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

#401

Post by oefrha » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 1:05 PM UTC

tobr wrote: post #317

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…

> 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…

Oh crap, this comment reminded me that Amazon billed me again for Prime membership, after I canceled twice, once on their website, and once more through a customer support agent when I got billed after the first cancellation. I really need to contact them again.

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

#402

Post by ZeroFries » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 1:12 PM UTC

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…

I've purchased products and handed over money and still not honoured for a price claimed to be a mistake. Latest example 40g of marijuana priced at $1/g. They ended up shipping a quarter ounce instead, 20% of the original deal.

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

#403

Post by sagebird » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 1:13 PM UTC

londons_explore wrote: post #287

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…

I rent cars from a rental company that seems to have a pricing mistake and the prices are $0 for a week's car rental. Sometimes at busy periods, the price goes up to $0.25. I've been doing it for 3 years now, and every time the member of staff at the desk looks at the price and goes "whoa - that's a good deal!". There's no fake names, hacking, or free trials involved - anyone can get the deal by clicking the right bu…

It’s very different. The rental company knows that you do this, you have showed employees this, and they chose not to change the falling price algorithm.

The difference is that it is not an obvious error, but a strategy.

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

#404

Post by XorNot » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 1:16 PM UTC

ryanmercer wrote: post #374

nickjj wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The court ruled that a sales contract is not binding if the buyer can reasonably suspect that the price shown is so absurdly low that an error on the side of the seller is apparent. How can you prove something like that in court in this camera case? For example, let's say you were just getting into photography and were window shopping by browsing around Amazon's site. You run into a camera that has a 4.7 average ra…

>How can you prove something like that in court in this camera case? Go look at the screenshots in the article it shows the prime savings at checkout: >Prime Savings -$1,204.52 That is a pretty clear indication that "wow, this is astronomically discounted" which should reasonably clue any adult with their full mental faculties in to "something strange is going on here".

Am I missing something here? A $1200 markdown isn't impossibly large.

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

#405

Post by MH15 » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 1:18 PM UTC

nahtnam wrote: post #134

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…

Damn! I got the A6000 for $100, but I wish I got the A7R instead :( I guess that falls under observation 1

Don't be disappointed! The A6000 is a fantastic camera, even for the $500 I purchased it for two years ago.

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

#406

Post by bko » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 1:19 PM UTC

michaelt wrote: post #356

bko wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 lo…

Yes, if the Amazon model doesn't work out and you lose value, that's not immoral. It just happened like your lottery. If the value decreases from people stealing from Amazon then it is the same as going in your wallet and taking the cash.

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

#407

Post by shawnz » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 1:22 PM UTC

normalhuman wrote: post #289

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…

> If you accidentally purchased a bag of M&Ms from Amazon for 500 dollars instead of 5, they will let you undo it. Of course, and they do it out of self-interest. On one hand, 495 dollars are not worth losing a client for life. More importantly, it is not in their interest to scare people away from using their service. The story could spread and cause significant damage to their reputation. > On the other hand, if th…

> The customer taking advantage of a mistake to receive an unfair deal and Amazon not paying taxes are more or less the same behavior.

Disagree. Amazon are forced and obligated to use legal tax avoidance strategies to be competitive and to fulfill their fiduciary duty.

You might say that tax avoidance isn't in the spirit of the law but then why don't lawmakers implement mitigations for it? Because they don't want to, they want to preserve the possibility of tax avoidance to appease corporations. So to me that means that tax avoidance actually is in the spirit of the law as it stands currently.

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

#408

Post by hartator » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 1:23 PM UTC

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…

I think a small doubt remains that’s a clever ad for prime day. And that makes it okay from a moral standpoint.

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

#409

Post by qntty » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 1:25 PM UTC

megla_ wrote: post #258

WalterBright wrote: post #9

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 really don't understand the morality of an average HN user. There was a post a few days ago about Spotifree (which mutes your ads), and everyone took it as a personal offense, every possible negative word was said about the person who made it, and the people that use it are lowlives who don't deserve anything in life if they won't cough up $10. But now when it's Amazon losing thousands of dollars per product, it's…

I personally think that this is moral. I think that capitalism is inherently immoral so it's not immoral to "steal" from giant corporations. I consider myself a very moral person (you have to take morality very seriously if you disagree with the people around you about moral issues) but this doesn't bother me.

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

#410

Post by stanfordkid » Thu, Jul 18, 2019, 1:30 PM UTC

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…

A mega corporation with billions of dollars and thousands of workers is going to be held to different moral standard than a single person buying a camera lens. Clearly society doesn't judge 4 year olds to the same moral standard as 50 year old men. You'd laugh at a 50 year old man crying over spilling his juice ... but not a 4 year old. So why should we judge individuals to the same moral standards as mega-corporations?

The relative value of $500 for an individual is orders of magnitude higher than $13k for Amazon.