A group of consumers filed a class-action lawsuit against Buy.com alleging that the online superstore failed to fill orders it had already charged to credit cards.
The suit was filed in Orange County, California, late last week by a group of customers who organized online to voice their complaints.
"They took the orders and charged the cards, then unilaterally canceled those orders," said Gary Sodikoff, the Santa Ana, California-based attorney behind the suit.
The complaints are based on what Buy.com says was an unfortunate typo the first weekend of February. The Buy.com Web site listed a 19-inch Hitachi monitor for US$164.50, about $400 less than the correct price.
Buy.com has tried to position itself in the market as the cheapest outlet for computer goods on the Web, proclaiming it will beat any other online price. Buyers flocked to the site to purchase the monitor.
When Buy.com discovered the error 8 February, the company canceled most of the nearly 1,400 orders. Less than 150 orders were filled with the monitors Buy.com already had in stock.
The company sent emails apologizing for the mix-up and explaining the situation. But that was after buyers were subjected to days of mixed messages from Buy.com customer-service representatives, who allegedly told buyers, "The price was a weekend special," or "Your order has been canceled."
The irksome thing for customers isn't that they aren't getting monitors at the bargain-basement price. They're challenging what they say is Buy.com's policy of charging credit cards first, then asking questions later. The Hitachi monitor incident isn't the only time the company has had to cancel massive numbers of orders, according to the lawsuit.
This week, discussion groups are aflame with news that Buy.com canceled between 15,000 and 19,000 orders for Intel's 300 MHz Celeron processor. After taking the orders, Buy.com notified customers that the processor had been discontinued.
Manny Vara, a spokesman for Intel's Celeron division, said distributors were notified about the discontinuance in February, but they can still place orders for the processor through June 1999.
"[Distributors] have four months to continue to place orders from the time we send them notice," Vara said. "From the moment they get the notice, it could be several quarters until they run out."
