Amazon UK Glitch Sells Thousands of Products For a Penny

An anonymous reader writes For about an hour on Friday a few lucky Amazon UK shoppers were able to take advantage of a price glitch which discounted thousands of marketplace products to the price of 1p. An Amazon spokesman said: "We are aware that a number of Marketplace sellers listed incorrect prices for a short period of time as a result of the third party software they use to price their items on Amazon.co.uk. We responded quickly and were able to cancel the vast majority of orders placed on these affected items immediately and no costs or fees will be incurred by sellers for these cancelled orders. We are now reviewing the small number of orders that were processed and will be reaching out to any affected sellers directly."

Comments

Sigh.

[ledow]

WAS NOT AMAZON.

It was a junky piece of third-party software that automatically adjusted prices for Marketplace sellers.

The software cocked up, made everything a penny, and - I imagine - everyone stopped using it.

Re:Sigh.

[Jamu]

They could insert it after the bit of code that reads:

if (price = 0.00)
price = 0.01;

currency

[fightinfilipino]

a British penny is worth like 100 U.S. pennies though, so it's ok.

Re:currency

[oodaloop]

Officially, we don't have any pennies; we have One-cent Pieces. They are colloquially known as pennies, named after the British Penny. Sorry, the anal-retentive numismatist in me had to interject.

Re:currency

[mrbester]

To avoid paying VAT on it.

Re:currency

[leathered]

Only if you explain how Hershey's somehow make millions of dollars every year selling products that taste like, to use your colonial vernacular, ass.

Re:currency

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

While we have your attention... please explain Jaffa Cakes to us.

For those who understand, no explanation is necessary.

For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

Realise this fundamental truth, grasshopper, and you will reach enlightenment and celebrate in the glory of the smashing orangey bit.

Hmmmm ... legality?

[gstoddart]

We responded quickly and were able to cancel the vast majority of orders placed on these affected items immediately and no costs or fees will be incurred by sellers for these cancelled orders.

So, once the order has been placed, haven't you effectively entered into a contract for sale or something?

At which point you the seller don't really the the option to say "Ooops, we didn't mean to do that, we're cancelling your order".

Maybe it's different in the UK, but I thought they couldn't change the terms of sale just because they want to.

If I had made the purchase, I'd be pissed, because this means they can change the terms of sale after they've been offered.

Your website/pricing stuff broke .. NMFP, you offered it 1 penny, I expect to get it for that price.

Re:Hmmmm ... legality?

[Zocalo]

After a few previous high-profile incidents of this kind of error most online retailers have a clause in their Ts&Cs excusing them from obvious mistakes, errors and omissions, and Amazon is no exception. If they'd had a big banner saying "Special Offer!" or some such, or the price difference was less obvious then it was then the might have had to honour the sales, or done so out of good faith if the damage wasn't too high, but in this case they're pretty much home and dry.

Re:Hmmmm ... legality?

[ledow]

No.

If the price is obviously a mistake, it's not a binding contract.

Offer and then ACCEPTANCE is a basis of all contract law. You make an offer but then you BOTH have to accept the offer to make it valid. The point of acceptance is not necessarily when you get an email saying Amazon has received your order. It's worded quite carefully.

Online, you get certain consumer protections but no consumer protection extends to obvious pricing errors, and sellers get the same kinds of protections.

It's similar to the "moron in a hurry" test. And even a moron in a hurry knows that it's not 1p for a widescreen TV.

And...

IT WASN'T AMAZON. It was a third party bit of shitty software that automatically "adjusts" prices, not unlike an eBay sniping tool gone awry.

Re:Hmmmm ... legality?

[ShanghaiBill]

So, once the order has been placed, haven't you effectively entered into a contract for sale or something?

No. For online and mail order transactions, the sale is not complete until the product has shipped. There are laws that cover mismarked merchandise, and the vendor has no legal obligation to honor the price.

At which point you the seller don't really the the option to say "Ooops, we didn't mean to do that, we're cancelling your order".

Yes, they do have that option. Which is reasonable and fair. Laws should punish dishonesty, not mistakes.

Re:Hmmmm ... legality?

[mythosaz]

Their offer is conditional, and states clearly:

By placing an order, you agree to the privacy policy and conditions of use.

"With respect to items sold by Amazon, we cannot confirm the price of an item until you order. Despite our best efforts, a small number of the items in our catalog may be mispriced. If the correct price of an item sold by Amazon is higher than our stated price, we will, at our discretion, either contact you for instructions before shipping or cancel your order and notify you of such cancellation. Other merchants may follow different policies in the event of a mispriced item."

Re:Amazon is run by Nazis

[ledow]

Not if the price is obviously an error.

And not until both sides have consciously accepted the contract. Acknowledging receipt of your order request is NOT acceptance of the contract.

English law contains this, so I imagine American law and almost all first-world law systems are similar.

Sometimes sellers do truly ask for 1 cent

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

Just last week I looked on Amazon for an old CD that's now out of print. It's an old classical music CD not rare or of particular interest outside of fans of the artist. In fact, you can rather easily find it available in MP3 or AAC formats on Amazon, iTunes, and a few other places. One seller only wanted 1 cent for a used copy with about 2 to 3 dollars for shipping. Sometimes people will sell old CDs, DVDs or books that have little collectable value for 1 cent just to make it up a little on shipping charges because Amazon ranks the copies by lowest price first in the Marketplace without counting the shipping cost. So while you could charge $2.01 for it and offer free shipping and make just as much as charging 1 cent and 2 dollars shipping, the 1 cent offer will go to the top of the list and the $2.01 offer in my example would be listed after anyone with a lower cost for the item, even if the item+shipping cost was much larger. You could sell it for 1 cent and charge $4 for shipping and get listed earlier than a $2.01 charge with free shipping.

Re:Amazon is run by Nazis

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

And that sometimes makes things interesting in the case of responsible retailers who don't charge your card until they are ready to ship, because you're in a kind of limbo as a customer if you've placed an order but the merchant is delayed before sending it.

As I understand it, Amazon is generally reasonable about how it handles these situations. For example, if you have placed an order but it hasn't shipped and been charged yet, you can probably change or cancel it. But you have to watch out with less scrupulous trading partners, who will happily try to eat their cake and have it by claiming your order is final yet also claiming that have no obligation to ship it until they take the payment.

Re:Amazon is run by Nazis

[The Grassy Knoll]

The downside is that it has taken TD nearly 2 weeks to refund my money each time I have tried this, in spite of their stated policy to refund within IIRC, 48 hours.

I am greedy and played unfair with a company, now they're playing unfair with me. Wah!