Amazon Cancels Cheap iPaq Orders

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.com.com/2100-1019-993246.html?tag=fd_top' target='_blank'>http://news.com.com/2100-1019-99324...html?tag=fd_top</a><br /><br /></div>"Amazon.com says it won't fill the orders of customers who took advantage of a pricing mistake on its U.K. site to buy iPaq handheld computers for less than $12 on Wednesday. The company said that its terms of use strictly state that no contract for sale has been formed until customers receive an e-mail stating that their order has shipped, meaning it has no obligation to hand out Hewlett-Packard iPaqs at rock-bottom prices. "We will be canceling orders made for the HP iPaq Pocket PCs at the incorrect price this morning," the company said in a statement."

[Janak Parekh]

Source: 874 different people
Oh! Wait! I think we just got an 875th submission. :lol:

Seriously, people make mistakes. This is nothing new. There was a big hullabaloo when a company put up the then-brand-spanking-new GeForce4 Ti4600 for something like $99, when it was retailing for $499 or so. A friend of mine tried to order one, but it never actually went through.

--janak

[etalianstallion]

Seriously, I think people should know well enough that this is a price mistake. And it's fine if you placed the order, but don't be surprised if it does not ship.

Amazon makes it very clear that they have no obligation to sell/ship the product to the customer since the customer has not been charged yet. They have the policy that "we don't charge you until your order has shipped".

I placed an order for a free Handspring Treo (it was supposed to be free AFTER rebates when you sign up for service). They made a mistake and sold the item for $0. Well, not too long after, I receive an email saying that this was a price mistake and that it would not ship. Duh. I mean, if I get it for $0, great. If not, well, I wasn't expecting them to sell it for that price anyway.

[naquada]

seems amazon.co.uk dont stock ANY ipaq 54xx's right now.. in fact the only ipaqs listed are second hand ones... go to electronics and do a search for ipaq...

[DanNotDan]

I got PoQuick (now MasterSoft) Money from Handango for $3 this way a couple months ago. At the time I wasn't sure if it was a promotion or a mistake. I don't think I would have had any right to be bitter if they had cancelled the sale or even forced a return within a reasonable time.
I mean, how would you like it if you handed over too much money for something, and when you caught your error the company said they had accepted the money in good faith and had no intention of returning it? Isn't that essentially what is happening (in the other direction, of course) when your deal is a steal and you refuse to allow a correction?

[Janak Parekh]

I got PoQuick (now MasterSoft) Money from Handango for $3 this way a couple months ago.
Note that, though, this is software, which is a substantially different beast than hardware. I do believe that was a promotion, but I might be wrong.

I mean, how would you like it if you handed over too much money for something, and when you caught your error the company said they had accepted the money in good faith and had no intention of returning it?
There are various channels to file complaints with. However, this only works if you are truly being gouged. Note that MSRPs are just that - "suggested". You'll see a wide variety of prices in the market, including those that are above if the item is hard to get.

--janak

[Brad Adrian]

Legally, Amazon would not even be required to have that clause in their policies. It has been established that an advertised price is simply an "offer" to trade and does not constitute any kind of contractual agreement. Otherwise, all the numbskulls out there who put up signs with ".99¢" when they meant "99¢" would go out of business.

[lurch]

Does anybody remember a while back the airline that had a price error online and several people got round-trip tickets to Paris for about $100? The airline originally refused to honour it (which makes sense) but then decided to go ahead and eat it and honour the tickets.. :werenotworthy:
Now that's my type of company! :)

I don't expect that however... and wouldn't be upset if they cancelled my iPaq order...

[GoldKey]

Does anybody remember a while back the airline that had a price error online and several people got round-trip tickets to Paris for about $100? The airline originally refused to honour it (which makes sense) but then decided to go ahead and eat it and honour the tickets.. :werenotworthy:
Now that's my type of company! :)

I don't expect that however... and wouldn't be upset if they cancelled my iPaq order...

Quesiton for discussion, Is it morally/ethically right to place an order for something that you have good reason to know is a pricing error?

[Janak Parekh]

Quesiton for discussion, Is it morally/ethically right to place an order for something that you have good reason to know is a pricing error?
Hmm, that's indeed an interesting question. I'll guardedly say "yes", because retail prices are suggested, not mandatory.

--janak

[lurch]

Quesiton for discussion, Is it morally/ethically right to place an order for something that you have good reason to know is a pricing error?

Gosh, is there going to be something like this every time I post now? :roll:


:D

[CodeSurge]

Amazon.com honored a DVD pricing mistake, that wasn't quite as drastic ($47.99 instead of $54.99).

Depends on whether they stand to lose big sums of money, I suppose.

[GoldKey]

Quesiton for discussion, Is it morally/ethically right to place an order for something that you have good reason to know is a pricing error?
Hmm, that's indeed an interesting question. I'll guardedly say "yes", because retail prices are suggested, not mandatory.

--janak

I'm talking the obvious price errors. Like in this case "Consumers had jumped on the opportunity to buy a state-of-the-art iPaq handheld computer from Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ - news) for as little as 23 pounds ($35.86). It normally sells above 500 pounds ($785)."

Most individuals would see that it must be a mistake. By placing an order anyway, are you trying to take advantage of the situation and just hoping they either ship it before they realize the error or hope that they just honor it as a customer service gesture.

[Seraph1024]

I few years ago when I was shopping for a camaro, I found a local dealer listing one for 99.99. It had just want I wanted. 6 speed, black, in great shape. I walked into the manager's office with the 99.99 web printout. I got the car out the door for 5600 (Manager decided to give me a break) since it was their mistake and I know I will not get it for 99.99. I was happy. I also pointed out other price mistakes on their web site. Needless to say their web person got a long break from work... but when I went into the show room, I never expected the car to be sold for 99.99.

People do make mistakes. But there is no such thing as free lunch.

In August 2000, I was looking for another car and the dealer had a '99 Nissan Altima for 500USD. No kidding. I walked in. I saw the car. The car was in great shape. However, the car had 200k miles on her. It was used by a traveling salesman. So again, the moral of the story, if it is too good to be true, there is something wrong with it (except my ebay auctions -- shameless promotion :) ).

L

[DrtyBlvd]

People in the UK will no doubt recall the tremendous error of judgement that the Brand Hoover made with regard to free flights with purchases a few years back - nearly ended the company if I recall correctly - they offered a free flight anywhere for a minimum purchase that was rather low considering the air fares at the time.

Amazon is a great Etailer - but they do get it wrong on more than a few occasions - another moral dilemma - if you bought a book for $30 and it arrived with a software package worth $700, that you didn't order and weren't charged for, what would you do? Sell it on Ebay for $500 and have a great Xmas on Amazon? Hmmmm... :beer:

[Rob Alexander]

Is it morally/ethically right to place an order for something that you have good reason to know is a pricing error?

They make an offer and you accept it. What's wrong with that? If the offer turns out to be a mistake, then they can do like these guys did and notify you of the error then cancel the order. But there actually are great deals out there sometimes where the retailer gets money back from the manufacturer or something, and you cannot be expect to always know the difference between a great deal and a mistake. I see nothing wrong with putting in the order and seeing what happens. If it's real, they'll send you the product. If not, they'll tell you that and cancel the order. If they actually do accept your payment and send you the device, then they've made a contract and will just have to live with it.

And this goes both ways. Lots of consumers get screwed by car dealers because they don't know what they should and shouldn't pay for when buying a car. If you go back later and said you made a mistake to pay for, say, dealer prep because the manufacturer already paid them for that, do you think they'll give you your money back?

if you bought a book for $30 and it arrived with a software package worth $700, that you didn't order and weren't charged for, what would you do? Sell it on Ebay for $500 and have a great Xmas on Amazon? Hmmmm... :beer:

This is an entirely different matter. Here, you are not made an offer that you accepted, but are sent something that you did not order or pay for. I would consider it a moral obligation to return the product (at their cost).

[CodeSurge]

Since the first few pricing mistakes were made and companies were forced to honor them, they've covered their tracks with a ton of fine print. ;)

[andrei]

A couple of years ago I rented a car on the Holiday Autos site (the Irish site). There was an error which made $110.00 from a $1100.00 for a 10 days rental. I wasn't going to get a big luxury car anyway, but at that price I had to try. Guess what? 3 days later I got the rental voucher with a $1100.00 price, minus $990.00 discount, a total of $110.00. They never mentioned the error. Needless to say that the error was fixed in 3 hours (and probably the web developer fired). Since then I only use Holiday Autos to rent cars. That's what I call great service. They aknowledged their error and accepted the loses.

[jeffmd]

andrei, lurch, those things are rather easy to "eat cost" with however, since the actual cost is very low. the cost of flying the plane would not have changed much if there was 10 passangers or 50. How ever had they canceled all the tickets that were baught at the price error, it is highly unlikely thet would have re-baught the tickets at original price. so its either you fly for $4000 + what ever the 10 who baught at normal price paid for it, or you fly for just what ever the 10 people paid for it.

ditto for the car, the car is paid for, and the car isn't being sold. Rather its being lent at an outragiouse price when you consider the percentage of its life span your using it versus the percentage of the cost your paying. I mean come on, loaning a car out for 3 days is NOTHING in actual cost.

how ever when it comes to selling equipment, a much smaller margin of the total cost is actually profit for the reseller. A price error would leave them with a huge loss.

[Ekkie Tepsupornchai]

...another moral dilemma - if you bought a book for $30 and it arrived with a software package worth $700, that you didn't order and weren't charged for, what would you do? Sell it on Ebay for $500 and have a great Xmas on Amazon? Hmmmm...

Hmmm... how about when someone orders a 512MB SD Card and gets two by mistake with no indication on the packing slip or billing that such a thing was intended? :|

Like Rob Alexander, I have no issues making an order on a product. In some cases, the price is honored and if I took this moral stance in a case where they chose to honor the price, my stance would be pretty meaningless IMO.

[JvanEkris]

I can only speak for dutch Law, but i recall it is european law as well. In europe, customer protection is heavy (thank god).

If a product gets offered in advertisements it is a legally binding offer. It is like a personalized prospect: if the offer is accepted by the client right away, the supplier has to go through with it. It gets even worse: other mistakes, like for example the on-board memory being advertised bigger are also legally binding offers. If the customer says "yes, give me that product for that price", you have a problem. We had some cases where Ipaqs were advertised having 512Mb on-board Ram. Smart customers bought the product right from the prospectus, claimed that it was not as advertised and demanded a SD card (and got them too !).

An exception is there when mistakes are too obvious (so it pays playing dumb:)). If a new Ipaq 54xx gets advertised for $10,-, a customer is considered to have some sense of pricing, and understand that it is a typo. Also PDA's with 1 Terrabyte on board memory are considered stupid mistakes.

IMHO, I think that right pricing and some consideration is in place (obvious mistakes excepted). If a retailer offers me an Ipaq 54xx for $300, i will keep him to his promise. He made the offer, he is going to stand by it. If he or his employees made foolisch mistakes, that is his business risk. If he can't take it and goes bankrupt, that is his problem. Why? because he should have watched such vital aspects of his business this more carefully...

Think of the other side: what happends if any retailer can put a poster on the window with a price and a sticker on the product, but at the counter you find that the price is 20% higher ???? That is the other side of the story.

Jaap

[lurch]

andrei, lurch, those things are rather easy to "eat cost" with however, since the actual cost is very low. the cost of flying the plane would not have changed much if there was 10 passangers or 50.
...
how ever when it comes to selling equipment, a much smaller margin of the total cost is actually profit for the reseller. A price error would leave them with a huge loss.

You're absolutely right!

Also, my favorite companies (and the ones I'm more loyal to) are the kind that have customer service policies that are extremely generous.. you know, like Lowes or Galyans (a sports store). I can take anything back, no questions asked! I know that's not the same thing, but I would bet that one of those stores would probably still sell an item for the listed price, even if wrong (until they fixed it of course, which would be fast!)

[hollis_f]

I can only speak for dutch Law, but i recall it is european law as well. In europe, customer protection is heavy (thank god).

If a product gets offered in advertisements it is a legally binding offer. Well, in UK law an advertised price is 'an invitation to treat'. The vendor is not obliged to actually sell what's on offer if they don't want to. It's only when there is a firm contract between you and the vendor - with the price agreed between the two parties - that consumer law cuts in.

The only way that Amazon could be done is for dishonest advertising. And that ain't gonna happen.

[Marauder]

An exception is there when mistakes are too obvious (so it pays playing dumb:)). If a new Ipaq 54xx gets advertised for $10,-, a customer is considered to have some sense of pricing, and understand that it is a typo.

IMHO, I think that right pricing and some consideration is in place (obvious mistakes excepted). If a retailer offers me an Ipaq 54xx for $300, i will keep him to his promise.

I think that this is an interesting point. In the case of the latter, the "bait and switch" technique comes to mind--advertising low prices just to get consumers to come into a store (when the actual sale price is higher than advertised). This is obviously illegal, but it may seem questionable as to what is a pricing error and what is "bait and switch." In this case, I wouldn't expect the retailer to sell a 54xx for $300. But what about $400? $450?

I'm not very knowledgeable about the actual laws, but it seems to me like online retailers are more flexible when it comes to revoking advertized prices. Does anyone know how the law applies to retail stores advertizing in newspapers, etc? Just curious.