Recent Amazon Price Error: You'll be charged unless you return!!
 

Just got this email from Amazon. Needless to say, I expect the responses in this thread to be quite entertaining.

EDIT: This forum changes the URL in the link below. I don't know how to make the original URL "stick."

<hr>

Hello from Amazon.com.

In reviewing your order placed on 23-Dec-06, 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/exec/obidos/AS...=ATVPDKIKX0DER

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.

We apologize for this inconvenience and appreciate your understanding
in this matter. Thanks for shopping at Amazon.com.

Best regards,

Amazon.com
Customer Service
http://www.amazon.com

Please note: this e-mail was sent from a notification-only address
that cannot accept incoming e-mail. Please do not reply to this
message.

Heh. Good thing I didn't open the one order that went through. No big loss. Should be fun to read some of the responses here.

I just received the same email. To make matters worse all of my orders were delivered to the wrong address by UPS and they don't yet know where they delivered them to.

I guess ppl who ordered lots of dvds from there gonna get SCREWED 4 BIG TIME!!!!

Sort of makes the countless posts about the ethics of the matter even more pointless, too.

I just got the same thing. And I have already opened some of the DVDs. Has this ever happened before? A glitch/price mistake, leading to a forced return?

Also when will they charge extra, after the 30 day return period?

I'd imagine the people (not just the ones here) who abused the hell out of this thing really forced Amazon's hand here. Who's to say whether they would have ultimately let it slide one way or the other, but I'd imagine because so many people took advantage of this without paying a cent left Amazon will little choice.

real classy amazon, real classy.

Glad I kept out of this "glitch/deal". I just didn't feel like putting up with this type of mess over the holidays.

lol, got my four sets yesterday and felt that the deal was still too good to be true. I'll send them back as I didn't have a chance to watch them yet. But man, anybody who opened their sets to watch has got to be feeling a little woozy right now.

With that said, I'm not sure amazon has any right to force the hand of those who got in on this deal. Should be interesting to see how this plays out.

I am fighting it now!

I plan on sending my order back via UPS. Are they going to give me the $3.97 (invoice)credit Plus the UPS (return)charges on my Credit Card? IE. How do they know how much the return shipping is if I send it prepaid?

Haha!

A lot of people will be out the 2 day shipping charges if they decide to send them back.

I don't believe Amazon would have a leg to stand on if they tried charging more for the DVDs if you disputed it with your credit card company.

Well, I just don't see how the credit card company would side with Amazon in this case. We placed an order at a set price, were shipped the goods, and now we're being asked to pay more than we agreed to pay or return the items. Assuming you've opened the product, then you're being "forced" to pay more than you agreed to pay.

It doesn't need to be passed off that you were trying to take advantage. If you placed like one or two orders, then you say you saw that you were getting a great price on a good promotion, and wanted to purchase the items at those prices. If Amazon messed up how they priced the promotion, that is not the buyer's responsibilty to confirm. What if instead of taking off the entire 2nd item, they took off $10. Would it be the buyer's responsibility to make sure they priced it correctly?

This will be very interesting.

I think Amazon is really flirting with the lines of legality here with this one. They are trying to cover their butts by saying that we agreed to the promotion link when we made the purchase.

I'm sorry, but I only agreed to the amount that you said I owed when I checked out. Is it really legal for them to just deduct whatever they want from your CC? I really screwed myself on this one because Amazon defaulted to my old mailing address but I caught the mistake. I won't get all the packages for several weeks.

I used my Paypal credit/debit card for the purchase. I wonder how that would play out.

Those who have opened their DVDs, or plan on fighting it, what are you planning to do? Seems like we need a course of action, to bombard them or something.

After this, how can any deal at Amazon be trusted.

They wouldn't. I had an online merchant that once tried this and I disputed the charge. My credit card company quickly removed the charge from my account and I never heard another word about it. I would suggest anyone that used a credit card to call them.

So I ordered internationally from the UK.

How exactly am I going to make their imposed deadline, when their slow as molasses shipping means that I won't even get them for another 3-4 weeks (DDD shipping takes 5-7 days. Amazon takes almost a month. Why is that?), and then have to allow time for them to get from here to there?

(Edit - Just checked my order details:

Delivery Estimate: January 12, 2007 - January 26, 2007

Amazon's return deadline for these orders: January 28th, 2007

Better fire up my DeLorean if I want to make that deadline.)

And does anyone know the international return shipping process? I'm expected to pay for the international shipping (which will likely cost as much as the DVDs themselves) for the 4 shipments I ordered and they refund it later?

Good job I stuck with ordering things I wouldn't mind having to pay for, but still. I can't see the sense in them covering the international charges.

"Hi, we're Amazon, we don't want to take a loss on these DVDs we sent you, but we will take an almost equal loss on refunding you your shipping."

So something tells me I'm keeping them or paying for shipping.

I just deleted my payment method and will not use amazon any longer. Funny when I hear people bitch about DDDVD! They would never pull this crap!

There is justice in this world. I plan to send a letter to Amazon commending them for their action and will give them my business whenever possible. I don't think they're going to miss a lot of sleep over losing the business of people who tried to rip them off.

For once, an internet company actually got revenge against people for taking advantage of them. Hilarious. I'm sure that guy in that thread in Other Forum would be happy about this.

Well, it actually happens all the time. It's called canceling the order. Happened with the Ape Head. Happened with Rome. Happened countless times before. And likely well within the e-tailer's rights.

But coming in after the products have shipped and putting forth this option is way out of the ordinary, and likely hardly enforceable. They messed up. Nobody manipulated anything here. It was Amazon's fault. Again, it's not the buyer's responsibility to confirm that a promotion is being applied properly.

Call Customer Service
 

I just called CS and they are calling me back, but they agreed that this is a mess and the gentleman I had on the phone was very nice and said he believed that they had opened up a big can of worms with their email. He also said that he very highly doubted I would be charged anything additional and that it was Amazon's fault with the pricing error. If they would have caught it prior to shipment, it would have been cancelled, but because they didn't and because I have receipts showing the pricing, I should be aok.

So I usually only lurk here, but wanted to post my experience and recommend others to call right away. Personally, I believe this is a scare email to try and recover some of the losses they have incurred.

I also called my cc company and was told that if additional charges showed, I just had to dispute them and it would be an automatic credit.

SO< I am not too worried on this one.