he's ordered from for years without any problem until last week.

"My order kept getting canceled," Mata said.

Here's what Mata says caused the problem: Kohl's advertised a chest of drawers for $1,200 online. Mata found one being sold on another website for just $109. The day he found the deal, Kohl's was offering an extra 20 percent on a total purchase. That, plus the Kohl's cash Mata got brought he price down to just $79, so Mata ordered six. The store canceled three of the orders but that's not all.

"They told me due to the fact that I price matched so much that they decided to ban me and freeze my account," Mata said.

Paul Ivanovsky is no stranger to finding great deals.

"This week has been crazy," Ivanovsky said.

Ivanovsky is the author of "I heart the Mart." It's a blog dedicated to exposing the deals at Walmart. He says there is nothing wrong with taking advantage of a retailers generosity, but adds deal hounds should be careful not to over do it. He says it is not unusual for stores to stop an extreme deal.

"They almost all give their mange the authority to say, 'nuh-uh' on an item,'" Ivanovsky said.

As for you, remember many places price match, but most reserve the right to cancel a deal and there are rules shoppers must follow.

Here is Kohl's response on the price matching ban:

Our price matching approach, which applies to in-store products and pricing only, is posted on Kohls.com.

Kohl's prides itself on our a generous "Yes We Can" approach to customer service in-store and online. As a retailer, not a wholesaler, Kohl's reserves the right to limit the quantity of items purchased online per person."