HItMeNow.com had (supposedly) factory sealed copies of DARK BLUE for $6 and change. I ordered a copy, which according to their inventory system was "in stock" and receiveda confirmation.

"The next day I received a cancellation notice with the lamest explanation I've ever seen:

Order ******** The item(s) you ordered are no longer in stock.

Containing:

027616886446 [DV] DARK BLUE [CANCELLED]

Please understand that there are many reasons why your order may have
been cancelled. If we cannot fill your order with an item of the
quality that you have ordered, our quality control center will cancel
your order. We apologize for any inconvenience."

So what happened? Was it an error? If so they should have said they screwed up. Did they never have it in the first place? They should have admitted it. Did they sell my copy to someone else?

It's not a matter of not getting the disc, it's a matter of not being fortright about how they screwed up. Instead, I as a customer am left to wonder which one of the "many reasons"caused them not to honor my order.

No offense, but I'd hardly say you were "stiffed." Look at some of the other threads describing the trouble people (including me) have had with DeepDiscountDVD, DVD Planet and Suncoast.com. In some those cases, people's credit cards were charged for DVDs without the discs ever being sent to them. In this case, it sounds like HitMeNow simply ran out of the DVD. Maybe their on-line inventory system leaves something to be desired, but think of it this way: They didn't charge your credit card for the DVD (or at least you didn't say they did), they didn't claim they sent it without actually doing so (a Suncoast specialty), and they didn't send you a defective or damaged product.

It could've been a lot worse. I would save the word "stiffed" for worse cases.

Got the same e-mail from djangos when they couldn't ship my Criterion Spartacus for $12. Just live with it, its not a big deal.

Actually, "no longer in stock" is a pretty good reason for not sending you the DVD. And I must agree with the others - you were not "stiffed" at all, and saying they stiffed you is quite unfair (and simply not true).

I agree. They let you know the next day and gave you the reason. The news might be disappointing, but it sounds accurate and fair.

If you look at Hitmenow's store setup, you can see its a fairly simplistic shopping system and unlikely to have real-time inventory tracking. Most likely at the beginning of the day they did have the title, but since quantities aren't updated real-time, it wasn't noticed until it was time to assemble the order that all the stock of it was used up.

Not all stores use the same shopping software and many don't write their own, they buy it from other places. Hitmenow doesn't strike me as a very high-budget operation, so they probably couldn't afford anything other than a low-budget shopping system with just the basic functionality.