Amazon Sellers Threatening Customers With Collections Over Pricing Error

m33pm33p said:
Ha. Good fuckn luck.

I believe tiger direct or someone similar tries to pull this last year around Christmas over a TV. They then tried to recharge people's credit cards which obviously turned into a giant fiasco over on slick deals.
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Got a link or recall the vendor who did that. Sounds like misuse of CC info.
 
Long ago I worked for a car dealership. Newspaper misprinted price on a particular car. We honored it on 5 vehicles in the day it ran before correction. Sued the newspaper and settled within a month for full recovery.

This company is dirty. Going after the consumer shows how amateur they are. They will get what they deserve.
 
Stiler said:
It wasn't the seller, it was a 3rd party software that adjusts the prices of items. It was not only these people that had this issue, play.com also had it (using the same software).

Put yourself into their shoes, you run a small'ish company and a software error ends up costing you over 100,000 GBP, would you just sit there and take it even though it wasn't technically your fault but a 3rd party software error? That can cause almost any small business to go belly up or end up having to do massive layoffs/scale back just to stay afloat.
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As stated above you go after the third party. These people (probably uneducated running out of a storage unit) are foolish.
 
canna said:
No, I wouldn't "sit there and take it", however I wouldn't go after the wrong party either. I'd go after the ones responsible, you know - the people that put the listing up wrong and configuring the system to allow this to happen. The customers paid the advertised price, and received their items. At that point the transaction is complete and done. Sorry but you don't get to come back after the fact and tell a consumer to pay more money after the fact. If it was an outside contractor that you hired to perform the work, that's who I'd go after. As a business, if you hire a 3rd party to act on your behalf you are responsible for their actions. The customers fulfilled their end of the transaction.
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^ this
 
bucketlist said:
Amazon should pony up, it was their fuck up. If the people won't return the orders and they can't recharge them, then Amazon should pay PB4L for the loss.
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No, it wasn't. Third party software used by third party sellers to automate prices on Amazon.
 
I kind of feel bad for the company. I don't agree with their actions but it seems like they got screwed over and they don't know what to do.
 
Quix said:
The seller is responsible, the price on the storefront is what the customer has to pay. This has been upheld in court many times. Even to the point where if the price on the shelf is wrong they have to give you the product for that price. If Amazon got the prices from the seller (no matter if it was automated or manual) it's their responsibility. The seller can try and sue the software company if they like, they might have a case.
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In the US that is true, any item marked at price xxx and sold is done deal. Seller can't come back later looking for the money, less the buyer edited the price to make it look cheaper then it was well that would be fraud. If they returned said item they would only get price they paid back.

haste. said:
Long ago I worked for a car dealership. Newspaper misprinted price on a particular car. We honored it on 5 vehicles in the day it ran before correction. Sued the newspaper and settled within a month for full recovery.
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That was cause the newspaper messed up, issue here was if it was the software that messed up and set wrong price of the company that runs the software messed up and now trying to blame someone else.
 
This is the opposite of that other problem:

There were two 3rd party sellers that had set prices on each other by pricing their book 5% higher than the other guy (automated pricing). After a few weeks went by, the $3 book was listed for like $1.5 million or something, as they reevaluated the price every day or several times per day ...
 
xorbe said:
This is the opposite of that other problem:

There were two 3rd party sellers that had set prices on each other by pricing their book 5% higher than the other guy (automated pricing). After a few weeks went by, the $3 book was listed for like $1.5 million or something, as they reevaluated the price every day or several times per day ...
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Oops, $23.7 million! lol
http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=358
 
haste. said:
As stated above you go after the third party. These people (probably uneducated running out of a storage unit) are foolish.
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This third party software probably has a clause in their EULA stating that they shall never be held responsible for anything the software incorrectly does.
 
Zepher said:
Amazon is on the buyers side with this,
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Props to Amazon for that. I'm not sure the company could even send it to collections/debt agency. They probably don't have anything but the shipping address. I'm pretty positive that Amazon controls the card data.
 
tikiman2012 said:
Most states have laws that protect the public from predatory practices. So over here it would usually be a non-issue. Just like Walmart selling PS4's for $40. They allowed it to happen & the consumer, through no fault of his/her own bought into it, bought it. The consumer should never be liable for this shtuff.
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the Walmart case is a bad example as people knew what they were doing and were intentionally trying to cheat the company.

That is no better than the ghetto thieves that figured out that walmarts food stamp tool was broken and would let you put hundreds of dollars of merchandise on a empty card so that went viral and the monkeys literally tore up the entire store before Walmart caught on and the whole place had to be shut down to restock every shelf in the store from the hundreds of full shopping carts.

This case is a customer simply purchasing an item at the advertised price, and the seller is trying to take corrective action too late since the transaction is already complete and threatening harassment of their customers if they don't volunteer to help them out. Apples and oranges imo.
 
Ducman69 said:
the Walmart case is a bad example as people knew what they were doing and were intentionally trying to cheat the company.

That is no better than the ghetto thieves that figured out that walmarts food stamp tool was broken and would let you put hundreds of dollars of merchandise on a empty card so that went viral and the monkeys literally tore up the entire store before Walmart caught on and the whole place had to be shut down to restock every shelf in the store from the hundreds of full shopping carts.
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as said about, that would be a crime of fraud. The way that worked was if you had access to add a listing on to amazon for a few minutes you could make a fake one for 40$ PS4 and print it and boom cheap ps4. Since the listing is completely bogus on amazon since would only exsist for a few minutes, long enough to abuse Walmarts price matching policy if proven its a criminal offense. This case wasn't that as it was the company itself that set the price.
 
Im still waiting on my shipping label from a company that sent me the wrong product i purchased through Amazon. The company sent me the correct product already, just not a return label for the incorrect one. Its been 4 weeks+ now...their move.

Oh, yea whatever company needs to work it out with amazon. Otherwise what on user said, wouldnt happen on this side of the pond!
 
BroHamBone said:
Im still waiting on my shipping label from a company that sent me the wrong product i purchased through Amazon. The company sent me the correct product already, just not a return label for the incorrect one. Its been 4 weeks+ now...their move.

Oh, yea whatever company needs to work it out with amazon. Otherwise what on user said, wouldnt happen on this side of the pond!
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And to piggy back on the price screw ups....

Target accidently printrd there weekly ad with a 1yr psn membership @ 29.99. Although i knew it was meant for the 3 month, their ad stated it was for the 1 year cards.

What did I do? Just like any other red blooded american looking for a deal, buy 100 of them and flip em. My fault? Nope.
 
Arbit3r said:
as said about, that would be a crime of fraud. The way that worked was if you had access to add a listing on to amazon for a few minutes you could make a fake one for 40$ PS4 and print it and boom cheap ps4. Since the listing is completely bogus on amazon since would only exsist for a few minutes, long enough to abuse Walmarts price matching policy if proven its a criminal offense. This case wasn't that as it was the company itself that set the price.
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Since they were bringing printouts, they didn't even need a real Amazon listing ...
 
I do feel sorry for the suppliers in all this. Yes, they should not use third party software unless they fully accept the risk of things going wrong however people were ordering dozens of items for no reason other than they were 1p each.

People are so quick to screw over companies but will scream bloody murder if they are ever on the receiving end of a mistake.

Its not like its even Amazon who will take the hit; it will be small businesses who will most likely have to declare bankruptcy.

To the person who ordered all those pens - why did you feel the need to do that?
 
Spidey329 said:
Props to Amazon for that. I'm not sure the company could even send it to collections/debt agency. They probably don't have anything but the shipping address. I'm pretty positive that Amazon controls the card data.
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German here. Amazon really doesn't have a choice. European law says that as soon as the product leaves the warehouse, the deal is done, wrong price and all. Had this happen here a few times, courts always ruled in buyers favor.
 
DJS4000 said:
German here. Amazon really doesn't have a choice. European law says that as soon as the product leaves the warehouse, the deal is done, wrong price and all. Had this happen here a few times, courts always ruled in buyers favor.
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That is pretty much same here in the US, once it is sold and leaves their possession its a final say (outside warranty which they can't try to collect the difference through that).
 
Seriously, if they can't even be bothered to check the price as they pack $1000 into a box for $0.01 ... though I would never try to scoop up like that, I'm an honest Joe, sometimes it feels like it hurts, but I have a clean conscious that I didn't wipe the floor with someone else from a distance, even if it's not illegal.

One time co-worker ordered 4 rechargeable batteries, and they sent a box instead of a pack (20 packs ber box iirc). They contacted the seller (big company) but they said forget it not worth hassling the return, merry xmas. Coworker spread the good fortune around the office. Who can use 80 rechargeable batteries, lol. I might use almost 20 ... lots of clocks and remotes ...
 
The seller is responsible for the tools they put their faith in.

OTOH, if you're buying a new TV for 1 penny from a small retailer and say "I'll take 10", the buyer may be in the legal right, but doesn't have the moral high ground either.
 
The Xenophobic anti-Amazon opportunist are surprising. I suspect most are the 3rd party sellers with a case of sour grapes.
 
I am automatically skeptical of any "business-related" correspondence with grammatical issues. Misspelled words, failures to punctuate or properly capitalize proper nouns, or inconsistencies with capitalization (Amazon and amazon) are immediate red flags. Getting correspondence directly from a company that I never deal with directly (i.e. a 3rd party seller on Amazon) is another red flag. And, finally, any one of those coupled with a request for money, generally gets an automatic spam flag.

It sucks when a small business gets screwed. It sucks more when they don't insure themselves against the fine print when trying to increase their market share. It sucks the most when something gets screwed up and their first response is to criminalize their customers and burn their business partners. But hey, that's the upside of a free market, anyone can start their own business and no one is guaranteed to succeed.
 
If someone has not read the article, I will give you a heads up: This is a UK issue, not a USA issue. :D For those who think it would not happen on their side of the pond, Europe, go get some coffee and wake up, that is exactly where it is happening.
 
Ducman69 said:
the Walmart case is a bad example as people knew what they were doing and were intentionally trying to cheat the company.

That is no better than the ghetto thieves that figured out that walmarts food stamp tool was broken and would let you put hundreds of dollars of merchandise on a empty card so that went viral and the monkeys literally tore up the entire store before Walmart caught on and the whole place had to be shut down to restock every shelf in the store from the hundreds of full shopping carts.

This case is a customer simply purchasing an item at the advertised price, and the seller is trying to take corrective action too late since the transaction is already complete and threatening harassment of their customers if they don't volunteer to help them out. Apples and oranges imo.
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Considering a lot of the products were quite clearly incorrectly priced, I really do hope the company can either get their stock back or the proper money for the goods. Quite a few of the people purchasing the obviously incorrectly priced items were other companies as well, looking for dirt cheap stock to re-sell on.

As far as I'm aware, if an item is obviously incorrectly priced up, a company has no legal obligation to sell at that price. I'm not a lawyer, this is me remembering something similar that happened,
 
Lith1um said:
I hate looking for something at Amazon, BB, or Newegg, and have to see all the trashy third party sellers. It's the cheesiest business tactic, reeks of money grubbing in my eyes and I hate to shift through it all. It just lowers my user experience.
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In Amazon's defense the difference between Amazon proper and 3rd party sellers is pretty obvious. I've sold in the marketplace and purchased in the marketplace and I've never had any issues. It's a nice way to find products that are discontinued or would otherwise be out of stock if just sold through Amazon.

Sears.com is horrible though. 90% other seller's garbage.

pigpen said:
“We would like to urge customers to be honourable and honest during this Christmas period and not take advantage of a small business, who cannot afford to give away its £100,000 inventory for under £100. This will create a number of job losses in the run up to Christmas, due to the behaviour of a select number of customer.”

That's the important quote from this story, not the one about the big bad threat.Don't be dicks. Give them their shit back. You know damn well you when you ordered hundreds of dollars worth of shit for $2 you were taking advantage of a glitch.
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It's hard to know sometimes, especially at this time of year. I've seen some crazy deals before and I've jumped on them and it's just turned out that the company thought of it as good PR or was just overstocked and wanted to dump a product. It should be obvious, however, if a $1000 TV is being sold for $1. But in the case of a box of pens for .01?

haste. said:
Long ago I worked for a car dealership. Newspaper misprinted price on a particular car. We honored it on 5 vehicles in the day it ran before correction. Sued the newspaper and settled within a month for full recovery.

This company is dirty. Going after the consumer shows how amateur they are. They will get what they deserve.
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Perfect way to deal with it. I'm not in favor of all the crazy lawsuits that people often talk about, but that sort of mistake is exactly what suing is for. They made an error. It caused you harm. You went after them.

These companies that were hit by this:
1) Use Amazon fulfillment. They aren't even doing the work of shipping the items out.
2) Use automated software to set prices so that they are always the lowest . . . but were dumb enough not to put a lower limit on this number.
3) Probably use automated software to re-order the most profitable items to be restocked at an Amazon warehouse somewhere.

It all sounds pretty lazy to me.
 
Zepher said:
was browsing OD's site and just sorted by lowest to highest and the pens were listed for 1 cent, so I ordered 100 boxes of 48 pens.
I didn't think they'd ship them out, but they did.

pens1.jpg


pens2.jpg
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Those pictures are just amazing lol
 
Are the only reason these things got shipped because of Amazon's excellent shipping policy? Prime perhaps? Because if so, people should be ashamed of themselves for exploiting this generous service when an obvious fuckup happened. People like that are why we cant have nice things. Solution? No more expedited shipping services and everything has a 7 day wait period for order confirmation.
 
McFry said:
Are the only reason these things got shipped because of Amazon's excellent shipping policy? Prime perhaps? Because if so, people should be ashamed of themselves for exploiting this generous service when an obvious fuckup happened. People like that are why we cant have nice things. Solution? No more expedited shipping services and everything has a 7 day wait period for order confirmation.
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This isn't 1985 buddy. Any company doing this will fold overnight.
 
Fix the price error? Sure.

Cancel un-shipped orders at the wrong price? Sure. Happens all the time. Mistakes happen.

But to do THIS to a customer AFTER it has shipped and been delivered?

I don't fucking think so.
 
TechLarry said:
Fix the price error? Sure.

Cancel un-shipped orders at the wrong price? Sure. Happens all the time. Mistakes happen.

But to do THIS to a customer AFTER it has shipped and been delivered?

I don't fucking think so.
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+1 total agreement... New automation reduced labor and people and is a perfect example how computers/automation can mess up too. Live by the sword, die by the sword it seems.
 
MrGuvernment said:
most sites have clauses when you sign up they can change advertised prices or errors, your screwed either way.
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Not once it is shipped.

In the US, this could get the vendor sued, or possibly jail time. Since the cause of the deceptive pricing was a well publicized error, the latter likely wouldn't come into play.
 
One time, at Sears, I went to buy a circular saw blade that cost around $15 dollars. The cashier scanned it and it came up with a price of $1. The cashier looked at me and said, "They are only a $1. Do you want to get another one?" (yada yada yada) I bought 3 more for a total cost of $4. I paid cash!
 
Yeah, that wouldn't fly here in the US. Threatening to send someone to collections and not following through is a violation of the FDCPA. If Amazon sent you a collection notice or it appeared on your credit record, all you would have to do is contest it in writing. Then, take them to court. They'd be fined in excess of $1500.00, per incident, for not following the law. Also, if they charged your credit card without permission, you could likely contest the charges and have them removed/reversed as "not authorized".
 
amddragonpc said:
One time, at Sears, I went to buy a circular saw blade that cost around $15 dollars. The cashier scanned it and it came up with a price of $1. The cashier looked at me and said, "They are only a $1. Do you want to get another one?" (yada yada yada) I bought 3 more for a total cost of $4. I paid cash!
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I had a similar experience. It was one of those maglite flashlights. I think the system rang up 1 dollar. I bought 3 of them. Sears was closing out that particular location so I assumed it was just closeout pricing.
 
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