Slashdot Mirror
Amazon Erases Orders To Cover Up Pricing Mistake
The Knife writes "Amazon secretly canceled orders for a large jazz CD set after realizing that it had mis-priced the item at $31 instead of its MSRP of $499. At first, inventory shortages caused the online merchant to string customers along for over a month after they placed their orders. But when Amazon realized that the box set was under-priced by $470, it simply erased all records of customers' order in their account history. No emails were sent to customers informing them of the price change or of the order cancellation. Probably because it violates Amazon's highly publicized price guarantee policy. A customer who called to complain and request the CD set at the $31 price was given a $20 discount off of his next Amazon order." A caveat: there is no external confirmation that Amazon did what is claimed here.
External confirmation? I don't even see any internal confirmation. The one link in the submission goes to the item on Amazon.com's site, at which there is one glowing five-star rated customer review. As far as I can tell, this submitter simply wrote up something that may or may not be a complete fabrication with absolutely zero backing evidence, without even so much as a "here's my blog article about the experience," and somehow it make the front page.
Where's the screenshot of the item being offered for $31? Where's the printout of the placed order? Who were those customers that Amazon strung along for over a month, and where are they complaining? Was there even more than one? Was there even one? What "highly publicized price guarantee policy?" Are you talking about? This one, which Slate describes as "not something Amazon publicizes?" You are aware that companies don't have to honor prices that are obvious misprints, right? (And that a 75-CD limited edition import CD set being sold for $31 is an obivous misprint, right?)
Man, next time I have a beef with some company, remind me to completely make some shit up about them and post it as an article here on Slashdot. I'm usually not one to gripe about the job the editorial staff does here, but you guys really drop the ball in a major way on this one. Whether you like Amazon.com or not, with nothing to back it up, this borders on outright libel.
The pricing error seems to be borne out by a cached Google page. http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:MFzDQFSwSUkJ:www.amazon.com/Jazz-Paris-Various-Artists/dp/B00005RSB2+Jazz+in+Paris+%5BBOX+SET%5D+%5BIMPORT%5D+%5BLIMITED+EDITION%5D&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us How they handle this error by honoring what they advertise or by using a clause somewhere in their legal text to disavow pricing errors remains to be seen.
You missed the point! Order's were canceled and the customer was not informed about it. Amazon's policy clearly states:
"and notify you of such cancellation"
Even if this was true, and verified independently by many sources.... so what??
If you honestly thought it was 30$ to begin with and made the order and were charged for it, then you might have something to complain about it. I still think Amazon would be right to cancel the order and refund your money. So you may have been inconvenienced, but a 20$ discount demonstrates some pretty respectable behavior from Amazon.
It's a little ridiculous to expect Amazon to eat thousands of dollars in losses over an error on their website. Maybe it's just common sense, or being raised right, but when you think somebody is making a mistake and you profit from it, that is just WRONG. If you knew it was worth 10 times that price and it was a simple mistake, how moral is it to purchase it?
I have had plenty of stupid teenagers that can not do math correctly give me my change incorrectly. I have even given a 100$ bill to a girl, who gave me 130$ BACK.
The last time I had a situation like that was at CompUSA. I bought a few Motorola routers and access points and was surprised when all of them rang up for 19.99$ each. I brought it up to the clerk, got the manager, and explained that it looked like a mistake and that the labels actually said a different price. The manager, shockingly, acted like a complete dick and stated that he had no control over the information in the databases and could not do anything for me. They was not any in stock anywhere else, so I ended up getting them for my client anyways.
The point was that I TRIED to deal with them fairly. On another note, maybe that is why CompUSA went out of business.
Shopper: '...You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to the cancellation notices had you? I mean like actually telling anyone or anything.'
Amazon: 'But the cancelled sales were on display...'
Shopper: 'On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.'
Amazon: 'That's the display department.'
Shopper: 'With a torch.'
Amazon: 'Ah, well the lights had probably gone.'
Shopper: 'So had the stairs.'
Amazon: 'But look you found the notice didn't you?'
Shopper: 'Yes,' said the buyer, 'yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of The Leopard'
------
beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his mind he dreams himself your master
I used to be on a board that tracked amazon pricing errors -- picked up quite a few items for next to nothing that way. They used to play along and make good on such orders, but it got to the point where it was costing them so much and causing such disruptiveness that they changed the policy, and mispriced orders now are usually canceled. That's been in effect for at least the last five years. They don't always notify the buyer -- which I think is a customer service issue where people fall through the cracks -- and they only rarely offer a make-nice like a gift certificate.
People who viewed "Jazz in Paris" bought:
Jazz in Paris 1%
Linux in a Nutshell 55%
Understanding the Linux Kernel 12%
Running Weblogs with Slash 7%
http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
Well, you're jumping to conclusions. The fact that there was a breach of contract doesn't mean that the buyer can recover for the contract price - the next best available price. You point out that once there has been an offer and acceptance, a binding contract is created and Amazon is unable to repudiate. While that is true, the contract clearly allowed Amazon to cancel a buyer's order if the price was set incorrectly which certainly was the case here. Thus, Amazon was justified in its cancellation of the buyers' orders. If there was a breach, it was only the failure to notify the buyer of the order cancellation. I'm not sure from the contract terms whether a court would find there was a breach. The terms may be read as suggesting Amazon's current policy of notification rather than binding themselves to do so. In any event, a buyer would not be able to recover for the contract price - the best available price because that does not reflect the damages actually suffered. The buyer's expectation damages ought to put him in the position he would have been in had the contract been performed. Since Amazon's only failure was to notify him of the order cancellation, damages should be assessed based on the harm which resulted from lack of notification. In addition, it seems pretty clear in context that when UCC 2-711 speaks of the sellers failure to make delivery, it's referring to an unjustified refusal, rather than a justified refusal combined with a relatively minor breach. In the instant case, a court would likely award nominal damages due to the lack of any clear harm to the buyer.
Furthermore, the measure of damages had there been an unjustified refusal to make delivery would be based on the difference between the market price of the good at the time when the buyer learned of the breach and the contract price (2-713) or in the alternative, the buyer could "cover" by buying the item at another retailer and sue for the difference between the contract price and the purchase price of the replacement (2-712). Cover doesn't even require that the price be the "next best price" - only that it is made in good faith and without unreasonable delay. This may very well exceed the market price if the buyer wants the item immediately and is willing to pay a higher price for the convenience of a local retailer.
Actually, this reminds me more of the people who stand at the register and argue with the manager, "But it was on the 99-cent rack, so you *have* to sell it to me for 99 cents!"
Fortunately, those people don't know about Slashdot yet...