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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

#351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if its in your hand. They have ways.

To redirect a UPS shipment after a card has already been charged? Not even in pending - the charge has cleared at this point?

Yes, technically the person or company who is shipping with UPS (or FedEx for that matter) can redirect shipments. Sometimes it's expensive, sometimes not so much. Regular folks receiving do not have as much control.

I've never done it personally but when I worked at Polk Audio way back in the day they had a special application that interfaced with UPS and they could reroute things already in route. I don't know what the limits are, etc, but seems doable.

Having said that I doubt they'll do it once it's out the door.

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

#352
post #329
post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you accidentally purchased a bag of M&Ms from Amazon for 500 dollars instead of 5, they will let you undo it. [citation needed] Audible (part of Amazon) started billing me silently for a subscription I did not use, for several years, after I had used a free trial. When I discovered it and canceled the subscription, I could see how around the time the free trial was converted to a running paid subscription, they…

FWIW Audible emails me every month to tell me have a new credit available. Possibly put in place after your experience; but it seems more like just "keeping people engaged in our service" is a better way to sustain subscriptions than hoping people forget about it. And, not to victim-blame here, but I can't quite understand your response to mysterious charges that appear on your card every month. I try to understand w…

You seriously review every single transaction on all of your credit cards?

How many lifetime hours do you think you've spent doing this , and how much money have you saved?

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

#353
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is they could request the item back, and if they really wanted to, put a negative balance on your account effectively banning you from Amazon without a return. Whether or not they would sue you or win and collect is a different story. All of this is assuming this was not an intentional PR test by Amazon for Prime day. One would presume that that is possible.

As I understand this if it lands on your doorstep and wasn't reclaimed by UPS/FedEx/USPS prior to that there's nothing they can do. They can ask you to send it back, but you don't have to. If they made the transaction and it's in your hands they can't put you in the red for the difference.

Correct. Now, I highly doubt they'd do it, but Amazon could take some action such as banning you from their services until you return the item. At which point do you want to own the item more than using Amazon? Could be a tough choice for some.

Though I still don't think they'd do that.

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

#354

It’s kind of interesting- the asymmetry of moral expectations and entitlement. If you accidentally purchased a bag of M&Ms from Amazon for 500 dollars instead of 5, they will let you undo it. On the other hand, if the matter is reversed, Amazon is expected to be a good sport and take the loss — even if the purchase was made in bad faith (ie- knowing Amazon mis-priced it but purchasing it anyways.) I’m not going to en…

> I’m not going to entertain any counter arguments that Amazon deserves this (...)

> I just think it’s amazing how frail people’s morality is, how it goes out the window when certain conditions are met.

The condition in this case being you dismissing large parts of that morality because they are supposedly "orthogonal" (to you).

Of course it's going to seem frail to you, if you decide beforehand you will ignore any reasoning behind a moral position.

I'm willing to say it, I don't care about their loss because they are a huge multi national corporation that makes billions. Not a person, but one of those weird gigantic business machines that share our planet now. That's such an incredibly huge power differential between you and another entity, anyone pretending they apply the same moral reasoning to both is truly deluding themselves.

BTW, deluding yourself is for instance, anthropomorphizing an entity made of paper and laws, to "be a good sport" or not. Ridiculous, what does that even mean? You realize this makes about as much sense as being angry at your coffee machine if it breaks? Yes it happens, yes people do it, but no it's not to be taken seriously.

But ultimately what it comes down to is whether Amazon is legally required to fulfill these orders. Because you can give a corporation a legal code, but not a moral code.

If they are not, then that's fine, it's not like the customers had a specific right to buy a $13k camera for $100.

But really you just wrote this to feel good about yourself?

> I just think it’s amazing how frail people’s morality is, how it goes out the window when certain conditions are met.

But you're better than that, aren't you? Not being like most people. And just had to tell us about it

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

#355

A previous similar incident became a legendary in-joke over at MetaFilter 18 years ago: Astounding. I can't take a moral argument seriously from any of you who jumped at the opportunity to take advantage of an honest mistake. I don't want to hear ever again about greedy corporations or crooked politicians. You people just showed that you're willing to turn a blind eye when it is to your benefit. How does that make yo…

1 million times this ^^^^. Although the deal is amazing, it's even more amazing how quickly people seem to turn a blind eye to take advantage. It reminds me a bit of the various insurance systems here in the Netherlands. People complain about the high insurance fees, yet they claim as much damage as possible and even commit fraud in order to get the most out of it. Which of course, in turn, increases insurance fees a…

Most people don't have a problem with bad behavior if it's justified.

A good portion of my income goes to pay taxes, yet Amazon hardly pays anything comparatively. If they actually paid proportionate taxes maybe my tax rate wouldn't be so high. Getting a good deal through an error is only stealing back some value that was already stolen from me.

It's not the best justification, but I could come up with a dozen more. The play field is so drastically tilted towards the big players that almost everyone at some point feels like they were cheated by the system, and so people don't feel bad cheating the system.

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

#356
post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This would be wealth destruction no different from simultaneously reaching into every person's wallet and removing some amount of cash and burning it. Unrealised profits are very much different than physical cash.

I own the stock and can sell it for $2000. If the value of the stock drops to $0 and I can no longer get $2000 for the stock, it would be no different than me losing $2000 cash

If I have $0.50 cash and someone reaches into my wallet and takes it, is that any different to if I've got a lottery ticket with an expected value of $0.50, and the draw occurs and its value drops to $0 when it doesn't win?

Some would say that in the first case it's morally wrong to steal my cash, whereas in the latter case I consented to the risk of my ticket losing when I purchased it; and therefore performing a lottery draw is not an immoral act.

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

#357
post #288

It’s kind of interesting- the asymmetry of moral expectations and entitlement. If you accidentally purchased a bag of M&Ms from Amazon for 500 dollars instead of 5, they will let you undo it. On the other hand, if the matter is reversed, Amazon is expected to be a good sport and take the loss — even if the purchase was made in bad faith (ie- knowing Amazon mis-priced it but purchasing it anyways.) I’m not going to en…

> It’s kind of interesting- the asymmetry of moral expectations and entitlement. First, there is an asymmetry in power too. Amazon can afford to double check or triple check everything if it makes economic sense. Secondly, companies does not have morals. If you allow big corporations to change prices as they see fit because there is a "mistake". Companies will exploit that to their advantage with psychopathic precisi…

"Companies are not human beings, as other comments already have said, to involve morality in this issue makes no sense whatsoever."

Is society human being? Is nation a human being?

If not then is it moral to deceive and cheat them too?

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

#358
post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s kind of interesting- the asymmetry of moral expectations and entitlement. First, there is an asymmetry in power too. Amazon can afford to double check or triple check everything if it makes economic sense. Secondly, companies does not have morals. If you allow big corporations to change prices as they see fit because there is a "mistake". Companies will exploit that to their advantage with psychopathic precisi…

Companies are not human beings, as other comments already have said, to involve morality in this issue makes no sense whatsoever. This argument is wrong, there is no attempt to associate morality with a company. It is the customer and only the customer holding the arguably conflicting believes that errors in favour of customers should not be corrected while errors in favour of the company should be corrected. So you…

But there is such an attempt of anthropomorphisation, when you say the company is "expected to be a good sport".

You don't say a herd of cows ought to be a good sport. A crying baby ought to be a good sport. That tree is being mean, casting shade. The anthill ought to return my sugar.

That is why there is no conflict. Because they are not the same morally and thus not expected to be treated the same.

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

#359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies are not human beings, as other comments already have said, to involve morality in this issue makes no sense whatsoever. This argument is wrong, there is no attempt to associate morality with a company. It is the customer and only the customer holding the arguably conflicting believes that errors in favour of customers should not be corrected while errors in favour of the company should be corrected. So you…

If you make a mistake, you cancel it with a standard return policy. Amazon's "mistake" looks like bait and switch, or any number of other scams. I'm under the impression they usually cancel said orders.

When you start going down this line of arguments, then you also have to take into account the abuse of return policies, ordering and wearing clothes once before returning them, ordering several similar items while intending to only keep the one you like the most, and that sort of thing. Also Amazon could easily add - in case it does not already exist - a policy to its terms and conditions that explicitly states that orders can be canceled in case of errors, at least as far as laws allow such policies. But there are certainly already some policies targeting fraudulent orders and whatnot.

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

#360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you change your quote block formatting? It’s essentially impossible to read on mobile.

Fine here, Safari on iOS.

It has been edited since then. They were using a code block.
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