Hi gang:
Normally we don't get involved in this type of thing, but some nice folks pointed out what Ryan was doing on the site here, so we felt it was only fair to respond.
Here is text from a reply I sent to anyone notifying me of this. It's missing the screenshot which shows the dating and separate orders, but anyone who is interested is welcome to e-mail us and we'll send it along:
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Without checking anything else about the order sequence, I assumed that there was a server glitch. Apparently not so. Or it could have been a combination of things, because the order was originally started on the 13th. We did the update on the Tuesday, which was the 15th, and it should have taken on that day. He then picked up the cart on the 16th, subsequent to the update, so we suspect that he saw the updated pricing and then decided to pick up the cart and formulate the amended order. We have a piece in our terms of service that covers that type of situation, and stipulates that abandoned carts which are subsequently picked up must be done so at prices currently in effect at the time of pickup. What we're trying to figure out is how the items added to the pickup didn't register properly.
We did in fact offer a reasonable alternative (at least we thought it was reasonable). The alternative was one "set" of what he ordered at the price stipulated in the original order there, plus one set at the correct pricing which should have been in effect. He would have gotten 2 copies of each book, there would have been a blended average price there which would have still been substantially less than the updated pricing, and he'd be able to resell them at a reasonable profit. He declined that and came back with the single set offer.
Incidentally, the way to avoid this problem is to place pre-orders for any issues that someone wants to speculate on. Pre-orders carry no limitations of any kind, and we're happy to ship them. The problem with pre-orders of course is that if the book(s) don't turn "hot", then you've got a lot of books that are being received with little upside.
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I appreciate the fact that Ryan included most of the communications between us. I thought that we were always polite and respectful, but you'll note that as soon as we declined his offer, he got steamed and went off on us a bit. Personally I don't see the purpose of a smear campaign, but I guess there's always one person in the crowd who has to do this kind of thing. And of course it subsequently attracts all the folks who like to jump on board with some of the comments you see above.
So before everyone goes on the "chucks and sucks" bandwagon, you may want to try us out and see for yourself.
Anyway, thanks for listening.