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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

#161
post #98
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many countries prostitution is as legal as software development. I think we should refrain from these jokes, especially since most do it out of a lack of alternative careers and to feed families.

I read it completely the opposite. The son looks down at the prostitute, but the father sees humanity in her and does not judge and treats her as a fellow person with dignity.

But the father says she is no lady

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

#162

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?

> What if you accidentally included an extra 0 on the check you wrote? Regarding this particular example, I would hope the bank and/or other party would read the text and notice the discrepancy...

The numerals are a mere convenience. A bank is required to honor the spelled out amount, because that is what is legally binding. But to the parent's point, presumably you owed a certain amount before paying, so if you overpaid, you have a credit due. Either way, the terms of the contract remain the same.

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

#163
post #108

Sounds to me like someone at Amazon is good at marketing. Let a few things go for an insane deal, knowing it will hit the front page of every blog. Then reap the rush of next years prime day with people scouring the site for pricing "errors". Pretty cheap and effective marketing. Kind of like a raffle but without having to get all the lawyers involved to make sure you comply with raffle laws.

It's most likely a mistake this year. Used to work for an online retailer. With my experience, at any moment there's always several items with really terrible pricing mistakes that we probably have to honor.

This is my guess. Prime Day loses its allure if word gets out that the low prices aren’t being honored, so they eat it.

My wife is a buyer for B&M retail, pricing issues like this happen a lot. In her space, it’d probably take a week to fix.

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

#164
This is an unintentional by-product of shipping so quickly. As Amazon moves to quicker and quicker shipping policies, it means that errors like this can't be reversed in time.

I would imagine that Amazon could threaten to close the customer's account if they refused to return the camera equipment but that might be a bit extreme and might be very bad press.

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

#165

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 solved this problem by not automatically shipping a $600,000 house without a signed contract and proof of financing.

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

#166
post #60

I doubt they will cancel the orders. Amazon lives by customer service. They seem to just write off their mistakes directly from revenue. I learned this when I was scammed for a $5000 and Amazon let the scammer keep, refunded me and closed the issue in one fell swoop.

Amazon is less customer-friendly than ever before. They refused to adjust a TV I purchased 7 days ago to the Prime Day pricing which was $400 off. The only solution according to them was to purchase another TV at the Prime pricing and return the original. That's unfriendly to the customer, it's unfriendly to the planet, and it's unfriendly to Amazon's bottom line. An all-around disaster.

Amazon always had an official "we don't price match" policy. The price matching they did was always unofficial, but it's long gone now.

Some credit cards have price protection so if you paid with one of those, take advantage of it, it's really pretty easy!

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

#167
post #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…

I'm not sure how far and wide the show Nathan For You reaches, but there's a fantastic episode where he proposes a local electronics store mark TVs down to $1 in order to buy up new inventory from Best Buy for his own store using their price match policy. Rather than trying to explain it poorly, I highly recommend everyone watch this clip from the show: http://www.cc.com/video-clips/i6q9t5/nathan-for-you-the-pric...

Never tried it but I’ve considered just editing the DOM to make Amazon page show the price I want.

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

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how far and wide the show Nathan For You reaches, but there's a fantastic episode where he proposes a local electronics store mark TVs down to $1 in order to buy up new inventory from Best Buy for his own store using their price match policy. Rather than trying to explain it poorly, I highly recommend everyone watch this clip from the show: http://www.cc.com/video-clips/i6q9t5/nathan-for-you-the-pric...

Never tried it but I’ve considered just editing the DOM to make Amazon page show the price I want.

When I've price matched before the associate pulled up the website on her computer to prevent this.

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

#169
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. But you have to admit it is unethical. People justify stealing $16 million from the government because it is just a rounding error every day :)

>> "But you have to admit it is unethical." No, I don't. Buying something for the listed price is perfectly ethical. Your ethics are different. That's okay. People have different perspectives. My ethics don't require me to pay more than the asking price. I'll tip people who undercharge to the point that it's harmful to them (like albums on Bandcamp), but Amazon will be fine. >> "People justify stealing $16 million fr…

> No, I don't. Buying something for the listed price is perfectly ethical.

Till you don't know the price listed was an error on their part, but now you know so it's unethical.

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

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how far and wide the show Nathan For You reaches, but there's a fantastic episode where he proposes a local electronics store mark TVs down to $1 in order to buy up new inventory from Best Buy for his own store using their price match policy. Rather than trying to explain it poorly, I highly recommend everyone watch this clip from the show: http://www.cc.com/video-clips/i6q9t5/nathan-for-you-the-pric...

Never tried it but I’ve considered just editing the DOM to make Amazon page show the price I want.

At a minimum I expect that they would double check the price on their own browsers so I don't think your approach would work.
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