Amazon Accidentally Sold $13k Camera Gear for $100 on Prime Day • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by judge2020 » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 5:02 AM UTC

okcando wrote: post #141

dodobirdlord wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Suddenly people stop buying from this company because there isn't a 99.5% chance that the company will refund any future fraud or mishaps. In this scenario one company offers a better product via a better customer experience. Simply being able to offer a better product because of scale is now enough to get people talking about antitrust issues. Not everything is an antitrust issue. It's really starting to grate on…

This complaint is closely related to the idea that selling a product at below-cost is anticompetitive, and that does have basis in antitrust law. The idea that customer service can be a "product" run at a loss to gain an unfair advantage is at least a little compelling. I don't know if it has merit but it's an interesting question.

As it is/was with oil, the only real issues are when they're used to harm the consumer after the companies that under-sold their product later sells their product for much more or otherwise harms the consumer.

https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_pricing?wprov=sfti1

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

#202

Post by diogenescynic » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 5:02 AM UTC

gingabriska wrote: post #180

huangc10 wrote: post #4

They will cancel majority of the purchases. However, if you were smart, you'd have chosen 1 day shipping and have received the item. Me? I was not smart and did not select 1 day shipping so it looks like my order will most likely be canceled once Amazon deals with this...

Amazon has made this mistake in past too and it seems they are unable to solve it. I think Amazon might start asking manufacturers to add remote bricking ability, so that when mistakes like this happens, Amazon remotely bricks the device before even customer gets to open it and then Amazon sends them an email, "it seems the device we sent you at unbelievably low price was broken before even reaching your door, if you…

Intentionally bricking an already sold item so the customer has to return it? There is no way Amazon will implement something even close to that. It’s also probably illegal.

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

#203

Post by kd5bjo » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 5:04 AM UTC

gingabriska wrote: post #192

kd5bjo wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When dealing with a retail establishment (as opposed to a private sale), they should have controls in place to correct such mistakes before the sale is finalized. The key point here is that the error passed through enough people/systems acting as representatives of the seller that I can consider the organization as a whole to approve of the sale. If a cashier accidentally gives me a $10 instead of a $1, that’s unethi…

>they should have controls in place to correct such mistakes before the sale is finalized. If they start bricking devices remotely (to protect against these pricing errors), would you support it?

...No? What part of my statement gave you that idea?

Just because I believe they should have controls in place, doesn’t mean I approve of any control scheme they may think of— that would be absurdity. For example, I also wouldn’t approve of them hiring thieves to get their erroneously-priced merchandise back.

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

#204

Post by unethical_ban » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 5:06 AM UTC

_Nat_ wrote: post #178

acid__ wrote: post #123

I got in on this! I got a Sony A7R II and a 24-70 2.8 II I'd always wanted but could never justify the purchase of. ($~3k value for $200) A few observations: - Despite the extraordinary deal we got, my friends (who also made a purchase) and I all have our joy offset by a feeling of regret that we didn't order more. Greed! - Despite the fact that I couldn't justify the purchase before I owned them, I now definitely do…

Grats on the lucky score! > A lot of people saying the orders are going to be cancelled -- seeing as I currently have both body and lens in possession, I find that unlikely. Gotta agree that it's unlikely for these orders to be cancelled. Seems like Amazon.com's got a lot of cash (without checking, but I assume?), so they can probably afford it. Instead, the smart move would seem to be to play this up hard -- perhaps…

Excellent point - what better way of advertising than to let some stories leak to mass tech media that you may hit a lottery, and if you do, Amazon won't take it away?

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

#205

Post by want2know » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 5:12 AM UTC

acid__ wrote: post #123

I got in on this! I got a Sony A7R II and a 24-70 2.8 II I'd always wanted but could never justify the purchase of. ($~3k value for $200) A few observations: - Despite the extraordinary deal we got, my friends (who also made a purchase) and I all have our joy offset by a feeling of regret that we didn't order more. Greed! - Despite the fact that I couldn't justify the purchase before I owned them, I now definitely do…

In the Netherlands this also happened some times on webshops.

And everytime a judge ruled people had to bring the goods back or should pay the full amount.

The reason is that it is very clear for the buyer it is a mistake. And almost all webshops have a legal notice about wrong or false prices.

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

#206

Post by vkaku » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 5:12 AM UTC

acid__ wrote: post #123

I got in on this! I got a Sony A7R II and a 24-70 2.8 II I'd always wanted but could never justify the purchase of. ($~3k value for $200) A few observations: - Despite the extraordinary deal we got, my friends (who also made a purchase) and I all have our joy offset by a feeling of regret that we didn't order more. Greed! - Despite the fact that I couldn't justify the purchase before I owned them, I now definitely do…

Hey, if you're feeling bad about it, I'll be happy to get it from you at $200

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

#207

Post by miguelmota » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 5:18 AM UTC

The customer is always right. Doubt Amazon will do anything about the customers that already received their merchandise. Hard learned lesson for Amazon and probably sucks to be the engineers dealing with the postmortem.

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

#208

Post by ovao » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 5:18 AM UTC

qiqitori wrote: post #176

FireBeyond wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the things they "fixed" was requiring it to be sold by Amazon or Fulfilled By Amazon. A few years ago there was a little racket in creating an Amazon seller account, "selling" things at stupid discounts (which you neither had nor intended to fulfill), go into Best Buy and say "Look, half that price on Amazon, match it!".

Huh, it's crazy that they do this at all. How do they check this kind of thing? Do they ask the buyer to display the Amazon page on their smartphone if it's just a small discount? Or do they always check on their own devices? (Amazon reportedly sometimes displays different prices for different accounts.) In my experience, if you need a retail clerk to do something for you and the first person turns you down, you can…

My price-matching experience is — consistently — that a manager is called over to okay a displayed competitor's price on my phone, and the manager simply gives the okay without questioning or validating. I've never had a competitor's price cross-checked.

Based on this, I think I could cheat at least slightly if I were immoral.

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

#209

Post by ridaj » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 5:34 AM UTC

tomcam wrote: post #128

guelo wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my ethical framework it is more than fine to take advantage of a mistake by one of the largest companies in the world. They'll take advantage of you if given the chance.

At what size company would your ethics require you to reverse course and treat them the way you would like to be treated if you had made the mistake?

Whose mistakes is it ok to take advantage from? It's hard to draw a bright line to split the continuum that goes from, say, the neighborhood nonprofit shop that employs homeless and disabled people from the community, all the way to a ruthless global mega corporation such as Amazon, but that doesn't mean that one's ethics are crooked if it draws a distinction between cases where it's OK and cases where it's wrong.

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

#210

Post by mtgx » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 5:35 AM UTC

the_reformation wrote: post #153

kls wrote: 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.

Even when literally losing thousands of dollars to honor a price advertised to customers, HN manages to spin's Amazon's actions as somehow duplicitous.

Thousands of dollars for probably hundreds of millions made in the next few years because of this one simple trick.

This is actually quite a common tactic I've seen other ecommerce stores do around Black Friday. It's also highly illegal, but I guess the companies don't worry too much about it because they don't think the gov agencies can prove it was anything but a mistake. Some companies repeat this trick every 3 years or so. And yes, they do get a ton of media for it every single time.