Slashdot Mirror
Amazon Adjusts Prices After Sales Error
An anonymous reader writes "On December 23, Amazon advertised a 'buy one get one free' sale on DVD box-sets, but apparently did not test the promotion before going live. When anyone placed two box-sets in their cart, the website gave a double discount — so the 'grand total' shown (before order submission) was $0.00 or some very small amount. Despite terms stating that Amazon checks order prices before shipping, Amazon shipped a large number of these orders. Five days later (December 28), after orders had been received and presumably opened, Amazon emailed customers advising them to return the box-sets unopened or their credit cards would be charged an additional amount (more threads). Starting yesterday, Amazon has been (re)charging credit cards, often without authorization. On Amazon's side, they didn't advertise any double discount, and the free or nearly-free box-sets must have cost them a mint. But with Amazon continually giving unadvertised discounts that seem to be errors, is 'return the merchandise or be charged' the new way that price glitches will be handled?"
(Morality aside,) Wise customers either cancelled their credit cards or placed blocks on Amazon being able to charge them.
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
Or does anyone take false advertising seriously these days?
...and they sold it for the price they specified. The problem is their fault and why should a customer care or be responsible for the problem on Amazon's end?
If a guy sells his car while drunk for a small amount of money, or gambles it away while drunk, it's his fault entirely not the buyers.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Amazon is going to get sued and they will lose.
It is for this reason that fraud protection exists. Visa and other major credit card providers will generally charge back the vendor in cases like this, as it is essentially fraud.
What proof do we have that this was an honest mistake? They could have done this intentionally. Not that I think they really did, but is it even legal for them to pull this bait and switch? They can't charge your card without your authorization, right? RIGHT?!
Ok, let me get this straight. Your online service, which you claim to test rigorously, fails to charge me. We (myself and your system) agree on a price for these goods ($0.00), you charge me for it, send me my merchandise, and now you're trying to make me give it back or pay more for it? IANAL but the legality of this seems rather dubious.
There is no mod option "-1: Disagree" for a reason. "Overrated" is not an acceptable substitute. Post something instead.
Is there any law that protects you against this? If they already charge you, even a small amount. How can the (re)charge you without you giving any authorization?
It's never too late to stop doing something wrong, or to start doing something right.
It's their fault so customers shouldn't be made to pay. However, Amazon would be remiss if they didn't try to people's sense of fair play.
Back when the NVIDIA GeForce4Ti4600 was released, BestBuy's online store had pre-orders for them up at an erroneous price (very low for what the card cost). BestBuy caught it after a few thousand orders had been placed and invalidated the orders as made, but at least compromised. Those of us who placed orders got $50 off the actual price the card should have been sold for. I think we were all happy enough with that since I don't recall any legal action being taken for it.
Here at the ME society, we don't give a fuck about anyone else- just ME. In fact, I only bought 50 of these sets and Ebay'd them to make a profit- and now my Profit is cut in half- so I'm doubly angry at this. Where does Amazon get off trying to ship Supposed Xmas presents before the End of the Year to make people happy- it's all about ME!
If this was your parent's store, you'd be pissed, they'd be broke, and they'd have to eat it. There's no magic 'Amazon' out there- there's a group of people that have invested in that store and have had their investments 'plundered' for people that took advantage of a bug/mistake. Anyone purchasing the items knew they were getting a YMMV deal and it was questionable whether or not it would be honored.
So what the Poster is whining about is: "I walked into a bank and saw a bag of money on the ground. I took the money, but was arrested for Felony Theft. Why can they do this".
Suck it up and start realizing that theft is theft no matter how you coach it in terms of a 'sale'.
what ever happened to the customer is always right? I think we know who the real culprit is, their programmers who set it up and didn't properly test it. Blame that person! Speaking as a programmer, I HATE bad programmers, with a passion.
I don't know about US law, but in the UK once the goods have been paid for and received, the contract of sale has been established and they couldn't do anything about it. They agreed to sell the goods for a particular price, and provided the goods. I don't see how they could demand additional payment.
Think about it this way: You go to Asda (or Wal-Mart or whatever) and buy something. If the supermarket decided that there was an error in the price, or found that their till has miscalculated some promotion in some way, could they come to your house and demand more money or the goods back? No, they couldn't.
As an interesting side point, the supermarket near me will effectively pay you to take home food from the reductions counter when their tills apply a promotional discount greater than the price the food has been reduced to! I don't think they'd have a leg to stand on if they demanded it back after the sale had completed.
Like tinyurl, but one letter less! http://qurl.co.uk/
I would say, ok fine, then come take the package yourself I aint paying anything for YOUR error, and wait them to try to screw me...
And I would have my bank refuse any charges from Amazon, first.
This is not exactly unique for Amazon. It is quite common that companies send goods to people (mostly registered customers) that they have not ordered, and supply an invoice. People either have to just pay, or to call the company, complain and return the goods.
It is easy to suspect that Amazon did this on purpose.
In Sweden politicians are talking about writing a law that will basically give the cunsumers the right to keep whatever is sent to them, even if they never ordered it.
I sometimes order things from my Cable-TV/Internet-provider on their webpage. The conditions are often very unclear - to the point I suspect they are vague on purpose.
There's local, and if travel is a challange (such as in my case), I've found buy.com to be a nice competator to amazon that has treated me well.
34486853790
Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
Eat the cost, (seriously, how many folks really did order more and get the lower price) and chalk it up as the price you pay for not hiring programmers that can do simple math and going with the cheap ones instead.
Just modify the test "Vishnu has four arms. Ganesha rips off two of them. How many fingers does Vishnu have left?"
This is one of the reasons I like the e-card service my bank provides. It allows you to create a virtual one-time credit card with a specified amount of money for on-line shopping. This makes sure you don't get charged for more than you specify (among other things).
Pity the poor people who end up having to pay or return "Everybody Loves Raymond".
Actually no, don't.
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
we used to call this the price of stupidity.
Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
All the consumer has to do is refuse the charge. Once charged, billed and shipped, the transaction is done.
Amazon committing a charge after the transaction has completed should be considered fraud and treated as such.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
We have here a special set of laws called "Consumer's Defense Code". One of the laws says that if the product is even *advertized* by some price, the vendor is obligated to sell at that price. There is some few exceptions to cover cases that can me considered a legitimate mistake (like a printing error in a flier, for instance) but the mistake have to be largely advertized before the sale. Once the sale is done, is final.
Scientia est Potentia
Amazon still has a formidable selection of out-of-print books which the publisher has dropped but which are still vital in the sciences. Were it not for Amazon, how else could students buy their own copy of, say, Joseph's Synchrony and Diachrony of the Balkan Infinitive (Cambridge University Press, 1983)?
And beyond the mere buying of books (not to mention rare CDs), the site has other useful features that your neighbourhood bookstore doesn't. Reviews, wishlists you can send to relatives around Christmas time, and (once you've reviewed a couple of hundred titles) recommendations that are actually fairly interesting.
And finally, I divide my time between Finland and Romania. There's no substantial English-language offerings there. Amazon is a great resource for expats.
They don't realize that the common purchaser can issue a chargeback on the second transaction by Amazon, and despite all of the action taken by Amazon, they will still lose it in arbitration. It was their responsibility to charge correctly the first time, and they failed to do such. Unless they had a policy that was adequately (note that adequately means that the common customer must be able to readily find the link, little 2-point font links at the bottom of a long-scrolling page do not count) displayed at the time of purchase that gave them specific right to do this (which they don't) and the customer accepted, they'll be stuck paying for arbitration for every single charge, in addition to giving the money back to the common purchaser.
Amazon advertised "buy one get one free", which is what those customers got. The fact that they also got another one free doesn't violate the terms laid out. Amazon's just hoping that enough people eat the charge without complaining that they don't lose a ton of money.
IANL, but here's a guess based on my one business law course:
If Amazon didn't charge your card originally (or charged for $0.00), then maybe they can claim that there was no sale because there was no consideration. Maybe, I don't know.
But if they did charge you, even $0.01, then there was consideration and they cannot not now unilaterally change the terms of their offer after the fact (i.e., after your credit card paid them).
My non-lawyerly comment: It's time that these online merchants were dealt with seriously by consumers. Maybe then they will allocate sufficient human resources to properly manage their business and not depend on their "long arm" to fix problems for themselves after they make these mistakes.
A few companies have tried this with me, Best Buy once refused to honor a coupon they emailed me, turned it over to the Michigan Department of Commerce, and it was solved with them being forced to honor the coupons for who ever had them.
The second time was with Tigerdirect, they sent me something that was on sale, but later turned around and charged my CC for the full price. I didnt even contact TD (because they are border line legit) i just refuted the payment with my CC company, and the CC company had to deal with them not me, and my CC company has a lot more clout than i do.
That is all i would do, refute the payment on your CC>
I watch over my online purchases very carefully. If I bought something and was charged the wrong amount, I would expect to be contacted regarding a correction. If the product or service was used, or is in an unreturnable state, then that option is disregarded. If the product or service was bought under some special, then I'll authorize up to the correct amount to be charged. Any more than that amount and the charge will be disputed. I will have contacted the credit card service before this and made sure they were aware of a potential frauduent charge problem and that an attempt at correction was taking place.
So, do they only get $5 out of me if I bought one of these with a Visa Gift Card that had only $5 left on it?
In this case, people actually ordered the goods but Amazon made an obvious pricing error. AFAIK (IANAL) they can revoke the sales contract under German law, but NOT simply charge extra money. I don't know who would have to pay for shipping the goods back. In the end, it might still be wiser to let people keep the free shipment.
Now to the other case you mentioned, a shipment that was never ordered. The recipient has to store this one for a "reasonable time" (a few weeks?) but the sender is responsible for picking it up. If no pickup occurs, the recipient can just keep it.
C - the footgun of programming languages
In that case, no product had been shipped and no one got charged a price they did not agree to. It was bad because it was false advertising, but not as bad as 'you agree to pay x for product', then receiving product and being told 'we agreed and completed the transaction, but we renege on our deal and you will send you the product or, without your consent or any authorization, we will bill you retroactively for what we think the transaction *should* have been'. In the case of Best Buy, it was basically 'you will not receive the product unless you pay, and we will cancel the order if you do not, sorry for the mistake'. They did not charge anyone anything without *explicit* permission, while Amazon in this case is trying to charge based on 'if you agree to pay us, just don't say anything', which is clearly wrong.
This is not unreasonable to get angry over this, a company must be held accountable for their actions. They should never have cocked up, but as they automate this stuff more and more a bug can be costly, and a company has to plan on avoidance and recovery. In this case, the latest mechanism that should not have allowed this to pass was a order price check just before shipping. After that check failed, the company beyond any reasonable doubt should be held accountable for the cockup. If they catch it before the item is shipped and avoid the whole charge-without-express permission scenario, I can understand their position.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Considering that the book in your example is not stocked by Amazon but sold via a 3rd party, I'd guess they would buy the book on eBay.
Amazon seems to have a lot of problems with their pricing. Too many, in fact. Are we sure that they didn't do this intentionally to increase sales? It wouldn't be the first time a company pulled a stunt like this.
Banjo - The more I know about Windoze, the more I love *nix
A sales slip is a legal contract, and one party to a legal contract may not change the terms of the contract without the approval of the other party. Amazon may have made a mistake but as long as the sales slip is relatively accurate, then they cannot charge the client again.
Disclaimer: IANAL, just someone who knows a bit about contract law (as it applies in Ontario, CANADA)
pi=sigma{n:0-infinity}[(1/16)^n][(4/(8n+1))-(2/(8n +4))-(1/ (8n+5))-(1/(8n+6))]
If the buyer knew or suspected that Amazon's system was messed up and took advantage of it, that's probably fraud. If the buyer was innocent and actually believed that the prices were correct, you have to ask how reasonable that belief was, and whether Amazon typically has hidden discounts would play a lot into that analysis. If the buyer didn't notice, intended to buy it at the correct price and was just mischarged, then they probably have a sale contract at the correct price and they have to pay up.
The interesting thing is what happens to the guy who noticed the error and used it to get, say, 100 box sets.
This is one reason to use those credit cards where you can get a one-time-use number. If you want to fight Amazon, it's easier to do it when they don't have a charge on your card than when they do. It's also a reason not to use debit cards online -- it's harder still when they've already pulled the money out of your bank account.
"And good companies know how to fire bad customers who take advantage of the company.
of how I hate the term 'Fire the customer' .
I don't work for them, they are niot entitled to any of my time, not are they entitled to make a profit off of me.
I understand the concept, and I agree with it, but it is called 'The right to refuse service'. Sometimes called '86ing' someone.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Short answer is "NO", this is not the way it should be. Advertised prices have to be honored. An ad in the newspaper is honored until someone at the store notices it and they put a retraction in the front of the store and on the item in the store. So until Amazon put up the correction, they should honor all things they sold. Lose money, who cares... it will make your developers (if said developers still have jobs) be more careful the next time.
I'm a big fan of Amazon, I order a load of stuff from them--but this is not the correct way to do business.
Starmen.net
If Amazon did this to me, I'd let the charge appear, and then call fraud with my credit card processor. I'd submit copies of my receipts. I'd probably also forward to the appropriate Attorneys General of the states involved.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
> What's certainly true, however, is that Amazon have no authorization to take those payments from those
> credit cards. Extracting an unauthorized payment is credit card fraud.
This is an important point. Even if you owe them the money they cannot simply take it. Instead they would have to send you an invoice that you could pay anyway that you like.
At least in german law at least there is the possibility that the contract is void because Amazon did not intend to enter the contract under the stated terms. In this case you must return the goods, but Amazon is liable for any damages that they caused you due to their mistake. I would expect these to be much larger than the price of a DVD. (Shipping cost, legal costs, etc.)
Up here (socialist country with a healthy distrust of private entreprise -- thoughout History we have been thoroughly screwed by private entrepreneurs), we have potent consumer protection laws.
Example:
I go to the grocery, and I see that boxes of two frozen pizzas are at $8 instead of $14. So I pick two of them.
I get to the cash, and the girl scans it.
$14 rings the register.
-- Er, they're on special at $8.
The law says that whenever there is a scanning error, the item is free (or $10 discount if the final price is >$10). So I got a box of two pizzas for free and the other for $8.
The law also states that posters stating this fact MUST BE displayed next to EACH cash registers, so the consumers know their rights and the stores can't weasel out of it.
This was late at night, and the dude who has the authorization to fix it was home (it was fun to see the personnel there running scared like headless chickens). So they had to endure giving free boxes of two pizzas until the guy came to work to fix it, or they change their operating procedure.
That teaches them much faster than any other half-baked chamber-of-commerce thought "self-policing" measure...
One essential aspect of a binding contract is a so-called "consideration", a mutual exchange of something of value. I don't quite see how a credit card charge of $0.00 could be considered something of value.
t _law.html
http://www.expertlaw.com/library/business/contrac
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invitation_to_treat
Most CC companies now provide a utility to generate virtual account numbers.
They can only be used once.
Not stealing stuff is part of living in a civilization.
... anything.
Even when someone makes it really easy. Even when someone makes a mistake and mis-prints an ad. Even when someone makes an error on your bill. Even when
Amazon pretty clearly wasn't offering gifts to people. And if it wasn't clear, Amazon is contacting people to make it clear.
Congrats to Amazon for not rolling over and letting people keep their ill-gotten items.
Most analogies are wrong (at least here in slashdot), and yours is no exception. This is very different from a waiter forgetting to charge for something. A more accurate analogy would be you going to a restaurant, and the menu contains wrong prices. You order, eat, and in the end the waiter says "oops, some promotions were calculated wrongly" and charging extra money on your credit card without giving you any other option. Yes, you read me right, without giving you any other option. I say that because "they're giving you the option of returning the articles" is not a valid objection. Imagine that I was going on vacation and didn't even have the ability of returning the articles since I don't have them with me? What is my choice in that case?
And "the customers should have noticed the 0.00 price" is not a valid objection either, since it's possible that some customers mixed other articles in their order, which made the total order price nonzero. Who's then to blame a customer who didn't notice that?
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Same here. I know the difference between right and wrong. Walked out of a Barnes and Noble with half the bags contents not properly scanned through. Neither the employee or I noticed it at the time. By the time I was to the car I realized it and turned back around to inform the employee so I could pay for what I had thought I had purchased. The employee was very surprised when I handed her the bag and said the receipt didn't match the contents and paused a second before saying that it was an error in my favor and not the other way around. My cost doubled what it was but it was what I had thought I was paying for in the first place. I could have stayed at the car with my half a bag of books that I didn't pay for and thought how smart I was for 'getting over' on the big store and thinking how stupid the employee was. I could have thought it was a lottery win for me and that I was free and clear and their loss was my gain and all of that. Except I know the difference between right and wrong. The Amazon programming error or the employee scanning error - in either instance there was an error made and you and I are smart enough to know it. The people who thought they were getting over with their two free dvd sets also knew a mistake was being made. They knew it was wrong and morally it was the same thing as if they put those sets in their pockets and walked out of a store. Just cause you think that nobody sees you steal the dvd set does in no way make it ok. Anyone who thinks differently has a twisted view of morality and of what is right and what is wrong. Period.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
My father always told me, if someone knocks on your door and asks where you want the piano that you didn't order, you tell them you want it in the corner of the living room. If they want to give you a piano, that's their choice.
The deal was buy one get one free, and that's exactly what happened. The problem for Amazon is that they let people stack the offer up to buy 2 and get each of them free with the other.
Unless Amazon said you couldn't stack the deal up, it's their fault, the customers got exactly the deal they offered, twice.
To all those saying there is no contracy, surely that one falls down if you ordered anything else at the same time, I think you'd have a very strong case that there was a binding contract covering all the items at the final (non 0) total price.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
Be the change you wish to see in the world.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
Normally, I'd be on the customer's side in a scenario like this.
That said, considering how often these "deals" get exploited by thousands of people via FatWallet, SlickDeals and the like, I can't help but think that Amazon got reamed by this. And considering the kind of greedy bastards that frequent those sites - the ones who'd order fifty copies of each show, brag about it online, and then post them all on eBay a week later - I can't say I feel for them if that's the case.
Really, it's hard to say that Amazon did anything wrong here from my POV. It wasn't a pricing mistake - it was a software glitch. Same end result, maybe, but no living person at Amazon agreed on that transaction, and they sure as hell wouldn't have if they'd had the chance to.
Goo goo g'joob.
IANAL, but from Law studies I seem to remember the following:
I'm sure US law is similar, but any advertised price is what is called an "Invitation to Treat" and is not binding. Only when something is offered and accepted for something else is there a contract.
Since Amazon actually received nothing, I'm not sure it got "consideration" for the goods. The story may be different if Amazon recieved even 1c, because then it got consideration. Of course, Amazon may have also got P&P, which may be a form of consideration.
Of course, I can see an entertaining Class Action arguing the other way, and they may even be correct....
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
I agree with your point in general, however Amazon had the opportunity to review the sale before shipping it. The fact that it failed to rectify the situation before shipping the goods to the consumer basically shifts the liability over to them. They have no right to go looking for money after they deliver the goods and the payment is settled.
The funny part (funny-depressing, not funny-haha) is that Amazon will be sued by a class-action lawyer to recover all the amounts illegally charged to customers after the fact. The lawyers will be a multi-million dollar check and the consumers will get coupons.
How else would one find this third-party seller if not on Amazon?
It comes down to offer and acceptance of contract.
Many people confuse this point - they think that the website selling the item is the offer and you accept by paying. It isn't - You making the payment is deemed to be the offer and then the company reviewing the purchase, charging the card and shipping the product is the acceptance.
This is why all the usual too good to be true offers are never honoured - as they don't have to be.
This case is different. Amazon shipped the goods out after reviewing the purchase thereby accepting the offer. Charging the card again is all out fraud and were they a small company would possibly risk losing merchant status for doing so - being such a big company they'll probably just get a fine and a slap on the wrists.
If I were someone that had purchased this I would issue a chargeback on the second payment immediatly - it wasn't authorised therefore its fraud - that simple - it then is up to amazon to prove otherwise.
About the only thing amazon could have done is tried to get the goods back by persuing it through the courts - but I don't think they would have had much of a chance atleast in the uk. Not to mention costs and loss of reputation.
Basically they screwed up - and they should just swallow the loss.
Its not that much different to them having the wrong price for $40 for an item, you buying it (thinking it still wasn't much more than the highstreet and saved you a trip to go buy it) and the next day they fix the price and set it at $20 - do you think you would have much chance of getting the $20 refunded from them? They why should they think they can bully their customers and do it the other way around!!
IANAL (but I speak as someone that has dragged more than a few companies through small claims procedings on the grounds that I know enough uk law and I don't like to take the shit companies feel they can give their customers)
$_="Slashdotter";$syn="OTT";s;..;;;sub _{print shift||$_};s!ash!Perl !;s=$syn=ack=i;tr+LLEd+BLAH+;_"Just Another ";_
1) This was not an "advertised" price. This is not about honoring "advertised" prices. This was a point-of-sale glitch. 2) If you were expecting to buy one get one free, and then found out that you could put two in your cart and get them both for $0.00, you are the one taking advantage of the glitch. 3) While Amazon may not have legal recourse, you and I both know that you are the asshole here.
er.. $0 + shipping and handling.
Take these scenarios and compare them: 1) You buy an item in a store, and the item is mispriced. Neither you, nor the person in the store realizes that you are not paying more than 1/10th the actual price. 2) You enter a store and see an item that you realize is mispriced (missing a zero a on the price tag), so you think it's a great deal. You purchase the item and leave. What is the big difference here? in case two you knew you were not paying enough. Sure, you were paying the price on the price tag in both occasions, so legally there is no difference. You agreed on the price at the checkout, you paid and left. Probably no chance for the store owner to come after you and demand more money or the item in return. But morally? I'd say there is a huge difference between knowing and not knowing that you are not paying what you owe. Some people seem to confuse law with morality here.
It's like the vending machine that gives out free food because of a glitch. Just because it's broken doesn't mean it's free.
Anyone who saw $0 as their total should have canceled the order and notified Amazon.
Amazon is totally within their rights to bill people for the orders because they took advantage of them.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
legally, I'm not so sure. I've heard of auto dealers coming after people who benefited from a pricing error - with mixed results. As a practical matter, I think the bad publicity almost always outweighs the money lost.
Clear, Dark Skies
I for one hope that Amazon will not hesitate to grind their customers under the Amazon Wheel of Bureaucratic Justice. They are big, they are powerful, and they should listen to no one--no one I say!--on their path to world domination.
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
Lacking a contract, the people received goods via a courier that was shipped in error.
Per my understanding of the laws, and while I'm NOT a Lawyer, it is not a requirement
of an individual receiving a shipment in such an error to pay or return said items to
the shipper as it's the shipper's responsibility to ensure that they don't do this
sort of thing to themselves.
Retroactively charging the customers for these items constitutes credit fraud on Amazon's
part as they can't insist upon payment if they screwed up like this- and charging people
for these items without the approval of the customer will get them into no end of trouble.
It was a STUPID thing to pull on their part because if enough people contest
the charges they'll catch hell from the banks underwriting the credit card loans (You're NOT
supposed to be doing this sort of thing with your merchant account...) and people will now
know that they can't trust Amazon for anything (If you're going to get retroactively charged
without your consent and have to go through the hassle of getting the charges reversed, why
even SHOP with them?). I know I'm not going to go and buy something from them if I can find
a supplier that isn't waaay overpriced than their prices now- I can't trust them as far as
I could pick up their wharehouse and throw it.
To be sure, it's a crappy thing to not pay for the stuff or return it- but crappy and what's
legit are two totally differing things.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Zero dollars?
In Amazon's defense, they advertised "buy one, get one free". So everyone who bought one expected initially to be charged for at least on of the box sets. Some were probably pleasantly surprised to see 0.00 on the invoice, but I don't think any reasonable person expected Amazon to give them two box sets for free.
It would be different if Amazon had advertised "buy one, get one free", and then charged customers for both boxed sets when they ordered two. But they didn't. Instead, Amazon is holding their customers and themselves to the terms of the original advertised offer - buy one, get one free. I fail to see how anyone could have seen the zero dollar charge as the honest price - or how they expected to get something for free from Amazon when their ad clearly indicated otherwise.
Really, how could you not know that a charge of $0.00 wasn't a mistake?
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
On general principles, I would agree with you, give or take shipping vs. delivery issues and the like. As far as I know, so would the law in most places. caveat vendor.
However, I'm not quite clear about the details here, and there could be an interesting twist if the customer really did pay nothing for the goods. Contracts generally require consideration in both directions, and I imagine Amazon's lawyers could build some sort of legal argument if Amazon received absolutely no payment for the goods.
You could also throw in some wording about bad faith on the part of consumers going for a deal that was obviously too good to be true and not what Amazon intended, particularly if the offer that was meant to be available was clearly advertised.
I'd guess we've got to a decent case by now. Frankly, I wouldn't have a problem with that. Contract law often protects consumers from unreasonable terms imposed by mass market vendors or service companies. I don't see why the same principle shouldn't apply in reverse as well. Amazon should be responsible for any expenses incurred by customers in returning both sets if they don't want the intended deal, of course; that's the price you pay for screwing up. But I will have little sympathy for any customers who were deliberately taking advantage and now find they can't.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
As this discussion shows, Amazon would do much better to suck it up. They are the ones to lose when (even marginally legitimate) customer complaints are not addressed. This one is quite legitimate. A deal's a deal. If you want to do well in business, you have to maintain the customer relationship. Getting all squirrelly about one purchase means a loss of future business from that customer.s -selling-solar.html
--
Solar without the up front cost. http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
If you do successfully take advantage of a large corporation, all they will actually do is make cutbacks on expenses, hurting the little guys in the process: Layoffs due to lower profits, profit sharing bonuses get affected, etc. There's a saying: shit rolls downhill. In the end, the guys in the suits that one might think would be affected by this don't feel a thing. Don't ever think for a moment that trying to give a large company the shaft isn't going to fall almost entirely upon people who are low on the totem pole unless you are able to hurt them so much you shut the whole company down (which screws the little guys there too).
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Isn't this lowballing, and thus illegal (even if unintentional)?
How does "oops, we charged too little, send it back or let us charge you more" differ from "Well, I went in back to talk to the boss, and I promised you too low a price, I will lose my job unless you pay a little bit more"?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
They're minimizing their losses on the error: even if they don't have a legal leg to stand on with a retroactive "correction" CC charge, they knew that x% of people, having gotten the email telling them to return it, would do so. Amazon eats shipping both ways... which is less than the cost of the box sets themselves. Amazon wins.
Mince it how you will, xx% reduction of loss with a quick email is better than eating the whole loss.
Why didn't they say in the email they would allowed returns of opened sets? That was probably also a calculated decision... if the email said that... xx% of people would open unopened box sets and watch them before returning them. Is it right to say they have to be unopened, given that the customers may have received them before being notified of the error? Probably not... like I said, calculated decision.
Now, where it could get tricky is any actual charges to customer cards. They could apply breakage to it... knowing that not everyone who gets charged will dispute it. As long as total chargeback fees from customers who dispute don't exceed the amount they kept from customers who let them keep it, it may make financial sense, legality and morality aside.
I'd expect that anyone who does return it will get compensation of some sort, a coupon, etc... and anyone who gets charged and disputes it will get to keep their money and their box sets.
There really should be some protection for companies who make honest mistakes (from Amazon to Mom and Pop), especially when their mistakes get posted up on a forum and bum rushed by vultures looking to screw the man. If a brick and mortar store had an error in their cash register that was charging the wrong price, would we really allow someone to stand on the corner with a sign saying "come on in and get free stuff from this place!" until they fixed it?
If you give your CC to somebody then they have the right to charge it for services or goods sold. Period. If a pricing error caused those goods to appear to be less than they are at the time of sale, that doesn't change the fact that they can still charge the correct amount for it later. People who don't want companies using their CC numbers in this way should find alternative means of payment. This is hardly the first time this sort of thing has happened, and it won't be the last either.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Okay, that is the advertisement right there. "Buy One - Get One Free" That's the deal. That's black and white and easy to understand. I'm sorry for you if your world is not so black and white as to cloud your moral judgment on this then. If you go the counter with the two dvd sets and the cashier in error gives you both for free you already knew that you were getting one when you bought one. Now you're morally at fault here. You know the deal, the cashier/computer program is in error and makes a mistake in your favor. If you walk away and never realize it then you're a space cadet already and have worse problems. If you walk away and realize the mistake and don't correct the mistake then you're morally in error. You've just stolen. That's pretty simple right there. Yes, morality is a fluid concept - to a point. You know, thou shall not kill - except when sanctioned by your government for the purpose of defending your country, except to protect your family, except to protect yourself from deadly force etc. Thou shall not steal - except if you're starving and need that loaf of bread (I'm looking at you Jean Valjean) DVD's aren't loaves of bread, it's not an exception to the rule - you tried to get one over on the big faceless corporation (cause it's not wrong if it's a faceless corporation) and the corporation noticed finally. It's not a gray area.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
I've got to say, I agree with Amazon here. A reasonable person would have known that the $0.00 final price quoted was a mistake and expected to be either charged or asked to return the merchandise. Honest people who went to the site expecting the 2 for 1 deal and were surprised by the incorrect price, will be willing to pay what they owe. The people who are complaining are trying to game Amazon.
IANAL but I think Amazon is also on pretty solid legal ground here, since there was no "meeting of the mind" around the terms of the contract here.
It is also about perceived anomynity. One common thread amount posters on websites such as /., deal sites, and others. I would never trade with ya'll except with every term in writing and double checked.
Talk about dishonest people. Many think nothing of taking advantage of an error in pricing, after all its just an evil business. Many think of a bazillion reasons to justify their theft. Many openly acknowledge their theft or attempt there of.
Just what in the hell has gotten into people that makes them think that its okay to steal when someone else makes a mistake? It was obvious to ANYONE ordering that the DVD sets were not supposed to be free, so I have no pity on them should Amazon want the money back.
To reinterate, I would not knowningly associated with many of the people I converse with on the net. Worse, this same bunch wonders why the country is in the state it is.
Look in the mirror
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I was going to spend $$$ on a TB USB connected set of drives, and a bunch of books today. I was going to use Amazon.com, but I went with buy.com. $304 for 1 TB shipped (x2 500GB SATA/USB HDDs.) I'm not willing to order the books from Half.com as they only deliver half what they promise, but I will certainly never order from Amazon.com again, unless they appologize and pay $$$ for their errors.
Andy Allen
Come on, you can lawyer your way around the T&C all you like, but the FACTS are this:
1) People know a boxed set costs money. They know if they buy two they will get the second for the price of the first.
2) People find that invoice says 0.00. Lets stick it to the man! They KNOW at this point what the invoice is supposed to be, and that the figure displayed is lower than they should be paying.
3) They order.
If there is some weirdness around price that is simply a mis-pricing of a product then the consumer morally just thought they were getting a good deal, that happens all the time. When the consumer knows what the price should be, and sees that it is to low, and orders anyway? That is steal, and the people that took advantage of this are slimeballs with no morals.
Legally I think Amazon is in the wrong here. Ethically, I am sad to see such whining from people who know what they should have paid and are using a wall of technicality to do the wrong thing.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Contracts covered under the Uniform Commercial Code are not subject to contract common-law provisions such as mutual consideration and/or detriment-benefit consideration.
But again, IANAL. If you are, then you'd certainly be more informed about this stuff than I am.
Yes, when I am stealing from a store by taking advantage of a pricing loophole I know to be wrong I too like to use a means of payment that cannot be undone, just like a real thief would stash the loot until the heat was off!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Several folks posted that they appreciated Amazon's customer service and how for example WHEN REQUESTED had lowered charges due to falling prices after a sale.
I think what is wrong here is that Amazon if they cared about customers would have handled this in the same way. REQUESTED from their customers the amount that would have been remitted without the mistake.
The problem for Amazon was when they did this analysis they realized it would cost them more than what they would collect for the effort. Then they continued their analysis and realized that Many people would not follow thru with their credit card companies to reverse charges after the fact and this would be a net positive, thereby reducing their loss. I am not saying it is right or fair I just think thats what happend
J
There are really two issues with this problem that are getting mixed up: the price error and the unauthorized charging of credit cards.
I think Amazon should be able to demand the items be return or to bill the people for the price of the goods. They should not, however, be able to automatically charge credit cards. If a business is owed money by an individual and they have that individual's credit card information, they can't just charge the credit card without authorization. It's even worse for those who used debit cards (and bad charges are the reason you shouldn't use debit cards for purchases like these) and had cash taken out of their accounts.
This reminds me of a similar bug, but we handled it a little differently.
A company I was working with used to have discounted shipping with some promotions, and if you ordered over a certain amount, it was free. There was a fun bug in the software that we didn't catch that would allow people to add the amount needed for free shipping, to to checkout, and change their order and the shipping amount would set to zero. (The shipping method would also get set from USPS or UPS to blank as well, the user could set it back but then they would get charged for shipping again)
Not many people knew of the bug, and it was only during a promitional period; but we had about 5 people who did it multiple times. The company came up with a solution, they would fulfill the order, package it and leave it in a stack by the door. Then they sent out an email telling them where and when they could pick up the items, since they didn't pay for shipping, or they could cancel the order.
All of them paid for shipping.
Do you want to undo 150 years of good-faith laws that govern business transactions in this country?
...
If you come home and find out that you've been overcharged for an item, you have a right to go back to the store and I have NEVER had a merchant turn me down when such a mistake has been pointed out.
If Amazon accidentally UNDER CHARGES somebody, and that person knowingly takes advantage of the mistake, that person is DISHONEST.
If Amazon accidentally UNDER CHARGES somebody, and that person unknowingly takes advantage of the mistake, then they would obviously want to correct the transaction.
The American consumer has been spoiled lately by generous terms in buying and returning merchandise that is not desired. If you think it's o.k. to put a block on your credit card or otherwise try to weasle out of the stated sale price, then it's time to examine your morals, and the people who raised you as a child, because they did a piss-poor job imho of bringing you up right
...I could have made back the money I lost on the Drac in a box gothic clothing scam :(
...as well as other mistakes. I don't see how this is really any different.
If a bank deposits money into your account that was not yours, it does not become yours. If they audit their records and determine their mistake, you are liable if you spent it, transfered it out, etc.
If the Social Security agency cuts you a check for too much money, you are responsible for paying them back if they catch their mistake.
Etc.
You go in to a big-box store. You see a special two-for one advertised and buy the products. When you get to the register the clerk mis-rings it, punching in the wrong amount. Do you A.) Politely notify the clerk of their mistake and pay the difference, or B.) Walk out knowing you just got away with not paying what you expected to.
I know what I'd do. Even though I hate big, faceless corporations, I'd pay. I wouldn't even think about it. That's just the way I was raised, I guess. Would I do the same thing on Amazon? I'd like to say yes, because I think the morality is pretty clear, but I'm actually unsure of what I would have done in this situation. The real difference is looking somone in the face and knowing, "hey, this person will probably get shit if I do this and their boss finds out." Without that immediate, person to person contact, the urge to put one over on a big corporation when no one will get hurt is pretty tempting.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Here in Wisconsin whgat Amazon is doing is bait and switch, and that is clearly against the law.
Here is a similar example. At a gasoline station, one pump had a software glitch. It charged $0.01 for a gallon of unleaded gasoline. People would notice this and pump xx gallons of gas into their vehicle and get charged $0.xx. They would get their printed receipt and drive away. The attendent noticed that there was a line for this one pump and shut it down. There was even a big news story about it with a Deputy Attorney General stating that the customers had legally purchased the gasoline for the price on the pump and would not be charged more. You see the pump had the account numbers and number of gallons pumped for each customer taking advantage of this "deal". But each sale was perfectly legal contract. Even if it didn't charge anything at all. The machine by its very nature, pay at the pump, is an authorized agent for the company and can make legal and binding sales. The long and short of it was that the company got a lot of free publicity by eating it. The reason you have cashiers and attendents and pay more than the machine gets is to have that ability to question and do something about it before the customer gets away with a receipt.
Here is Wisconsin, the retailer may whine and groan, but after their authorized seller sold the goods, delivered them and gave a receipt with a stated price of $0.00, they have to honor it. When their attendents finally noticed this, cancelled all in process deliveries and notified those customers that the contracts were null and void, that is all they can do legally. Those with receipts and the goods, no matter how they got told or did, short of an inside job, have legal and binding contracts. Going after the fact and charging them more is "bait and switch" and fraud. In such a case, the company would likely have to honor all sales with receipts as well, the $0.00 charge transactions. After all, its their error in not removing authorization from their automated web site from making the deals. Else its considered a felony each and every time, and they would be fined and/or sent to prision for each occurance. How many concurrent jail terms would the company execs would get? In the thousands, at least. Far better to eat the costs.
In the situation outlined in your post, would you tell the clerk, or would you pocket the money? This is not a hypothetical question, this kind of situation happens all the time. So the real question is, what have you done in similar situations in the past? Did you take the money, or did you tell the clerk there was an error?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
This is a case of two wrongs not making a right. The customers were as wrong to take advantage of this, same as if they pocketed incorrect change from a clerk mis-ringing their purchase at a brick and mortar retailer. Amazon was wrong to charge their cards without going through a court. Amazon was also stupid, as this is going to cost them in terms of public perception, as well as chargeback fees when people don't accept the charge.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
This is not the first time. A few years ago there was a slick deal that made anything in your cart free. The slickdeals.net forums are full of people who used this to "purchase" largish items. I ordered an iTrip, and when I disputed the charge, Amazon reversed it.
On the other hand, Amazon has no qualms about changing the price of goods in my cart before I check out. The price they charge me is the price at the time of checkout, not when the item goes into my cart nor any other time prior to checkout. Amazon has already set the precedent. They can't have it both ways.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
Is that Amazon is now another corporate zombie. They will not own up to their mistakes or work for customer satisfaction in any real or coherent way they will simply execute policy or whatever directive given like the automatons they have become.
I'm still waiting 6-10 weeks for a refund from their newest affiliate(?) Target. No one I can argue with. If they go outside their window I'll consult my credit card company.
Bound to happen. And this surprises us how?
"Don't fear death... fear not living..." -me
Good reference! Here's the case you're referring to: Sherwood v. Walker, Michigan 1887. The lesson here was that if there is a "mistake of fact" concerning what it is that's being sold, then there is no real agreement on the deal, hence the contract isn't binding. I think the general rule is that taking advantage of the other side's ignorance or mistake is not usually acceptable, eg. buying a gem that the seller thinks is fake but that's actually real, unless the seller is the sort of person who really ought to know better, eg. a jeweler. There's also a famous case about two ships called Peerless bringing cotton from India during the American Civil War (when prices were fluctuating severely). Ironically, the two sides got confused as to which Peerless was meant, and because they traveled months apart, there was a major difference between the two loads of cotton, hence no contract or obligation for the buyer to accept the later delivery.
Revive the Constitution.
He got it all right, so many bad analogies in this discussion.
If you see something that costs $100 and you buy it for $100 and the shop then later charges you an extra $50 telling you: "Sorry, our bad, we sold it too cheap.", then you have a right to be pissed off, after all you didn't know it was a mistake, you genuinely thought it cost $100.
However, the people who abused the Amazon offer DEFINITELY knew that it was a bug and that's the big difference here. They didn't buy something for $40 that usually costs $50. Most of them read about the bug online and hurried in there to "buy" some free stuff before Amazon fixed it.
This reminds me of something I read in a magazine where some guy wrote in to ask a lawyer for legal advice: He had rented an apartment, agreeing on the rent with his landlord. He paid what they agreed on every month, but one day he realized that the contract actually said the rent was $0.00 per month. This is when he wrote to the magazine I read, asking if he could get his money back and the lawyer said that it was extremely unlikely that he could, for two reasons:
1) The number "$0.00" was obviously a mistake on the contract. If it had been any other number, he might have a case, but anyone can see that it had to be an error.
2) He had paid his rent until that point without objecting about it. If he went to a judge and said: "We agreed that the rent was $0.00 per month, see what the contract says!", the judge would ask: "So why have you been paying him until now?"
So far, this thread has mainly been composed of two groups of opinions. The first opinion, which is definitely the minority so far, is claiming that these customers are morally obligated to pay Amazon the money that Amazon was supposed to have charged them in the first place.
The second group seems to simply be saying "Screw 'em. The law says it's a done deal and no takesies-backsies."
Both of these responses are actually equally valid, taken away from their context, and both seem to be rooted in a sense of what is "fair". Which of the two is the usefully "correct" answer given the context has yet to be addressed, so I'll address it.
People should be treated as you'd like them to treat you. It's as simple as that. Good people make moral decisions. They do what's "right". Anyone arguing this? Of course not. The problem is that this is not the context in which this transaction took place. Amazon is not a person. Amazon is a corporation. This does not automatically mean one should be looking to screw them over, so follow along carefully.
Corporations, unlike people, do not make moral decisions. They make decisions based on profit margins and a curious thing called "stockholder interest", which, while it does involve people, has little to nothing to do with morality. It's simply a fact that even if someone in the corporation dared to make a decision where the moral response differs from the profitable solution by any significant degree, the organization would consider the un-profitable moral response to be incorrect (and probably fire that person if it was a large enough difference). Corporations are amoral, which is different from "immoral" so if you're having trouble understanding this, use the intertubes to look up the meanings of the words.
Taking the context of the situation into account, the customers, from a purely moral standpoint shouldn't have made the deal they did. However, you can pretty much bank on the fact that the corporation would not be making this same distinction. Corporations, while enjoying the benefits of being declared a "business entity" can be counted on to go with the letter of the law and no further in a situation involving assets of almost any kind, including money, and for this reason these customers should treat Amazon the same way Amazon would treat them. By the letter of the law, these customers owe Amazon no more money than what they were charged, Amazon would be breaking the law by charging their credit cards after the fact, and the customers should fight them every step of the way because that's what Amazon would do if the roles were reversed, simply because it would be profitable for Amazon to do so, and seldom does the issue of the morality of a business decision ever become challenged. When a non-entity which has no moral incentive is granted rights by law to be an "entity" with the same rights as a person--by acting in an amoral fashion they have to accept that their customers will behave with the exact same level of self-interest if the corporation being given these rights is to be anything approaching fair. Otherwise, ethically speaking, a corporation is no more than a paper facade for large groups of people to make decisions and interact with other people without being hindered by moral judgements. Fail to understand this, and the corporations will eventually gobble up everything.
Let's say I bought a $10 armoire from a garage sale and later found a $10,000 holder's bond attached to the underside of it left by the seller's long deceased grandma. The seller later finds out about the bond and wants to reclaim it. If I fight him in the court with the argument that the transaction has already taken place, I'll lose. The court will not reward windfall.
In the Amazon case, the buyers (intentionally or not) are getting a windfall from the transaction. As such, they won't be rewarded by the court. Granted none of them will end up in court given the relatively small cost of a DVD set.
Since our collective "morality" if you will are defined/judged by the court, the right thing to do in this case will be to either return the DVDs at Amazon's cost or be charged for the price advertised (buy 1 get 1 free).
What "Computer error"? It was Amazon's error...
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
Interesting point, though arguing that hurting their profits forces them to increase prices ignores the fact that they are always out to increase profits meaning they have set prices at a premium of profit margin, if raising prices will increase their profit they would have already done so, same goes for lowering pay. Only thing that really gets effected is the overall company worth. Now if the company goes bankrupt yes then it can hurt the little guy. Though I'm not talking Enron style fraud here either, and I stated multiple times I have not and would not cheat a company, I'm simply stating that the moral imperatives such as making sure you tip properly and making sure the full bill is being charged when visiting a restaurant is different than dealing with a large corporation. When you deal with a large corporation you are playing a money game, you wouldn't give the guy across the poker table his money back because he screwed up (assuming neither of you cheated) now would you? If he was broke and lost every cent maybe.
On a totally different tangent with the fiat system we work with today on large scales money has no real value, its just points in a game.
[MoneyT]
"Why is it we piss and moan when companies act immoral and stick to the exact letter of laws and policies and then cheer and applaud when consumers do the same?"
Moral relativism. Yes, it's that simple.
[Spun]
"The real difference is looking somone in the face and knowing, "hey, this person will probably get shit if I do this and their boss finds out." Without that immediate, person to person contact, the urge to put one over on a big corporation when no one will get hurt is pretty tempting."
Morality isn't what you do when people are watching. It's what you do when they're not.
This is simply Amazon using admittedly bugged software (the discount application) and patching your credit card later. Typical in the software industry these days. And if you try to block the patch, you might get hit with an APR % nerf.
I posted a write-up about this more than a month ago (or what had occurred up to that point) and it apparently wasn't newsworthy then, even though Amazon was even then promising to charge people for the error.
Typically, the most recently hired people will be the first to go if unexpected losses occur. They might hire more people later when their business has recovered from the loss, but often they just have to address a financial loss before resuming trying to build themselves to be bigger.
I worked for a company where this occurred, actually. They ended up making less money than they projected, so they laid almost half their staff off.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
My Canadian bank's low-rate credit card just amended their policies this month to say that if you give anyone or anything your card number the first time, you are responsible to pay it if any subsequent unwanted charges occur.
The overall revisions to the policy mostly relate to "family members" or additional card holders. So if you share a card, it's your problem, and call the cops on your brother if you don't think he needs three HDTVs.
And the nice bank lady on the phone told me that any unscrupulous charges for something you request (and receive) is not fraud, just a dispute. So a $50 item with a delayed shipping charge of $500 goes to the dispute department. X-/
Personally, I wouldn't have done this, it seems wrong. At least with file sharing, someone, at some point, bought the DVD or CD and ripped it. And if there ever was a "pay X amount and get as much DRM free music and movies you want per month" service I'd quit downloading in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, our society confuses the law with morals. Legally, if a company sends you something by mistake, you're not required to return it. For example, if you ordered an iPod, and a second iPod fell off the line into the box, once it is shipped to you and you open the package it's up to you whether to return it. I had that happen to me. My main beef is Amazon's strong arm tactics. They need to realize they are not in a postition to dictate terms. I personally don't have a credit card - I have one of those debit cards that works similar to one. If Amazon charged me without my permission, I'd probably not have enough money in my account to cover the charge, and would be hit with a shit load of fees. Amazon needs to politely request people return the merchandise. I know it'd be very hard for me to keep to my morals if I got some legalistic letter demanding I return the merch or have my card charged, I might keep it just out of spite. I know it must be hard the big important corporation to realize that threatening might not get their way, but maybe this incident will teach them a lesson. On another note, they don't have some sort of subroutine that checks, and if an order's less than say, 90% less than other items in the catagory, flags it for review? Hmm.
I've been as frustrated as the next person with the reality that life and people just aren't always fair, the good guys don't always win, goodness doesn't always win out, the best (wo)man doesn't always get the job, honesty isn't always the winning policy, and noble convictions don't always pay off; nor does doing the right thing guarantee success, accolades, or even appreciation, much less a brass ring.
In fact, "doing the right thing" will often put you in a risky position. You could lose position, power, material success-or your very life. Why? Because in the real world there is a constant battle between good and evil-and evil has no shame, no limits, no rules, and largely, no fear. Against that formula many people crumble, acquiesce, and even abdicate their values. After all, there are profits to be made, children to be sent to private school, job opportunities too good to lose, connections to be made, perks to enjoy, an ego to satisfy, competitions to be won, vacations and lovely homes to be had-and it seems that bending ethical rules or points of law is what everybody has to do if they want to be competitive. [...]"
On most occasions, the person thanks me for noticing their mistake and adds it (or in a few cases says "ah, man- never mind- just keep it").
However, on a couple occasions the clerk has started to argue with me to prove I'm mistaken about saying I need to pay more! At that point, I just let them win and say, "okay, you are right." and walk out with my free stuff. Sheesh.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Have a look again at the copy of email sent from from amazon (linked above) : http://forum.dvdtalk.com/showthread.php?t=487954
The post was made on 28th december 2006, which means that Amazon contacted the guy saying they'd made a mistake and offered free return delivery, less than five days after the order date (23/12/06). Now, bear in mind that the 23rd was a saturday - so you wouldn't reasonably expect the order to have been reviewed until the next business day - which would have been the 27th of december 2006.
This is a typical load of slash-dot bollox, Amazon acted to correct the issue in a timely way and at their expense, nobody ignoring their apology and offer to correct the issue has a leg to stand on, chances are that he recieved the email before he recieved the goods. Amazon are within their rights to ask for him to return a mis-dispatched or incorrect order, it's like ordering a copy of the ring on dvd and finding a diamond ring in the mail, you'd be obliged to return it and liable if you kept it knowing that it had been dispatched in error.
Typical, your debate implied that people have only just started getting emails, when in fact they've been sitting on them for over a month. Don't you have any editors to at least RTFA! before accepting postings ?
I am a lawyer but not your lawyer. Do not rely on this, as it is not legal advice, but merely another
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
If Amazon (or anyone else) tries to charge me more after the transaction has been completed, they'll be hearing from my credit card dispute resolution people. Either be more careful and don't make mistakes, or accept that when you do make a mistake I will not be paying for it. Consider that to be motivation for you to do it correctly the first (ie. only) time.
I just Googled and in addition with the most recent pricing error, came up with this (March 2003) and this (December 1999).
More importantly, from the last link:
The Federal Trade Commission generally occupies itself with unfair business practices like so-called bait-and-switch pricing and cedes issues of pricing errors to state jurisdictions. State contract laws, meanwhile, typically protect merchants who make a genuine error in pricing.
But other watchdog organizations may set higher standards. The Better Business Bureau Online, for instance, is drafting a new set of standards for Web merchants who want to post the organization's seal of approval on their sites. The current version of the draft requires merchants to "comply with all commitments, representations, and other promises made to a consumer."
Whether that statement would require a merchant to sell a DVD player for $100 as a result of an advertising error, however, is an open question. "We're open to feedback on this one," said Russ Bodoff, the Better Business Bureau Online's chief operating officer. "It's a difficult issue, because the Internet presents real questions around this area of consumer expectations."
I know that retailers such as Fry's have disclaimers in their weekly advertisements: "Store not responsible for pricing mistakes, etc." Does Amazon have any such clause in their T&C?
Hadn't thought of it that way. Makes sense.
The fun part about this whole thing is, we could debate the morality of the customers' decision 'till the cows come home and not come up with a definitive answer. But Amazon obviously screwed up, big-time. Not just from a moral standpoint, but from a PR standpoint as well. I hope whoever made the decision to charge the cards after the fact gets fired.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Whenever I shop online, I will use a virtual/throwaway number (from citibank, in particular). The virtual number is different than the regular card number, expires in one month and (AFAIK) only allows one charge; any further ones get refused. I saw a demonstration of this restriction early on when I began using the feature, I made a mistake--generated three different virtual numbers but sent the same one to three different merchants I ordered from. The first one was accepted and the other two got refused.
I'm wondering now,,,, (with this particular card issuer/feature) if any merchant would have a way to put a second charge on?...
~
Read the definition at http://dictionary.law.com/default2.asp?selected=33 7 – "[A contract is] an agreement with specific terms between two or more persons or entities in which there is a promise to do something in return for a valuable benefit known as consideration" – for a contract to exist, you must have consideration, something that's exchanged. If I were, hypothetically, to promise you $5.00 for no reason, you could not say that I broke our contract when I failed to do so, because no contract exists, because you have not offered any consideration in exchange for that $5.00
My Blog: http://nic.dreamhost.com/
I'm sure the law would say you stole the money, and so would anyone else
/w button click, or other suck things. The invoice was presented, the amount (even if the amount was nothing) was paid. As the customer has not agreed upon additional charges, he or she cannot be billed under the card-rules unless he/she agrees to the additional amount.
Are you a lawyer or a judge perhaps? Because, if not, then you can't be sure about anything the law would say. Even if you were, you could only state your own opinion unless you were actually involved in such a case.
Now yes, people might call you dishonest, but whether the law would is anyone's guess until it actually hits the courts.
Having been involved in such instances (been given more money than I paid, or billed incorrectly a low amount to my card because somebody missed a digit), in most cases the stores were very grateful when they are corrected, because otherwise they would have eaten the loss. However, in a physical store the solution would be to catch the person before they leave the store, because they have not actually "paid" for the invoice amount for the item in that case. It would be dubious if they could charge you with theft, but they could likely prevent you from leaving with the item until it is actually purchased.
The fact is that stores, banks, and others screw up all the time. Most of the time the customer doesn't profit from this, and most of the time you can get the issue resolved by going back to the store or dealing with your credit-card merchant. When you start involving credit-cards things get very murky as well, as there are many rules that go beyond law and deal strictly with the relationship between you, the merchant, and the CC company.
For example, see here. The issue is one of contract law between the three aforementioned entities. In this case, the promise is from Visa to you that you are not liable for an unauthorized transaction. In the case of amazon, you have not authorized an additional billing to your account. There is no signature, no invoice
but but but I found it 20 cents cheaper down the street a week later, and you promise to match prices" nonsense is the end result.
Actually, it's not just about the price, but the package deal. If you paid for an item with a guarantee of X, and you didn't get that, then you can charge it back. If a merchant is one that allows "up to 30 days best-price guarantee" you have bought both your item and the guarantee, which the merchant is then bound to honor it. If there is no such guarantee, too bad so sad, and some people will whine about such. However, if the guarantee is in place, and the place next store comes up with a price $5 less, then the merchant is bound by agreement to refund you the difference.
If the advertised cost is $20, and the subtotal page says $25+shipping, and I'm charged $25+shipping, it's my fault for not looking at the subtotal page carefully enough
Actually, many places (Canada for instance) have laws that say that if the price at the till (which online, could be translated to the checkout page) rings up higher than the price on the shelf, the customer is entitled to the item free or a discount (I'm not sure of the actual amount on that). This was to prevent stores that put up a tag price of $9.99 but left the price of $11.99 and profited off unwary customers. Screw-ups like this still happen fairly often in grocery stores are often somewhat lax about keeping everything up-to-date, which means that you often legally entitled to discounts or free items (I think the max per-item discount is $10, so if the item is under $10 it's free). Of course the flip-side is that many customers don't double-check their bill, and don't know the law, and therefore end up not getting the proper sale price.
This is of course very murky in online situations, but I've little doubt a clever lawyer could argue that the big banner page price is equivilent to the "shelf price" and that the final charge price should reflect that.
Now this case is something of an opposite to that (final checkout price lower than the advertised/displayed one), but there may also be laws to protect that.
What I would like to know about is what happens when an item has a deal attached and it goes on sale. For example my girlfriend recently bought a shirt on which the tag indicated it came with the matching skirt free. However the teller insisted that since the shirt was on sale that the tag-deal was not valid. Any lawyers care to comment on that (not that I'll be marching back up to demand refunds anytime soon, but it's good future-knowledge).
This is probably the most insiteful comment of the whole bunch.
If the customer keeps the items and his/her cash, then Amazon could theoretically go after the customer for the difference... in COURT
If Amazon decides to(without a valid authorization frmo the client) tell the CC company they are authorized to make the secondary charge, then they are liable both under the credit-card company's rules and quite possibly those of the law as well.
Whether or not amazon is owed money/items back is a legal matter, and amazon is not the law.
Its a tough call, but it seems like the price was agreed to when the customer pressed the submit button. The page said how much would be charged, the customer agreed and pressed the button. Almost seems like a contract to me.
It would have been much better for Amazon to send out mail appologizing for under charging the customer ("We hope this does not cause you any inconvience"), and end with "We hope you enjoy our product".
In short, they should have sucked it up, and spin some humor on it.
I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
It certainly wouldn't be completely effective but it would seem to fit our model of transactions better. More of a shopkeeper telling a regular customer, "We both know you purchased that item for a price that was obviously a mistake, essentially free. And now I'm asking you to make it right by agreeing to pay what the advertised price was, the price that you saw it was supposed to be when you put it in your cart. You have the right to say no, to not pay, but if you take that path you are no longer welcome to shop in my establishment. Please take your future business elsewhere."
And to those that would argue that they believed Amazon was actually giving away boxed DVD sets for $.01 I shake my head wearily.
I really doubt it. It'd be stupid and could cause them much much more in lawsuit. There is simply no stand for them to charge the CC unauthorized.
It has nothing to do with morality. If Amazon wants the money back, they can sue the customers, but I doubt they will.
I'm probably posting too late but:
There seem to be a lot of outrage and confident assertions over 'what the law is' in this thread, so I'd like to give my opinion (I am a 2 year law student)...
1. Courts frequently allow the recission in these clerical error type cases because it does not serve recognized contract law social policy to enforce them.
2. In each case where the customer knew of the mistake, black letter law (See Restatement of Contracts, section 153 'When Mistake of One Party Makes a Contract Voidable') indicates a slam dunk case in Amazon's favor. (Often mistake can be inferred from the price stated in the Contract offer, so it is certainly possible a court would decide this even in the few cases where the customer honestly thought he or she was getting free DVDs).
3. Neither of the above makes it correct for Amazon to pursue 'vigilante' measures of collecting (in this case, charging customer's credit cards). Amazon should look to a court to rescind the contract.
Why not just mark the accounts?
I used to rented movies from the local place. Yeah, I could return them late in the dropoff box. Yeah, they didn't turn around and charge my credit card for late fees. But, brother, next time I went to rent something and they scanned my card in the clerk would say "Oh, you have $X.XX in late fees.
While those customers with Amazon could cancel and start again to avoid a recap on those, Amazon's got their credit cards and addresses on file. A new account sending packages to an address with one of those "marked" accounts would spit up a warning. And if the customer doesn't want to pay, well, they can take themselves elsewhere.
If you ran a business, would you want a customer you KNEW would take advantage of any of your weaknesses frequenting your establishment? Would you let a shoplifting customer back into your store because you need the business?
Morality and law aside from people getting free stuff accidentally or intentionally, this plan seems a lot more fairly handed than just turning around and backcharging on the sly.
More Twoson than Cupertino
One thing that I have not yet seen discussed in this thread is that a number of people emailed Amazon.com regarding the threatening emails and were told to ignore them and that they would not be charged. These people, of course, were greeted with new charges on their credit cards this week.
And if a clever hacker manage to break into your computer system and transfer all your belonging to himself, that is both morally and legally completely all right. It is, after all, your own damn fault for not keeping your systems in order.
Not making each and every software bug (as the Amazon case was) legally binding would render all contract law void, and reduce civilization to men hitting each other on the head with clubs.
What these 'customers' are trying to do is hold Amazon to a billing mistake, as if that constitutes an agreement (when the correct price was clearly shown, probably about 3 pixels away from the "buy" button). If the situation were reversed, and the customers were over-charged instead, then everybody would expect the merchant to refund their money--even if they had mistakenly clicked "ok" and "agreed" to the wrong price.
Chances are, they got an insane number of these orders, from people who just wanted something for free. I'm all for defending the little guy, but deliberately 'allowing' people to make mistakes so you can cheat them is pretty lame (and probably fraud, although IANAL).
Granted, it would have been best if the error had never occurred, but I really hope everybody doesn't come down on Amazon for trying to get their money back from a bunch of scammers.
In your case, the cashier intended for the food to be free.
A better analogy would be that the cashier made a mistake adding up the bill.
The conclusion is still the same. Once the deal is done, it's done. If you sign a receipt for a given amount, they can't add to it.
An ethical company would learn from their mistake and avoid selling things at a loss in the future.
A less-than-ethical company would attempt to pass the cost of their mistake on to their customers. That's another mistake that'll affect their bottom line - as people see how they handle the situation and choose to patronize a different store.
Those who say that the customers are in some way responsible for the company's mistake - it was the company that set the price and the company willingly entered into the transaction at that price.
If you really want to pay them the difference then go ahead - just be aware that you are under absolutely no obligation to do so.
I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play one on the Internet, but I love paying "Devil's Advocate". Who's up for a game?
The central issue revolves around can someone request money after the transaction has taken place. Generally speaking, once a transaction has occurred it is done and over with. A restaurant cannot deduct more from your credit card just because you left a mess at the table once you sign the bill. The bookstore cannot add additional fees because on your way out you took stacks and stacks of their free papers. So we work on the premise that what's done is done.
Now let's say you go to the grocery store because they are having a sale on Top Ramen. If you use a 'club card' you can get 30 for a dollar instead of the normal 20 for a dollar. So you load up on Ramen, peanut butter, Red Bull, and an orange to ward off scurvy. You enter your phone number for your club card... Well, you enter *a* phone number for *someone's* club card and take your purchase home. You head to the basement and find that even though the card worked and everything else was discounted, the Ramen was still full price. Damn them! That's cutting into your WoW fund. But do you accept that what's done is done? No, you get someone to drive you back to the store and demand the store give you back your money (cash or crediting your credit card). So in this case, the store was able to go back and change a completed transaction. They advertised a deal and did not keep up their end of the agreement. So now we've established a precedent for modifying a transaction after the fact due to one party not fulfilling their part of the exchange.
Many online store have been caught advertising an incorrect price (decimal moved in the wrong direction, wrong price entered, no price entered, etc) and get hammered from people trying to take advantage of that. Normally the store catches it before anything gets sent out, refunds the money and puts up a big "Opps and sorry" page. They take a PR dive for a while then life goes on. But in these cases, nothing has been sent so perhaps the FTC does not consider the transaction complete and StoreX is within their rights to refuse to make a sale even though money has been exchanged. It's just like you can't shove a money order under the door of Best Buy and expect them to give you a Wii when they find your money. Just because you gave them money does not mean a sale is happening.
However Amazon went so far as to actually send out a number of these DVD sets; that brings more laws into play. According to the FTC, if someone sends you something in the mail that you did not request, "You can't be forced to pay for the item or return it." So from a purely high level look at this, the consumers that did not pay for the product (or at least some got away without any payment) so therefore the DVDs are gifts and Amazon.com cannot later charge the consumer. Point of note; companies CAN sent you something that requires your payment to use such as the brazillion AOL CDs--The disks are free but in order to make anything other than coaster or a chair you need to give them a credit card.
So let's recap...
In this case, Amazon said "Buy one, get one free." That's the deal. That's the terms of the agreement. Someone found out that the ordering system was flawed and told people how to exploit that flaw. Online transactions were made, at zero to little money, and Amazon.com mailed out the DVDs fulfilling their end of the agreement. But did the consumers fulfill theirs? Did they really "buy one" in order to get a second item free? Can Amazon sue to get their money because most of the consumers made the transaction in bad faith? Breach of contract?
This should have nothing to do with big, bad corporation vs poor, little guy. These laws apply to Ma & Pa's Used Movies too. What if they screwed up orders due to Pa's Alzheimers? Would people feel so justified, proud
By the letter of the law, these customers owe Amazon no more money than what they were charged, Amazon would be breaking the law by charging their credit cards after the fact, and the customers should fight them every step of the way because that's what Amazon would do if the roles were reversed, simply because it would be profitable for Amazon to do so, and seldom does the issue of the morality of a business decision ever become challenged.
You're great in your post until this point... By the letter of the law, these customers do owe Amazon money for the sale, because fairness is demanded on both sides of the contract. Because it is unreasonable to assume that Amazon was giving two DVDs away for free, and because it was heavily posted on sites like FatWallet and others, the customer taking advantage of this most likely knew they were taking advantage of this. At that point, they are committing fraud, and Amazon is entitled to collect... in a court.
Amazon charging them without authorization is also committing fraud, however. Most likely what would happen is that the two frauds would offset, since there are no actual damages - customers received 2 DVDs for the price of 1 DVD, as was according to the original deal. Someone might get slapped with a punitive fine, but maybe not even.
According to the Master Merchant Agreement I signed with my credit card processor, I _CANNOT_ charge a customer's credit card without _EXPLICIT_ authorization. In the "quick guide" provided with the legalese, they _SPECIFICALLY_ state that even in the event of clerical error, once the transaction is complete you cannot charge a customer the difference between the price they should have paid and the price they actually paid (and this is the important part) WITHOUT CLEAR PERMISSION FROM THE CUSTOMER TO DO SO.
Maybe Amazon has a different Master Merchant Agreement than I have. All I know is, if I pulled this stunt, I'd be put on the master Declined Merchant list faster than you can say "credit card fraud."
I would assume, 99.9% of the people gulp that down and there will be no decline in people using Amazon. Why should Amazon not do this when people just suck up to whatever Amazon does?
Amazon is not the only large company that benefits from the sheepish attitude of customers: before these people will abstain from buying they will accept a lot of things.
This book is dedicated to Gadlaw who understands that morality is what you do when no one's watching. How different the main story would be if all had their own personal pooka?
Here's Amazon's situation. They can grant these sales at $0.00 and walk away with a huge loss. Or they can charge the customers credit card and deal with a 3rd party collection agency. I would rather change the credit cards and deal with a chargeback dispute from Merchant Services.
Customers will claim the charges as an 'unauthorized transaction' to their credit card issuing company. The CC company will work with Merchant Services who will send a letter to Amazon asking for proof of charges. The whole process can take 2-6 months. I'm not sure if this is winnable for Amazon but they can make it very difficult for customers to get their money back. Having had this exact situation happen to me in the past, customers were always happy to pay the additional fee's or return the item. Failure to do so meant dealing with chargeback disputes.
Amazon is evil (again) ?
Maybe we should keep a list of sins of Amazon
maybe the idiot who wrote this, and the one that 'tested' it should pay for the losses instead?
This interested me enough to call up Chase Visa and ask them if this was legal, and what would happen to me if I tried this. I was transferred to the Dispute Resolution line and talked with Chase's dispute resolution people. They said that if you have a receipt that says you paid X for Y, and you were billed X and shipped Y, they cannot threaten to charge you more for it under any condition, including failure to return it, unopened or otherwise. He compared it to buying something at Wal-Mart via credit card and then taking the item home, and later that day getting a call from Wal-Mart demanding you bring it back or they will charge your card for another $50. He said that would not be considered fraud. Fraud would be if they charged you more than they were supposed to. In this case it's a separate, unauthorized charge, and would be considered theft.
He advised me that if this ever happened to me, to make sure you have a copy of the receipt, and to call the disupte line for your credit card. They will likely have you send a copy of your receipt to them. The seller will not have a legitimate receipt that says you were supposed to pay their other amount, (they may have an invoice but it would be an altered one and you have provided the original to which you agreed) and the charge would be reversed by the credit card company.
I guess what it all boils down to is the fact that Amazon is unhappy with the terms of the sale does not entitle them to make a second charge or to alter the terms of the deal after the fact. To alter the terms is fraud. To charge you more later is theft. I'm surprised that someone as big as Amazon would do something that their lawyers would have a heart attack over.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
There's a Simpsons episode where Homer sells something to Ned Flanders and the next day asks Ned for more money because Homer has since raised the price. I wish I could find a link. Very apropro.
Jesus, man, do you really think people couldn't find rare and out-of-print books before Amazon came along? Yes, the internet has made things easier, but the world did manage before it came about.
robert
No responses to ACs. Nice try.
You're asking us about wal-mart and pickles ? In that case, I'd feel zero remorse for anything Wal-Mart manages to misprice.
As has been stated many times before, a contract requires mutual consideration. If you agree to sell me your Porsche car for $100, and I give you that $100, then there is a legally enforceable contract. If, on the other hand, you agree to give me your Porsche (I'm not referring to sealed contracts here), then there's no contract. If you receive goods for no consideration, then ownership does not pass. these customers should treat Amazon the same way Amazon would treat them If it were possible for a corporation to kill someone, should you then treat the corporation in the same way?
It seems that there are actually two types of Amazon customers involved in this. The first type are those that went to Amazon.com and bought a bunch of things, entered the coupon code and got charged some amount of money, but didn't get charged for the box set. These customers paid for their order in good faith and should be left alone. The other type are those that went to the site, bought two-box sets, entered the coupon and got a $0.00 invoice. These customers, knowing there was a mistake, should be asked to pay for their order and legal proceedings should ensue. However, stating: We are going to charge your credit card, does seem to cross the line. JimFive
Please stop using the word theory when you mean hypothesis.
I think the whole forum should be modded informative, and insightful. Oh, not because the comments provide insight, or inform about the actual story. But because they provide a look inside the head and hearts of the people that inhabit this forum dispensing advice left and right on all kinds of subjects. Makes you think while contemplating hiring anyone from here, or just taking their advice.
This is about contract law, however, it's about the contract between Amazon and their merchant account holder.
I own a business and have a merchant account for accepting credit card payments. I would be drawn and quartered by Visa/Mastercard/Amex/Discover if I were to try to re-charge a customer for a transaction that had already completed -- regardless of the size of my original error. They consider it to be a fraudulent and unauthorized transaction. If I accrue three chargebacks in a 90-day period I get fined and my account goes *poof*. After just one, the fee I pay for each transaction increases. Maybe Amazon gets a better deal since they're a bit bigger than me, but I really wouldn't want to be on their accounting team right about now.
"If you receive goods for no consideration, then ownership does not pass."
So then these free sample razor blades I got in the mail aren't really mine? Am I licensing them? Can Gillette tell me to send them back or else they'll charge my card? I guess your analogy's just not valid.