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Amazon Accidentally Sold $13k Camera Gear for $100 on Prime Day

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Re: Amazon Accidentally Sold $13k Camera Gear for $100 on Prime Day

#31
> Others also reported that they successfully price matched gear at retailers such as Best Buy and Walmart.

Wow, this is incredible if true. Not just as a sign of how much these traditional retailers will stick to their promises, but also how the ostensible safeguards of brick-and-mortar/human-touch can still be subverted by algorithmic error. I've never worked at retail but if I saw such a drastic reduction I'd call my manager.

Re: Amazon Accidentally Sold $13k Camera Gear for $100 on Prime Day

#32
post #30

Amazon would be within their rights to refuse to honor such purchases. I also don't think it's ethical to take advantage of such mistakes. What if it was you who accidentally listed your house for $60,000 rather than $600,000? What if you accidentally included an extra 0 on the check you wrote?

Totally agree with you there. If I were on the other side of something like this it would SUUCK! But you know people, even honest ones find it hard to resist “sticking it to the man”, i.e. the one with advantage, the baddie. Many rationalizations will be made. “It’s peanuts to them”, etc.

A father and son were walking down the street. The father tips his hat to a woman they pass.

The son asks: "Father, why did you tip your hat to her? She's a prostitute, not a lady."

The father replies: "Son, you are correct, she is no lady. But I am a gentleman."

Re: Amazon Accidentally Sold $13k Camera Gear for $100 on Prime Day

#33

Given the algorithmic pricing on a lot of things (everything?) sold on Amazon there’s probably money to be made building some bot that checks for pricing mistakes and buys when one is found.

I believe this was common on eBay. People also looked for common misspellings of items, misspellings that would lead items to get fewer ids and usually end underpriced relative to similar items.

Re: Amazon Accidentally Sold $13k Camera Gear for $100 on Prime Day

#34

Amazon would be within their rights to refuse to honor such purchases. I also don't think it's ethical to take advantage of such mistakes. What if it was you who accidentally listed your house for $60,000 rather than $600,000? What if you accidentally included an extra 0 on the check you wrote?

> I also don't think it's ethical to take advantage of such mistakes.

I don't think it's the customer's responsibility to decide whether an advertised price is genuine or a mistake.

Re: Amazon Accidentally Sold $13k Camera Gear for $100 on Prime Day

#37

Amazon would be within their rights to refuse to honor such purchases. I also don't think it's ethical to take advantage of such mistakes. What if it was you who accidentally listed your house for $60,000 rather than $600,000? What if you accidentally included an extra 0 on the check you wrote?

More comparable, if you write code for high speed trading algorithms and something goes wrong, nobody will roll back your transactions. This is a matter of size and connections though, but usually you've automated losses with no going back. Amazon seems to be somewhere in between.

Re: Amazon Accidentally Sold $13k Camera Gear for $100 on Prime Day

#38
In California, at least, Amazon does not need to honor erroneous prices. Per CA Civ Code § 7103 (2018): https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.x...

  7103. Improper pricing on the shelf or on the item due to unintentional error shall not constitute a violation of this division.

Re: Amazon Accidentally Sold $13k Camera Gear for $100 on Prime Day

#39
post #34

Amazon would be within their rights to refuse to honor such purchases. I also don't think it's ethical to take advantage of such mistakes. What if it was you who accidentally listed your house for $60,000 rather than $600,000? What if you accidentally included an extra 0 on the check you wrote?

> I also don't think it's ethical to take advantage of such mistakes. I don't think it's the customer's responsibility to decide whether an advertised price is genuine or a mistake.

I’d say that goes double for Amazon who can’t be bothered to check if the thing in their inventory is genuine.

Re: Amazon Accidentally Sold $13k Camera Gear for $100 on Prime Day

#40

My favorite ecommerce glitch was a guitar center coupon for $50 off being usable an unlimited number of times. I didn't push my luck and only applied it a few times. Surprisingly they honored it and I got a bunch of miscellaneous guitar accessories for free.

Back in the 1998 there was one website that let you enter negative values into the quantities to zero out the cost of other items. I notified them quickly and they let my order though as a way of saying 'thanks'.

Did this once for credit card rewards redemption along with another glitch allowing one to set the amount of rewards that would be deducted and made out with 20k in gift cards. Lasted a few weeks then died.
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