A regular day. You’re surfing the web. I wonder what’s new on Amazon today. You log in, check out the new stuff around when suddenly something catches your eye. A CD-ROM. Nothing fancy you’d say. But it’s a special CD-ROM. A $3billion worth CD-ROM. Wow! I wonder what the trick is, cos this thing can’t possibly be this expensive…This must be a mistake! Out of pure curiosity, you fill in your credit card details and you buy it! Let’s see what happens. Ha, you’re even charged an extra $3.99 for the posting and handling. Who would have thought..?
This would have been the start of a funny January day, if your name were Brian Klug. Cos, of course, just like him, you would have told yourself that it’s definitely a mistake, and Amazon policies state: Despite our best efforts, a small number of the items in our catalogue may be mispriced. If an item’s correct price is higher than our stated price, we will, at our discretion, either contact you for instructions before shipping or cancel your order and notify you of such cancellation.
But wait!There’s a catch! The CD-ROM was not being sold by Amazon, but by a third party company, meaning Suburbanbooks. And regarding third parties, Amazon states:This policy applies only to products sold and shipped by Amazon.com. Your purchases from third-party sellers are charged at the time you place your order, and third-party sellers may follow different policies in the event of a mispriced item. He even received an order confirmation after he paid the shipment.
Panic moment? Nah. Amazon called the guy in order to discuss the $2,904,980,000 purchase. Then they made sure Brian Klug received the order cancellation e-mail, and waited for him to confirm that it was all OK on his end.
Apparently his curiosity may have earned Klug a place in the Amazon record book.