Slashdot Mirror
Amazon Sells IPAQs for $10
TomHoward writes "In a pretty huge blunder, amazon.co.uk have put the HP IPAQ H1910 (RRP about £300) for sale for just over £7.32 (plus postage and packing). It's very hard to get through to their site right now, but if you're quick you can have a look at their blunder here." Don't bother clicking through, Amazon has taken the items down.
Don't both /.'ing Amazon.
I would have preferred the CLIE anyway. Did anyone actually make it to one of these bargain bloopers before it went down?
--------
Free your mind.
but the postage and packing from the UK would have put me back whatever I would have saved.....
I wonder how many Mr TomHoward ordered before he submitted the article. :)
Amazon has said before that these things happen, and they won't honor orders for honest price mistakes.
Sometimes I worry that I'll develop Alzheimer's disease, but no one will notice.
In a pretty huge blunder, slashdot.org have put the "HP IPAQ H1910 (RRP about £300) for sale for just over £7.32 (plus postage and packing)." story up for its readers to digest. It's very easy to get through to amazon's site, and the item ain't even there anymore. Don't bother discussing, Slashdot shouldve have taken the story down.
S.t.e.v.e.
This is just another form of advertisement. See how many vistors amazon.com attracts... even a slashdot story pops up :)
This kind of thing happens all the time. Anyone who frequents the fatwallet or anandtech boards knows about it-- they will NEVER honor prices like this. That's why their disclaimer includes things like "not responsible for typographic errors." But it's still sometimes fun to order 1,000,000 when the prices are accidently posted as 0.00.
-- Is "Sig" copyrighted by www.sig.com?
Here is a link to that story about that 36-inch TV for $99 on Amazon. People sued to get the TV for the advertised price, and lost.
Sometimes I worry that I'll develop Alzheimer's disease, but no one will notice.
1. Put up a product at a ridiculous price on Amazon, say about 10% normal price.
2. Get noticed.
3. (optional) Process about 10 orders at absurd price, to gain goodwill from market.
4. After a threshold number of 'absurd' orders, take down product.
5. Send link to Slashdot.
6. Enjoy.
Wonder what Amazon's charging HPaq for all the 'free' attention.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Bill
bamph
Lev13than writes "In a pretty routine blunder, slashdot.org has inexplicably posted an article about Amazon making a typo. The article is for sale for just over $0 (plus postage and packing). It's not very hard to get through to their site right now, but if you're bored you can have a look at their blunder here." Don't bother clicking through, Slashdot will post a dupe in 20 minutes.
When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire
The BBC have quickly picked up on this, you can find their story here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2864461.stm It claims that "some workers were rumoured to be placing orders for 50 or 60 of the computers at a time"
I don't expect to get one, but I (and one of my workmates) put in an order nonetheless.
:-)
Not mentioned anywhere else I've found was that the HP iPAQ H5450 was priced at about GB£23 also!
Needless to say that I ordered me one of those, too.
Remains to be seen whether Amazon will honour the price, but I doubt it.
There was also a £560 wifi model going for about £27. The £7 one was #1 on the sales list, while the £27 one got to about #20 before they shut the site down.
If you read the small print it says they won't charge your credit card until the order is ready for shipping (i.e not right away, so they haven't actually taken your money & hence accepted the contract to supply the goods).
They also reserve the right to refuse your order in the event of mispricing.
We ordered a couple & got the acceptance, but we're not expecting to actually get them. Still, you've got to be in to win...
Not the programmer... the data entry staff (or maybe the person who wrote up the article originally)!
I hate when the programmer gets blamed because the client doesn't know how to use the system, or they make an entry mistake.
"Why didn't the system tell me the price was wrong?"
Ah, but that was under US law. This is under UK law.
Though I still doubt it'll be honoured.
Amazons terms and conditions state that until they ship the goods to you NO contract exists. Therefore they do not have to do anything. Plus they won a case about this in the states plus they say clearly on the site that the won't honor this kind of mistake.
SO - why should they honor any mistake like this again?
Its clearly a very slow news day when all you can do is wait for news.
LATEST: Shop puts wrong price on item. Corrects mistake.
LATEST: Person does something. Another person reacts.
LATEST: Dog barks at passer-by, cat sleeps on sofa.
Seriously, what the hell is this?
No contract until they bill you. Amazon don't bill you until it ships. Price cannot reasonably be thought to be correct. Under UK law they have zero requirements to give this to you. Quit whining: Governing Law and Contract Formation No contract will subsist between you and Amazon.co.uk* for the sale by it to you of any product unless and until Amazon.co.uk accepts your order by e-mail confirming that it has dispatched your product. That acceptance will be deemed complete and will be deemed for all purposes to have been effectively communicated to you at the time Amazon.co.uk sends the e-mail to you (whether or not you receive that e-mail). For the avoidance of doubt, any such contract will be deemed to have been concluded in the United States of America. Further, any such contract will be interpreted, construed and enforced in all respects in accordance with the laws of England, and you and Amazon.co.uk irrevocably submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the English Courts. "
The Register.
ZdNet.
People who I know must have orders 250+ between them. There is no way they would honour this - and every person who ordered realised it was a mistake, so they have nothing to whine about.
Vacancy for signature. Apply within.
Look at the Amazon URL. It includes the text "ref=sr_aps_electronics_1_1". That means that everyone following the link will get a cookie setting up a certain Amazon Associate to get a kickback of some percentage of everything you *do* happen to buy in the next couple of weeks.
In the UK, under the Sale Of Goods Act and other legislation covering purchases (either in the high street, by mail order or online), Amazon has one of two options: either honour the advertised price or not sell the goods at all.
The legislation is designed to protect both the purchaser and the vendor. If you went into a store and saw a widescreen 32in. TV priced at £900 instead of £1,000, then the store would be bound into selling it to you at that price or not at all. They couldn't turn around and say, "sorry, the price is £100 more, pay the full £1,000 if you wan't it", but they could refuse to sell it to you.
In most cases, where the difference is still within their profit margin and practical, stores tend to honour the lower price. However, where there's been an honest mistake, such as that £1,000 TV being mispriced at £100, they almost invariably take the option of refusing to sell the item.
The courts (where civil action has been taken) have taken a "common sense" approach. Getting a £1,000 TV for only £900 is a reasonable expectation (in a sale, promotion, etc) but getting it for £100 is highly unreasonable. Basically, where the pricing might be deceiving they tend to favour the purchaser and where the pricing is obviously a genuine mistake they tend to favour the vendor.
Generally, it's a very good system. However, I do remember reading about an old lady somewhere in the US (Texas perhaps?) who went into her local car dealership with a bunch of oversized bananas and bought a brand new car with them. The dealership had advertised their new models on radio as being available for "only xx big bananas", ("big bananas" being local slang for $1,000), and having to honour the sale after a court decision found in favour of the old woman.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
What if you were going to sell your $12000 car and the ad in the newspaper printed $1200 by mistake?
Would you sell it for $1200? Doubtful. I love hypocrites who say a business should do what they wouldn't do themselves.
What if it were a company you owned stock in and you were going to lose part of your dividend? Bet you'd change your mind then too.
A company has no reason to "honor" mistakes, that's why they print those little disclaimers about erronious listings.
They've done this before, so this isn't big news. About 9 months ago, they had the new RCA/Xbox TVs, 36", MSRP of about $1200, on sale for $99! (It was funny, it said "YOU SAVE 92%" or whatever the number was)
It circulated pretty fast. I ordered 6 of them.
I did find their policy posted, tho - which stated that the could at any time increase the price of an ordered item and then notify you for your approval.. Or, if the price posted was too high and you ordered, they'd drop the price - and this wouldn't take your approval to push it through.
Needless to say, about 3 days later a bunch of us got emails stating that there was an error, and if we'd like to order them at $999, then we could re-confirm our order.. Hah
Surely this isn't quite right - it's the same in the UK - but the shopkeeper is not obliged to sell you anything at all.
I.E. Can't they just refuse to sell the item at *ANY* price...
Going by a mailing list I'm on it seems that some of the early buyers actually had their credit cards charged for this. Now under UK law these make a legally binding contract as payment has been made. Its going to be interesting to see how Amazon reacts to this one.
There was a similar case a few years back with Kodak where the mispriced a camera and finally ended up honouring the deal. Details on the inquirer.
Cheap UK and US VPS
I remember that because I also placed an order for a $99 RCA 36" TV from Amazon and received a letter back from them stating that they are under no obligation to honor "price mistakes".
Could someone explain why Amazon and other on-line retailers are not held to the same standards as their brick-n-mortar counterparts with respect to this? It still sounds like "bait-n-switch" to me...
Chris
But that's before the sale is agreed. My commitment to make payment via credit card should be looked as a contract. If Amazon did not provide a cancellation service, then I would not be able to back out of the purchase legally. Why should Amazon be able to back out?
I reckon every successful purchaser (like me) should get together and start a website. We all sue Amazon then it would be more cost effective to just give us the PDAs (or a pay off) than to fight umpteen different cases in court.
Powered by onion juice.
Ah but in the UK, a similar thing happened with Kodak digital cameras. If I recall correctly, those customers who got confirmation that their order had been taken were legally able to purchase at that price. IANAL though.
If a brick-and-mortar store mislabels an item, they don't have to honor the price. A lot of the department stores do, because they sell so many items, and they are all cheap, and the value of good will is more than the value of the item.
Also, if they mislabel the item, and sell it at price to whites, but not to blacks (or Catholics but not protestants, etc), they can get in trouble that way.
And if you *call* the store, and ask "Do you have a Black-n-Decker Stove-top drill with automatic surprise reverse torquing" and they say "yes", and you ask "What is your price", and they say "$25", and you ask "please check--all the other stores say $50", and they say "I know, it's $25, come and get it", then they can be bound by their verbal contract.
But if they mislabel an item (especially a boutique store) and you discover it, they can say "no, I'm sorry, that's $135, not $1.35." And if you don't like it, you can still buy it, or you can leave. Or you can break all their little hummel figures, and go to jail until you pay for them -- it's up to you.
That said, I think it would be *great* if the Amazon site was set up to every so often lower the price of one or two new items, drastically (especially open box items.) That way, you'd go there, just to check.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
That wasn't a legal thing. Kodak just realised the bad PR that was being generated was probably costing them more than the value of the cameras.
There's also the consideration that the price was not quite obviously wrong. Very very cheap, perhaps, but this was at a time when digital camera prices were dropping like crazy. Nobody would consider a PDA to cost £7. They'd be sceptical if it was a used gameboy at that price.
Come on, if it's an honest mistake and you are an honest person, why would you insist on robbing them?
This has to be the stupidest and most misleading Slashdot story I have seen in ages. Amazon is not selling IPAQs for $10 as the headline read. You wrote the headline, so if they are selling them at that price, then let's see a shipping receipt, michael. The headline should have been Amazon Typo Discovered.
This is just journalistic sensationalism and Amazon should sue Slashdot for publishing something that misleading and damaging. Now Amazon customer service will have to deal with every bottom-feeder that read the story on Slashdot and then demanded an IPAQ for $10. The end result: No one gets an IPAQ for $10 and Amazon just raises prices to cover the expense of handling the mess that Slashdot's inaccurate headline generated.
I had an intelligent reply but I spent too long looking for the £ key so I forgot what it was. Then I realized I could just copy and paste it.
*sigh*
Escape Pod Films: Sketch Comedy and Web Series
About two years ago Amazon (US) accidentaly put a book for sale at 10 cents. I ordered it for that price and got it delivered without problems.
Perhaps it's only recently they've changed their price policy? Ff you've got a receipt with the "faulty" price and money drawn from your account they should also deliver it. Their mistake.
Ciryon
According to BBC radio 2, Amazon have decided not to honour any orders placed.
Unfortuantly, no web link yet, and the radio was somewhat lacking on detail, but they implied that no-one was going to get one at that price.
This wouldn't be the first time that a retailer has renaged on an online deal, offereed in error. A couple of years ago (Sept 1999), Argos offered a £300 TV for £3. They refused to honour it, and I'm not aware of any legal rammifications for Argos.
So, looks like this will be just another one of those curiosity stories.
Did anyone else read the headline and think that Amazon was selling IRAQs? Or was it just me?
11.0010010000111111011010101000100010000101101000
if it's just a honest mistake they got no legal obligation to sell it at that advertised price, at least not in most places in the world(well, we were teached this at school: if car dealer accidentally puts the price at 33 instead of 33thousand he doesn't have to sell at that price.. however it's illeagal to just use things like this to con people coming to your shop with false adverts).
like, if they were advertising that in papers, web, tv and at all places for 99$, then it would be questinable if it was just an honest accident that the price was printed at 99$.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
>This is in the UK. Why would anyone care what had
>been found in some US case? If anything that's
>likely to encourage a court towards the opposite
>opinion; we've seen your legal system.
And anyway, they would have to honour the price, not honor it.
That's my understanding of UK law - if they advertise a given price they either must sell at that price, or not at all. If they refuse to sell to you at that price, they must also refuse to sell to anyone else at that price (otherwise it's discrimination) so basically, if they sell once at the wrong price they must honour all subsequent orders at that price UNTIL they correct the advertised price.
I used this today in Dixons - they had a sign up saying "All Gamecube accessories 20% off marked price" - so I tried to buy a controller (marked @ £16). The assistant said that according to the computer the 20% had already been taken off, hence to discount. I pointed out the notice & the law, she asked her manager, and I got the controller for £12.80 (while she was ringing up the sale he was busy taking down all the signs!).
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
http://www.snopes.com/business/deals/banana.htm
Might be true about buying a stereo, but probably not about buying a new car.
-- Boycott Shell
imo Bush needs to be ousted from power as well, but that will happen before too long anyway. (I mean seriously, this guy starts off by raping the environment and finishes by raping foreign countries...)
Either 1) you are lying and you are not an American or 2) you are an idiot that doesn't understand how democracy works in America.
A president can not be "ousted" period. There are no recall procedures for federal offices. A president can be impeached and then forced from office, but considering everything the president does has to be passed by the majority of our elected representatives (and often by 60 in the senate) then he is acting in concert with the people. A 'high crime' has to be committed to begin an impeachment. There has been no crime whatsoever.
The vast majority of people agree with President Bush. Period. All this FUD about most disagreeing with him is just that, FUD. He has enjoyed the highest approval ratings in history. Higher than FDR. (read your history). You may disagree, and that is fine, but you need to clearly realize that you are in the minority. You have the right to disagree. This doesn't make your FUD true.
As to raping the environment, this is so unfounded its rediculous. This is straight out of the Democratic handbook. Unsubstantiated and FUD. Anwr? Yes, we should drill there. Look at the results of drilling in other areas of Alaska. So far, the most damage it has done is to create a population explosion of carabu. Really. Once again, check your facts. I could go on and on, but it really doesn't matter. You don't care about the truth.
But then again, it doesn't matter to people like you. You are not anti-war. You are not pro-environment, you are just anti-Bush. Facts don't matter. Reality doesn't matter. You just are so filled with hate for this man that no logic, facts or reality could ever matter.
Oh, for the record. I didn't vote for Bush. That doesn't make him a bad person and doesn't make everything he does wrong. In retrospect, I wish I had voted for him. I still don't agree with him all the time, but I respect him and believe he is doing what he feels is the morally correct thing to do.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
http://www.msnbc.com/news/887491.asp?0bl=-0
missing sig