Personally, I'm not trying to force J&R to do anything. I'm just giving a positive outlook and trying to rationalize the whole thing. I actually thought these prices were legit for the Grand Illusion and Hamlet 2000, but then as I saw more and more low prices I became skeptical. Still, I bought Last of the Mohicans DTS for $5 in a blow-out sale. I know many got the Mummy:UE for $9.99 at K-Mart. Snow White was just selling for $12.99 locally. And its the time of year when sales are everywhere. It's not that far fetched to believe these were deals.

But now it's obvious that they weren't. Still I would appreciate it if companies, like people, would own up for their mistakes. These misprices won't bankrupt them. It appears to be a very small dent in the wallet. Save a couple of bucks on advertising and honor these misprices to get free advertising :) . Okay that was a joke. But it does leave a bad taste in my mouth if a company makes a mistake, and then ignores what they had done. That's all I'm saying

Curious, did you e-mail them first, or was this sent by them independently?

I am wondering the same thing. I have not heard anything from J & R aside from my order confirmation on Monday morning. I have yet to call or e-mail.

REPLY
 

My logic is simple, and I do not think it is at all "twisted.": If a company listed a $79.99 item at $7.99, I probably would not even KNOW about the mistake unless I read about it here, because I do not spend my time scouring through price lists looking for pricing errors. If I DID order the item, the company could argue this was a legitimate misprint, and that a digit was missing. If it was an ISOLATED incident and they issued an apology, I would accept the explanation and the apology with no ill will and go about my business, although I would feel that the company should have sold the item at the advertised price anyway. I would be less inclined to accept this argument for a $79.99 item listed at $11.99.

According to the laws in Texas, where I live, a company must honor advertised prices, even if those prices are due to a typographical error, until such time the company issues a retraction of the printed price or posts a notice of the error in visible sight in the store. This law was enacted to combat intentionally false and careless advertising practices, and has served to keep retailers honest and to reduce the number of erroneous ads. It places the responsibility for representing prices accurately on the retailer, which is where it should be. And once in a while a store gets beat on a pricing mistake, although if the store opens at 10:00 AM you can bet the mistake is corrected by 10:05.

You seem to be of the opinion that etailers bear no responsibility for pricing errors, but consider the following scenario: Gimme Shelter recently sold (legitimately, and in very in limited quantity) for $12.50 or thereabouts. This is a $39.99 disc, and the price of $12.50 is actually cheaper than the recent price on some similar items at J and R. For the sake of argument, let's say there are two etailers selling Gimme Shelter at the same time. One is selling the disc on close-out at $12.50, and the other is selling the disc at $12.99, although this $12.99 price is actually a pricing error. As a consumer, I stumble on the $12.99 pricing error and order the disc. A few minutes later I find the same disc on the other site at $12.50. Since I don't want to bother cancelling my original order over $0.50, I let the original order stand. A few days later I receive an email informing me that the price of the disc I ordered for $12.99 was a mistake, and that if I want the disc, the correct price is $32.99. In the meantime, all of the copies that were $12.50 at the other site have been sold. According to your logic, since the price of $12.99 was a mistake, the company should not have to honor the price, even though their mistake has cost me the opportunity to buy the same disc at a cheaper price from another etailer. According to my logic, the company should be required to sell me the disc for $12.99, since the prices they advertise are THEIR responsibility, and not mine.

My point is that the consequences, if any, of pricing errors should fall on the retailer who made the error in the first place, and NOT on the consumer. And if etailers were REQUIRED to honor listed prices there would be a LOT fewer pricing errors. As it stands, as long as etailers are not required to stand behind pricing errors, the only motivation for maintaining the correct prices is to keep the good will of the customer. Which may or may not matter to a particular etailer.

According to your logic, I can NEVER know if items ordered on the internet will be shipped at the advertised price, because I can never know if those prices are correct. It should not be my responsibility to have to determine what is a typo and what is not, and in Texas it is NOT my responsibility. If you own a store and advertise a $259.00 box set for $0.59 and do not post a disclaimer, I have the legal right to buy at least ONE copy of that box set for $0.59, no matter how absurd the price may seem to YOU. Then, after you sell me that box set for $2.59, YOU have the legal right to post a disclaimer and refuse the price to later customers. After you sell a couple of $259.00 box sets for $2.59, you'll be a lot more inclined to make sure it doesn't happen again. Did the purchaser take avantage of you? Yes. Was it your own fault? Yes again.

I had NO idea this was not some huge blow-out sale. do I feel sympathy for the company if these were privcing errors? Yes. does that sympathy make up for all the time I spent browsing the site looking for what I THOUGH wwere legitimate bargains? NO.

By the way, do you work for an etailer?

I'm just a poor college student trying to get in on the deals that are out there. I missed out on the dvdlair.com deal and on the dtsonline.com gimme shelter deal. For once I got my order through for one of these deals and I come to find that this one might not go through after all.

NONE of the items I ordered were "obviously mispriced" I ordered 4 criterion disks at $11.99-$12.99. If anything I thought this was some sort of a deal based on losing business to 9-11.

I feel for you :) It's tough being a film-fan on a budget. I just graduated recently myself. I guess I've gotten repetitive, but it just seems like so few people ordered these things and at not unreasonable prices. I don't see any logic behing not honoring these, though I'm wondering why J&R has taken so long to say something officially

I received the email out of the blue. I never called or emailed about the order. i did make the order with 2 day delivery so maybe they saw that first. I am pretty disapointed that the order did not go through as i did get the conformation email. Them message was from Michael Bennet and not [email protected]r.... like the conformation email. I will be even more upset if no one else get this email.

So, you want all of us to suffer the same fate as you.-wink-I don't think that this deal is going to happen, but if they are going to cancel, I hope that they do it soon. I ordered 'The Stunt Man Limited Edition' from them for $12.99. I bought this title last week at Best Buy for $19.99 and was going to return it, but if J&R cancels, then I'll break the seal and watch it ASAP.

I don't think anyones that upset or really is bitching about it, just healthy debate.
You say its obvious, while some others disagree. The stones DTS site deal did nothing more than "Prostitute the price" of criterion dvds. Why if they can do it can't J&R? And with other studios dropping prices (lets remember too its Christmas time) why is it not reasonable to think that maybe Criterion did the same or is about to and a large E-tailer such as J&R is reflecting such a thing by having a sale? Just because a Criterion is priced a 12.99 Im not going to asume anymore in this DVD market that its anything but legitimate. Besides Criterion does need to consider lowering their prices to keep me interested in in adding to my 50+ collection of their product.

maybe you are their 'test' customer -- they want to see how you react & how mad you get before they spring this email on all the rest of us! :)

I'm curious - was your order only for the Dreyer box? Or did you have other items in the order? Thx.

ok/ my turn to get everyone pissed!!!

CD's cost 27 cents to stamp in color+printed material and case extra

DVD's 33 cents

This is a direct quote from a stamping plant that I do buisness with. Small quantities for 10,000 to 1,000,000.
All the rest is royalties, shipping, promotion, and profit.

The cheapest media ever invented.

Those might be manufacturing costs but do those costs include development, marketing, licencing, etc.???

Got this today:

We’re very sorry to inform you that that the following item(s) you
ordered,

Order # SKU Product Name
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2160789 03742912192.DV GRAND ILLUSION (SPECIAL EDITION) / SUBTITLED -
GRAND ILLUSION (SPECIAL EDITION)


have been cancelled.

If this was cancelled at your request, please consider this email a
confirmation. We are sorry if we were not able to meet your needs at this
time.

If this cancellation was due to difficulties processing your order, we
apologize.

If this cancellation was due to the product being unavailable, we again
apologize. Very often we are promised shipments by manufacturers that
do not arrive in a timely fashion. Please be aware that every effort
possible was made to obtain these items for you. If your product was a
Music item (CD or cassette), please be aware it is our policy to cancel
that portion of the order that we cannot obtain in a short period of
time. If we do not have a music title in our vast inventory, we order it
from a distributor (who delivers it to us on a next-day basis). If our
distributor is out of stock, we then order it from a back-up
distributor (again, for next day shipment). If all sources are out of stock, we
cancel the order as a convenience to you. This is so that you are free
to look elsewhere for it, without unreasonable delay.

Your credit card was not charged for any items we did not ship to you.
We again apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. We
thank you for shopping at J&R, and we hope that you will consider J&R
for your future shopping needs. Should you wish to contact us about
this order, please use the information below.

This email is automatically generated, so please do not use the reply
option in your email program; we will not receive it that way.


So I guess that's ano go on that one as well. This is the first order I made with them, and was only for this item

Where's the.... "If this was cancelled due to a misprice" paragraph? :lol:

Yeah, maybe I should write them, to let them know my cancelation was not done at my request :)

the dreyer box was the only item in my order. I have not emailed them yet because i wanted to see if anyone else got the box. My arguement is a lot stronger if other people get the box. I do plan on emailing them later this week, i am just waiting a little to see how things turn out.

BTW, if your ever in NYC the J&R B&M is a great store(s). They have a huge physical inventory at fair prices. They carry high end components and systems. Compared to the rest of the industry, they have a knowledgable staff, a bit short and rude (time=commissions) but knowledgable. They are not like one of those cookie cutter retail entertaiment stores like "Nobody Beats the Wiz", that sell low-end consumer products and the knowledge of the products they sell end with the price/description card. The only bad thing is their return policy on most items (10 Day, Exchange Only, No Refunds).

In the past 5 years working downtown, I've easily spent over $10,000 there. That's one of the reasons I feel they should honor my purchases. If they don't, no biggie, they are still a great company, a dieing breed.

Hi dgc:

I know what you mean. Over the past years I've accumulated approximately 6,000 classical cds. It would be a good guess that I bought 60-70% of them from J&R. This is what makes me more disappointed than anything else when finding that they didn't honor my order at the stated price. :(

I also agree that although their staff is knowledgeable, it is also one of the rudest I've ever encountered. It makes things a lot better if you don't have to ask for help when in this store. However, as you said, their prices and selections are on the whole good. This is especially true when considering the usual high prices in Manhattan.

So did anyone else get a cancellation notice on the Grand Illusion? I'm feeling a little lonely with my solo cancellation :)

Seem like they're slowly weeding through orders or something, since we've heard so little

I have yet to receive one for Grand Illusion and the other three I ordered. I have not called or e-mailed them yet. I would like to here something though.

I haven't received a cancelation yet but my order consisted of 4 items.

Nice. So it's almost 5 days later, and they've neither cancelled orders nor shipped them (for say 98% of us). Sounds like they still haven't quite decided what to do.

Still no cancellation notice here. I ordered 2 Criterions.

Received this e-mail today:

I am writing in reference to your order:

03742912192.DV GRAND ILLUSION (SPEC
71551501052.DV LAST TEMPTATION OF C
71795100237.DV CHASING AMY / WS & C
03742912842.DV HAMLET (1948) / MOVI
03742915212.DV BLACK NARCISSUS / MO
71551501172.DV SPARTACUS (2 PK) / W
03742915542.DV BIG DEAL ON MADONNA
03742915842.DV CARL THEODOR DREYER
03742915612.DV SHOP ON MAIN STREET
03742916202.DV THAT OBSCURE OBJECT
03742916192.DV LAST WAVE / WS

Due to a computer error beyond our control many DVD
titles were priced incorrectly. Unfortunately, we cannot ship any orders
which included these titles, and we have cancelled these titles from your
order. The pricing errors have been corrected, so if you'd like to place a
new order with the correct prices you may do so ay any time. We apologize
for any inconvenience this may have caused you. In order to show you how
important you are to us, we will offer you free ground shipping on your next
order (excluding Overweight items). Please place the order via our toll
free order lines at 1-800-221-8180 and mention this email.


If you have any questions please feel free to
contact our Customer Service by e-mail at [email protected] or by phone at
800-426-6027. Thank you again for shopping J&R.


Aw fudge

So free ground shipping is what they're offereing to all of us who have ordered? I haven't received one of these emails yet but I ordered three of the titles on inri222's list. Dammit....