Vaughan

I guess they're working their way through them.

Seems this was a mistake, fair enough. I do feel that a) They should have given people notices/cancellations/refunds earlier. and b) They should tell the truth, and not this lie about items being out of stock. It's such an obvious untruth. So shame on them for that.

Brian T

I did run into the 'cart limit of 60 items' issue pretty quick (never knew there was a limit, heheh!), but I don't think that was why Amazon kept dumping things into the 'saved' section. At first, once I hit 60 items, each single new piece I would add would cause one already in the cart to move to the 'saved' section. I was fine with that because I planned on pruning the order regardless. However, once I started deleting items, and moving stuff manually to the 'saved' section, within a few minutes, huge batches of stuff started being moved to the 'saved' section automatically, not one at a time, but in groups of 7, 8, 14, you name it. That's when I figured (at first) that either those items were selling out rapidly or the seller might have made a pricing mistake (again, how?) and somehow pulled the plug on all the listings. I tried adding a single disc to the cart, then proceeding to checkout, but it still moved it back to the 'saved' area.

I resigned myself to the loss, but then about the next afternoon (Saturday), I logged back in, noticed that a huge number of these discs were still listed at $1.00, etc.. So I stuck one in the cart and clicked proceed to check out. This time it held, so I loaded up my cart and bought the titles above.

Of course, I now realize that my order probably pales in comparison to some folks here.

That is, if we even receive any of this stuff. Hope it isn't a case of selective order fulfillment on their part, but can't say I'd be surprised if orders of certain titles outnumbered actual stock!

If they cancel, as it seems they're doing in some cases, I'll survive.


I felt slight pangs of guilt on that first night, constantly wondering if this was just a big glitch that was wasting my time. By the second day of these prices not all rising back up, I felt no guilt whatsoever. I can't begin to count the number of insanely low-priced deals I've avoided on Amazon and the Marketplace over the years because I figured it was a pricing error that hundreds if not thousands of people would pounce on only to find their orders canceled, only to later find out that the deals were legit and everybody got what they ordered. If this deal gets canceled, I'll live with it, but I'll still be happy that I stumbled across it and gave it a shot.

Oh, and incidentally, by the time 'Vaughan' saw it on Sunday, this "possible" sale was already nearly two days old. That to me seems like more than enough time for them to reset hundreds if not thousands of prices, even via a pricing bot or whatever it is the kids are using these days.


Too bad about the cancelations. But the order should still be visible in your account, shouldn't it? At least that will help in restoring your wish list.

Probably good this seller changed their name recently. They might want to change it back now!

Vaughan

Small mercies, huh?

Good point on the time it took them to realize this. I think you stated that it was 1:00am om Friday that it first appeared - you'd figure someone would have noticed, if not the prices, then the sudden influx of orders! Really poor on their behalf, imo. I'm not wanting to bash them, but they really do need some changes in their business. And then claiming "Out of Stock" - that's just wrong. Tell the truth. Admit a mistake was made.

I know there are laws in some states about sale items being "Out of Stock", where they have to offer a rain check. By telling a lie they're opening themselves up for even more abuse, imo.

EDIT: Here is what my orders say right now:


Status: Shipping Soon
Latest Event: Order Received - Oct 14, 2012 5:14:33 AM
Description: We've started preparing your shipment for delivery and it should leave our facility in the next few hours to a few days. We'll send you an e-mail once your order has shipped. The length of time your shipment spends in shipping soon does not impact your delivery date.

If they're all out of stock you'd have thought they'd of figured that out pretty quickly.

ProfessorEcho

The poster above who remembers something like this happening a few years ago is correct. It started at midnight and included just about every Warners box set, including OOP sets, at $2.99. I was alerted to it by a generous DVD Talk member in the Bargains Forum (nice to know not everyone in the world is selfish and greedy) and ordered a few sets. All were canceled without explanation, but the ones I ordered from the sellers using automated price matching/lowering were honored. I wish I could remember the name of the seller and find out what happened. It was surmised at the time that a disgruntled ex-employee was the cause.

bse

The problem is it happened over the weekend when they were probably out of the office. What I was hoping if they used a drop shipping facility and they would ship prior to them coming in and catching their mistake.

I ordered about 70 blu-rays and box sets. I got shipping notices on 6 items, including the Bergman box set for $1, Kino blu-rays for $2. I got one shipping notice at 2:30am Monday and then another at 2:23am this morning. Hoping for another one this morning.

Indeed if they do cancel orders, there is no way it should have taken this long.

I also tried and ordered from sellers who had it set to automatically offer the best price - I got the bulk of those canceled, a few shipped.

Vaughan

When you consider mine has STILL not been canceled, you've got to wonder.

izatright

Ouch, a lot of irate customers. No one likes that out of stock excuse. What people who've never sold on Amazon don't realize is that there aren't a lot of drop-menu reasons for cancellations on Amazon, and certainly nothing like "Pricing error," or "Soon to be fired employee mistake." Given the number of orders they received, the item being OOS is the most sensible one. However, they could have at least dropped a few cut-and-paste explanations in as well.

bse

That is my issue right now, tomorrow will be 5 days after I placed my orders, there is no reason at all I shouldn't have gotten a refund by them. I don't care if they are slammed in their warehouse shipping orders and it takes a month to get my orders, I'd be fine with that - just cancel my order if you are not sending.

bse

I was even thinking they marked a couple of my orders as shipped on accident as the tracking has not shown anything, but tracking just showed up on The Ingmar Bergman Special Edition DVD Collection (Persona / Shame / Hour of the Wolf / The Passion of Anna / The Serpent's Egg) (1970) and it will be at my house tomorrow - I got it for $3.98 shipped, the cheapest new on Amazon now is $42.99 - it'll be worth the entire ordeal for me when this arrives, if all the rest get canceled.

Also got shipping notices on the following, the tracking info isn't showing it is in process yet though.

Shadows (blu-ray) $1
The Guy Maddin Collection (Twilight of the Ice Nymphs / The Heart of the World / Archangel) $1
Way Down East [Blu-ray] [Blu-ray] $2
The Birth of a Nation - Special Edition [Blu-ray] $4
The Devil's Needle & Other Tales of Vice and Redemption (Kino Classics) [Blu-ray] $4
Zabriskie Point DVD $2

Of course the $2.98 shipping on each.

bse

One last thing, if this was a pricing glitch, how can it explain some of the box sets I bought:

Pigs, Pimps, and Prostitutes: 3 Films by Shohei Imamura $20
Histoire(s) Du Cinema $19
Berlin Alexanderplatz $40

The craziest deals I ordered I think include:

The Art of Buster Keaton $1.00
Chaplin At Keystone $1.00

If either of those would ship, I'd eat my hat.

Brian T

This goes back to something I said earlier; many of the box sets I saw were priced extremely low, but nowhere near the $1.00 to $2.00 range. I could picture some pricing software glitch pricing everything the same, maybe, but certainly not being so selective about it, keeping certain, better-selling sets a fair bit higher than other stock selling for a buck or two. Or do these auto-pricing software whatsits allow sellers to set some kind of ultra-low "final" price that they're unwilling to sell below, and perhaps i-Deal's program accidentally set ALL prices to their lowest threshold by accident?

Looking over some of these newer lists, another big regret I have now is the decision to scour my Wish List for bargains first, rather than the 400 or so items residing in the 'saved' section of my shopping cart! D'oh!


Mine's still hangin' in there too. Guess we'll see . . .

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

You can do that along with having it autolower so that they're constantly the lowest seller, setting the amount you want it to go under, typically a penny or two.

Considering it happened in the middle of the night, most places aren't going to notice until they check in the morning at all the orders. Then the panic comes, then you mass set all your inventory to 0 and try to figure out a solution.

RustyOrgan

Have any more orders been marked as shipped? I have several orders that have been on 'Shipping Soon' for a while. Other orders have been shipped and were updated with tracking info.

My Other Self

My other ones haven't been shipped and they were the larger orders I had made.

I'm wondering why they haven't been cancelled yet as others have. Only the once CD I got for $1 supposedly shipped. It'd be nice if the others got sent out, but if not oh well.

Vaughan

No changes for me - still showing as Shipping Soon, and no emails.

Wow, talk about compounding a problem. Hold you hands up, and refund - doh!

ps: I see some DID receive their orders...... well, isn't that good reason to be pissed if they cancel ours?

izatright

My two Ohio based shipments (roughly 11 blu-rays) left the USPS facility and are in route. The other four, approximately 14 blu-rays, are still "Shipping Soon."

RustyOrgan

Crap. Just received my first 3 cancelation emails

RustyOrgan

And just now received the cancellation emails for the rest of my orders.

izatright

Me too. Everything outstanding was canceled, including the only two items on my wishlist they had in stock. *sigh*

Dr. Phibes

Yeah, my four are canceled too. Not a huge deal, I'm not going to leave any negative feedback or anything, like so many people are doing on Amazon. Comments like "Don't sell what you can't ship!" when all these listings were clearly some kind of mistake. With something like this you try and get in on the bargains, but you shouldn't be furious if it doesn't work out as long as your money is refunded.

RustyOrgan

For Amazon Marketplace orders out credit cards were charged when the order was placed and not when the order was shipped, correct?

Vaughan

I've now had all my orders canceled, and I have four outstanding.

I do appreciate that it's not something to get upset about, this was a great deal. On the other hand they really have made things worse for themselves.

a) It's taken four days to cancel my orders.
b) No explanation at all. Just an email saying canceled. If they can send an email, they can send me an explanation.

It's a poor show, imo.

I also don't like that they have relisted everything, but without prices. We all know that once these orders have been canceled the products will magically appear at a higher price. It comes across as rather unscrupulous.

They should have sent emails to everyone explaining what had happened, that I would have been happy to accept. Instead of that they're getting a lot of bad feedback. I can understand why some are annoyed.

jwstl

a) It's taken four days to cancel my orders. They probably received hundreds/thousands of orders thanks to people posting on boards and I'm guessing they had to weed out out pricing mistakes from legitimate orders. 4 days isn't that bad.

b) No explanation at all. Just an email saying canceled. If they can send an email, they can send me an explanation. I have an Amazon MP account and I don't recall ever seeing a way to bulk email. They would have to reply to every single order to make sure they contacted everyone. And considering the number of orders they received that isn't feasible.

I also don't like that they have relisted everything, but without prices. We all know that once these orders have been canceled the products will magically appear at a higher price. It comes across as rather unscrupulous. They aren't "re-listing" anything. They suspended the items and corrected a pricing mistake. There's nothing unscrupulous about it.

Anyone leaving negative feedback for not getting items that were obviously pricing errors are the unscrupulous ones.

My Other Self

My other 3 orders were cancelled. I can understand why since I guess this is a pricing error with whatever system they have set up to adjust the prices but I don't like being told an item was out of stock when it wasn't.

That, and it seems like this is hit or miss with some people getting their orders fulfilled and others not. I'm really disappointed in them in that regard. I've ordered from them in the past and they're a good company so it's a bit disappointing.

BuddhaWake

my other 3 as well have been canceled. 1 yesterday with 3 items, and 2 today. one with 13 items and one with 1 CD. The one that shipped is somewhere in the Pittsburgh area.