What's the Right Thing?

  • No if the error was in the promotion no shipping will be linked to it and the transaction linked to charge would have charged the users twice who would have reported it immediately. This is an error that should be caught in code review before formal testing but most companies will not pay for experts to do code review.

     

    Kind regards,
    Gift Peddie

  • I guess everybody can agree with the fact it was Amazon's fault.  But like any other big corporation out there, they think it's the customers problem and provide lousy ways of fixing the issue.  The PR department could have handled it better and provided more positive ways of trying to get the money back.

    1.   Informing the customer of Amazon's mistake and apologize.  It's not the customers fault this big error happened.

    2.   Tell the customer what the price of the items checked out should have been and give them a little further discount on the 2 for one deal.  There is nothing worse than hearing the amount go from 0.00 to X dollars.  But if you provide a further discount on the X amount.  That may make things a little easier for the customer to accept.

    3.   If the customer is still unwilling to pay.  The credit card is max'd out or I can't afford it.  Then offer the option to the customer for a prepaid return envelope.  The customer should not be forced to return it at their own cost. As this was a Christmas promotion this option might not work for all customers.  Reason being that the item could be given to somebody else as a Christmas gift and would be very difficult to ask for the item back.

    If all options have failed.  Then I'm afraid Amazon has to absorb the loss.  Is it morally wrong.  I would have to say Yes.  Nothing is free in this world.  But at least the customer was given the options to rectify the problem.

  • Simple and to the point Jack. I agree.

    Those that were honest enough to point out the mistake get the reward. Those who were devious have to pay.

    Amazon comes out a winner by looking after it's honest customers and slapping the wrist (hardly as they are getting the deal they were offered) of those who tried to take advantage of the situation.

    I should add here the Amazon need to be careful about how the recover the money - just charging a credit card without authorisation is going to lead to trouble for them I would say. Request authorisation from those involved, clearly stating what is to be charged.

    If the time between the error occurring and Amazon asking for recompense is a couple of months I would say it is unrealistic for them to expect the DVD's not to have been opened, so again, they need to work their way around that carefully.


    Regards,

    Steve

    Life without beer is no life at all

    All beer is good, some beers are just better than others

  • Not sure about US law, but I don't think there would be a contract under UK law - which requires consideration to have been made.

    Therefore legally the customer would probably not own the goods so should return them unopened or make the required consideration (for one DVD) at Amazon's request. If they gave them as a present they should pay.

    A friend (no really, it wasn't me) once got sent 3 little MP3 players when he'd only ordered one (think that was amazon too). He waited a while to see if they would notice their mistake then sold the other two. That was undoubtedly wrong, but it is surprisingly easy to take the Stainless Steel Rat's (Harry Harrison) argument that corporations are insured for their loss, no-one really suffers blaa blaa blaa. This is clearly not morally right.    

    As for whom is to blame, who can say - I assume that their coupon set up system would allow the coupon to be generated and sent to a test address/or used before doing a mass mailing. It would be the work of a few seconds for an operative at Amazon to test it out on the live site. I don't think you can pin this one on the IT staff, unless their coupon set up system is horribly deficient.     

     

    Steven DavidsonDeveloper, Red Gate Software Ltd.

  • The civilized behavior would be like this:

    1. We accept the charge for ONE item (because the other one was advertised as free). Returning is not right because we were supposed to want to buy – those that “purchased” only after they were notified about the error are not on this track anyways
    2. Amazon appreciates it and send a voucher or some other token to those that accepted the charge.

     

    Mistakes happen and everybody is innocent until proven guilty, so the matter that Amazon wanted to “probe the water” if unfounded in facts shouldn’t be raised.

     

    DB

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