On this notion of delivery = done deal, once when I was making a deposit at an ATM, I noticed that my deposit slip showed that I had a $5,438 balance even though I knew that I didn't have more than $300-$400 in my account. I debated whether or not to withdraw my maximum amount or go inside and make a teller withdrawal of the entire $5k (I was a poor starving college student then). I decided to wait to see if the balance stayed until the next day and of course it did not.

The bank clearly made a mistake and the cash had been delivered to my account just waiting to be withdrawn. If I had accepted the bank's error and withdrawn the entire $5k, could I have avoided having to pay it all back by chanting "your system, your mistake, you delivered the cash and I accepted, end of story, mine, mine, ALL MINE!" ? Somehow I don't think so

what you all dont realize is that if Amazon lets you keep the dvds for 0.00 then how do you think they will get their money back that they lost on this deal? They will have to raise the prices to recoup the money lost. YOu all argue about how it is their mistake and you shouldnt have to pay, then why should the people the use amazon once in while have to pay more when the prices get raised? think about that Happy New Year

Lawyers aside, heres my 3rd response from Amazon. Same old.

Thank you for writing back to us at Amazon.com.

First, I want to sincerely apologize for the time taken to
adequately respond to your concerns. I realize that you have been
greatly inconvenienced by this situation. This is unacceptable and
is not what we want you to expect from us.

I've reviewed our previous correspondence and your order.

I sympathize with your frustration. However, please understand that
the information provided in our last message correctly represents
our policy at this time.

As told in our previous correspondence,

In reviewing your orders placed on December 23, 2006, we discovered
that due to an error we did not charge you the correct amount for
the items you purchased. According to the terms of the promotion,
purchasing one DVD at the regular price entitled you to a free DVD
of equal or lesser value.

Because these items have already shipped to you, you can either keep
the items and we will charge you the amount you should have been
charged or you can return the items - at no cost to you - to
Amazon.com within 30 days. Please note that we can only accept the
return of unopened items in their original condition......

......As a representative of Amazon.com, I want to assure you that we
value our customers' trust above all else--it's the foundation on
which our company was built. Please know that we'll continue
working hard to ensure that you receive accurate service, and to
minimize the chances of anything like this occurring again.

In addition to a wide selection of items, one of our aims at
Amazon.com is to provide a convenient and efficient service; in this
case, we have not met that standard.

I am truly sorry that we were not able to fulfill your expectations
for this level of service. I hope that you will give us another
opportunity to prove the quality of our service to you.

Thank you for your understanding. We hope to see you again at
Amazon.com.


I'm surprised some other websites haven't picked up on this story yet.

I normally would not give a shit one way or the other, but THIS thread takes the cake! You are pissed that you were caught trying to take advantage, not that you didn't get the original promotion!

What was the stated promotion at the time each of you ordered? That's what prevails. Even if it didn't... that, coupled with the fact that many of you came here and boasted about "getting in before they caught their error" should not even get the original deal. It was stealing, pure, plain & simple. You know they did not offer, as per the terms of the promotion, the "deal" you were trying to get. You also advertised it to forums in hopes of getting others to do the same. I guess one does not feel as bad if others are consciously taking advantage as well, huh?

None of you were confused as to the promotion terms, you just attempted to take advantage of the error in Amazons check out system & were not ultimately successful.

Suck it up & pay for what you bought!

OK, that clears it all up! Thanks Sonic, I don't what we would do without you.

I'm not trying to be indispensable, but thanks anyway! I'm just calling the situation as I see it.

Have a nice day.

OK, two more for the top five list:

and

Thanks, you too!

That's what I've been wondering, too -

Hmmm

Hot news tip?
Please let us know at: [email protected]

I just got almost the exact same message for my second response:

Greetings from Amazon.com

I do understand your concern and sincerley apologize for the
inconvenience caused to you.

I've reviewed our previous correspondence and your order.

I sympathize with your frustration. However, please understand that
the information provided in our last message correctly represents
our policy at this time.

In reviewing your order placed on December 23, 2006, we discovered
that due to an error we did not charge you the correct amount for
the items you purchased. According to the terms of the promotion,
purchasing one DVD at the regular price entitled you to a free DVD
of equal or lesser value. You can view the terms of the promotion
here:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/pro...nditions.html?
promo=ASBWFYDM3SJCA

Because these items have already shipped to you, you can either keep
the items and we will charge you the amount you should have been
charged or you can return the items – at no cost to you – to
Amazon.com within 30 days. Please note that we can only accept the
return of unopened items in their original condition.

To return items from this order, please visit our Online Returns
Center:

http://www.amazon.com/returns/

As the return is the result of our error, you will not be charged
for return shipping. To make sure you are not charged for return
shipping, please select "Missed estimated delivery time" as the
reason for return in the drop-down box that appears on the form.

If you decide to keep the items or we have not received the items
you wish to return by January 28, we will charge your credit card
for any unreturned items in a manner consistent with the terms of
the promotion described above.

Please be assured that the amount that would be charged to your
account is the same price that was listed on the product detail page
on our web site at the time you placed your order.

Thank you for your understanding. We hope to see you again at
Amazon.com.


Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:

If yes, click here:

If not, click here:

Please note: this e-mail was sent from an address that cannot accept
incoming e-mail.

To contact us about an unrelated issue, please visit the Help
section of our web site.


Best regards,

Reena

After I sent a reply to my first "Let's just ignore everything he's written and re-send the original email" response asking that someone please read the message and answer my questions regarding international shipping refunds and how we are supposed to meet the deadline.

All questions ignored, message obviously not read and the above mass-generated email sent out. Just plain ridiculous.

Blah. I'm tired of going around in circles with them, and done trying to organise a return.

I'll wait for them to try to charge me and dispute.

I did that Friday morning (December 29th) -

Thats crap and you know it, there have always been deals that people have missed it.

I think it has more to do with, A company actually doing something about it..and people that got something for nothing, are upset because they are being called on it. Instead of what usually happens (They get away with it)

Like I said in a previous post, I've done this in the past..and will do so in the future, I won't throw a fit because Amazon tries to charge you for the right price.

You should read the little bit about unilateral mistake. Amazon might have a legal leg to stand on (not charging more, but in getting its goods back).

That link to the legal journal was pretty good reading.

There were complaints way before Amazon sent out that email. 3 closed threads worth.

And would you throw a fit if those companies you took advantage of sent you an email now? Are you telling me that you would send them the difference if they emailed you tomorrow?

So where does this put the thing about 'recieving unsolicited packages'? IIRC, if you receive something in the mail you didn't order [except by omission like not returning a book club reply form or something like that], you can keep it without paying. The situations aren't totally similar, but could this open up precedent for the sender to say "Hey, that thing we sent you, whoops, send it back in mint condition or we'll charge you 49.99?"
The law, according to some interpretations of previous cases, may be on Amazon's side, but customer service is not. No, the customer is not always right, but as has been said before, Amazon screwed up, they had plenty of time to fix it or minimize their losses, they didn't do that. Threatening their customers [and yes, I have spent lots of money on legitimate things at Amazon] and threatening to break the law by recharging without permission [if that's illegal] is at worst illegal and very heavyhanded, at best definitely not customer-friendly and should be worrisome to anyone who buys stuff online from anywhere.

Well stated.

It may not be customer friendly, but I don't imagine Amazon is too inclined to be friendly to customers who abused a glitch on their site to get a bunch of DVD sets for free.

Ethics aside, technically, I didn't get anything for free. The way my orders worked, I payed $3-5 before shipping. Looking at my records, 1 order sat for 3 days before it was even shipped.

And if I wanted to be an asshole, Amazon owes me another box set. One of my orders, shortly after being placed, was changed. One of the DVD's disappeared, but they still shipped the other. So if I'm to pay full price for the one they shipped, the owe me another, by terms of the deal they keep showing.

I'm just saying

As dtcarson said in his post, he(as have I) has made plenty of legitimate orders with Amazon through the years. I just dropped over $400 at Amazon for Christmas gifts and I'm thinking about getting a plasma TV from them. Just because someone places an order during a glitch doesn't mean that they haven't given Amazon plenty of good business in the past or future.

Well, about 99% of what's been written in this thread has been "crap", so I guess you can just lump my post in with the rest of 'em.

Look, what's done is done. But next time there's a deal like the Family Video $5 off $5, I'd expect all the people around here judging everyone else to pass on it, unless they truly were a new customer. But boy were there lots of orders placed in that thread, many on multiple orders. And again without so much moralizing.

I fully expected these orders to be cancelled. They always are. So this time they went through, but that should have been the end of it.

Here's my two cents....

I got in on the deal. I ordered king of queens: season 6 & Tick: complete series. I only paid 13.97, since i got 2-day shipping. I was always planning on getting in on the deal, saving 20 or so bucks just sweetened the deal.

I have no idea if they sent me an e-mail, since i'm having trouble with my aol, but i'm assuming they did. I also didn't open any of the dvd's, so i could send them back if i choose. The point is......My order wasn't shipped till december 27th, enough time to correct THEIR MISTAKE!!!!