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I'll be very, very pleased if this shows up, even if "Dark Blue" and "Dance With Me, Henry" have fallen out of the sleeves and been obliterated inside the luxurious metal-plastic case. Amazon claims it will ship by May 5th, although I've had previous instances where I've ordered an "in stock" import item and it turns into a "we'll let you know" situation (although it ultimately arrived).

I've decided to interpret this situation as cosmic payback for the fabulous duties charged for my last B&N sale purchase.

Email from Amazon CA.

Hello,

We're contacting you about order XXX. Unfortunately, we recently discovered that an error caused the following item(s) to be displayed at an incorrect price:

United Artists 90th Anniversary Prestige Collection

In this case, we're unable to offer this item for the incorrectly posted price. Therefore, we've cancelled your order for this item.

At any given time, despite our best efforts, a small number of the millions of items on our site may be mispriced. We're very sorry for this disappointing news.

We value your business and hope to see you again soon.

Sincerely,

Customer Service Department

I don't know much about Canadian law, but I'm pretty sure if this was in the UK they would have to honor the sale by law.
I remember years ago finding a brand new LP in HMV priced £00.01 by mistake, they had to sell it to me for 1 pence.

It depends on where the company is based, tax heavens don't have many trading restrictions.

I previously worked at an HMV in Canada and, yep, if something is mis-priced, the customer "wins" (as it is with most brick-and-mortar stores over here). No idea if it's the law or not, but I'm none too pleased about the form e-mail and see-ya-next-time handling of this situation.

SMELL YA LATER FOREVER, AMAZON.

They're not required by law to honour the price in Canada if it was a mistake but most places would to keep good relations with their customers.

Local jurisdictions (states, cities etc.) can have their own laws, but broadly speaking, the U.S., Australia, Canada and the UK follow the same common-law tradition when it comes to stuff like this -- a marked price has no legal weight and is simply an "invitation to treat" (an invitation for prospective buyers to make an offer to the seller). The seller can withdraw or reprice the item at any point and it only becomes a binding contract when the seller accepts the buyer's offer and the product has changed hands (with online shopping, this is effectively when the item ships). An unhonored misprice is only actionable if it was deliberately deceptive. Amazon.ca has refused to honor misprices in the past, so this isn't really surprising.

I also got the same mail. It was also almost too good to be true.

In Denmark the rules are, that the seller can cancel if buyer is in "bad faith", that is if buyer knew the price was a mistake.

What a colossal clusterfuck of a boxed set. Who buys these things? No one.

Person wrote:What a colossal clusterfuck of a boxed set. Who buys these things? No one.

Apparently lots of people if you misprice them low enough.

Having owned this set for almost 24 horrifying hours, I deem myself enough of an authority on the subject to say that it isn't worth the 17 bucks. Just having it in my home made me feel dirty and ashamed - and I got it for free.

I find this mass condemnation of the set somewhat soothing. It's highly likely this hobgoblin of DVD box sets would have found no handsome arrangement on my shelf amongst the most subtle and elegant sets. Nonetheless, I'm disappointed in not receiving the gaps in my collection ("The Killing," "The Woman in the Window," "Witness for the Prosecution") for pennies a disc (a price likely appropriate to the generally mediocre extras and dated transfers).

I'm also kind of incredulous with Amazon's benign customer service response in light of the scale of this gaffe. I feel an non-form email of apology outlining the specific problem experienced would be widely appreciated.

Sort of expected Amazon to honor this mistake, due to prior experiences with Amazon.co.uk and other webshops as well, when they simply took their losses when an item was mispriced.

The "invitation to treat" and "bad faith" doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Legally just or not, no self-respecting webshop (or any business) would operate this way, and where I come from a deal is a deal. When an internet purchase is made exactly can be debated endlessly, but since many webshops offer direct payment through Paypal or bank transfer, normally the purchase is made when the confirmation of your order is sent. And that puts Amazon in the clear. They don't charge your creditcard until shipping, so technically no purchase was made.
And when customers can cancel their order untill shipping, it's seems reasonable the seller can do the same thing, but if the reason is mispricing, any self-respecting webshop would be wise enough to simply accept their losses, and pay more attention to their pricing in the future. It's just part of the game.

I think Amazon.ca is liable to Washington State Laws and in their own disclaimer Amazon.ca is quite clear about mispricing:

Disputes

Any dispute relating in any way to your visit to the Amazon.ca site or to products you purchase through Amazon.ca shall be submitted to confidential arbitration in Seattle, Washington, United States, except that, to the extent that you have in any manner violated or threatened to violate the intellectual property rights of Amazon.ca or its affiliates, Amazon.ca or its affiliates may seek injunctive or other appropriate relief in any state or federal court in the state of Washington, and you consent to exclusive jurisdiction and venue in such courts. Arbitration under this agreement shall be conducted under the rules then prevailing of the American Arbitration Association. The arbitrator's award shall be binding and may be entered as a judgment in any court of competent jurisdiction. To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, no arbitration under this Agreement shall be joined to an arbitration involving any other party subject to this Agreement, whether through class arbitration proceedings or otherwise.

Pricing

We offer you consistently low prices on every item in our store. All prices are listed in Canadian dollars. You may be able to pay for your order in your local currency using the Amazon Currency Converter. For more information about the Amazon Currency Converter click here.

We do not have a price-matching policy at this time, nor do we offer additional discounts on large orders of a single title or on large orders of many individual titles.

Oversized and extremely heavy items are marked on their product detail pages as requiring a special surcharge. The surcharge varies and depends on the size and weight of the item. This charge will be included in the Shipping & Handling subtotal of your order.

We cannot confirm the price of an item until you order, but please note that we do not charge your credit card until your order enters the shipping process. Despite our best efforts, a small number of the items in our catalogue are mispriced. Rest assured, however, that we verify prices as part of our shipping procedures.

* If an item's correct price is lower than our stated price, we charge the lower amount and ship you the item.
* If an item's correct price is higher than our stated price, we--at our discretion--will either contact you for instructions before shipping or cancel your order and notify you of such cancellation.