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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

#381

Post by ryanmercer »

paganel wrote: post #232
bromuro wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me is the first time i hear about it.

I personally first heard about the Prime Day strike, figured it had to be some sort of sell-day mania in the middle of summer. Anyway, tactics like this one have been carried out by the biggest webshop in my country for a few years now. The first time it happened most of us thought it was a genuine mistake, the following iteration though revealed the move for what it really was: pure marketing.

The problem here is though, barely anyone has heard about this story and Prime Day is now over. I just sent this article to three photography friends, one of which works at a camera store, and none of them had heard about it yet.

The only way this deal was discovered it seems, is by careful watchers on slickdeals as well, so I'm going to lean towards this being a legitimate pricing error and not some attempt and sneakily generating PR.

The intentional PR being generated here will be Amazon going "fine, let's eat the loss and show that we put our customers first" instead of going "nope, cancel delivery and don't ship any more, then start requesting voluntary retrieval on the ones that have delivered!" which many companies would have to do but Amazon will likely lose less by letting customers keep them than they net in minutes (if not tens of seconds depending on how many actually shipped).

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

#382

Post by eigenvalue »

Taking advantage of this "deal" is obviously morally untenable if you stop and think about it. Rather than posing the hypothetical of flipping it around between vendor and customer (i.e., "Would you be OK with it if Amazon charged you more?"), consider the case where it was a local mom and pop camera shop that made this mistake on its website. Then you would probably feel terrible about exploiting this and would be fine with the company requesting the merchandise be returned, say with a $100 store credit.

Now ask yourself why this scenario is really different from the store being Amazon from a moral standpoint. If you're being intellectually honest with yourself, you will conclude that it's the same reasoning that would support the idea that it's OK to steal from people as long as they are very rich and won't miss the money.

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

#383

Post by tsbertalan »

foldr wrote: post #372
tripzilch wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This argument cuts both ways. If Amazon isn't a moral entity, then there's also no moral violation if they screw you over.

Right, and it's not morally wrong for a mosquito to bite you, and no one would say that the bug "should have known better", but we do our best to prevent it anyway. Both entities will go precisely as far as we allow them to.

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

#384

Post by dtech »

donkeyd wrote: post #316
sagebird wrote: post #239

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…

In the Netherlands, two similar cases went to court and judges have ruled that the selling party does not have to deliver in such a case. Dutch sources here: https://www.rechtspraak.nl/Organisatie-en-contact/Organisati... https://www.techzine.nl/nieuws/42639/otto-hoeft-goedkope-lcd...

This is also formalized in Dutch law. A consumer is entitled to the list price, unless there has been a "obvious" mistake. The classical example is an item being listed for €5,99 instead of €599,-

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

#385

Post by chrischen »

sagebird wrote: post #239

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…

The opposite sort of thing happens on Airbnb. Most Airbnbs have/had strict cancellation policies, but if they screw up and you are out of accommodations last minute you can get a refund of what you would have paid, or at best alternate accommodations.

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

#386

Post by readhn »

kartan wrote: post #288
sagebird wrote: post #239

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…

This was not a price "mistake"!

This was a well executed marketing campaign - they are looking to see how much ROI they will get on such marketing move. By the next prime day there will be millions more people logged in - looking for super deals!!!!

Do you really think they dont have a complex system in place that would flag this huge price discrepancy 100x before the product ships out? I dont think so.

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

#388

Post by readhn »

kartan wrote: post #288
sagebird wrote: post #239

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"

I beg to differ...

Corporate personhood is the legal notion that a corporation, separately from its associated human beings (like owners, managers, or employees), has at least some of the legal rights and responsibilities enjoyed by natural persons (physical humans).

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

#389

Post by gwd »

immanentizer wrote: post #352
gwd wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes? I'm a USian living in the UK, so I've got 2 "active" credit cards and 2 "active" bank accounts. When I get my monthly statement, I take 2-3 minutes to skim through the transactions. That's 10-15 minutes per month. Given that a bogus transaction could be in the thousands, I think that's a sensible precaution. In addition to catching any unexpected transactions, it gives me a quick overview of how much I've spent this month and on what, so I can maybe factor that in to how much I spend in the next month.

And it's a heck of a lot less time than I spend on HackerNews. :-D

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

#390

Post by bogwog »

samstave wrote: post #115
bogwog wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'll definitely cancel the orders. I once got a coupon from them for 50% off my first Prime Now order, and tried to buy $1000 worth of electronics for $500. They just canceled it and didn't even let me keep the coupon.

I canceled my prime subscription, but they charged me anyway.. I called and got a refund, but I also told them I wanted a $25 'convenience fee' -- They paid it.

Now that sounds like a made up story
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