For that price, heck, I'll try.

It just appeared on Tech Bargains. Oh well, it is all over now.

yup, kiss that one goodbye

Unless they maintain a qeue. If you get a confirmation there is still a chance.

> If you get a confirmation there is still a chance.

Yeah, if. I have not, nor have two other people in my office who ordered at about the same time. Has anyone other than Bleach received a ship date or order number?

Yep.

ESTIMATED SHIP DATE: on or before Nov 03, 2003

Got a confirmation as well. But nothing is final until they charge your card, which they don't do until they ship.

I got a number and ship date on or before Nov. 3. Went back to dell site. If you click on Karma now you get sent to "Sorry product was not found" site.

ooohh... so there maybe hope for those that got in under the gun.

you can still click through on the 40gb =]

Dell seems to be on to this. As of ~4pm PDT, searching the Dell site for "Karma" finds the 20 and 40GB players listed. Clicking on the 20GB now gets you a "Sorry Product Was Not Found" message. Probably a tempory message until they can "re-evaluate" their pricing.

This may be good news for those who've already placed their orders. Fingers crossed!

I did just receive my confirmation at 5:22 pm MST, after they pulled it. Here's to hoping!

Still doubtful it is going to happen. Hopefully somebody out there is nice to me if it does though

A while back Dell had a pricing mistake on some of their LCD monitors. The 21" model was going for half price and I think the 19" model also had substantial cuts in the price. They emailed everybody to say that it was a mistake and they wouldn't be honouring the price. As compensation they offered everybody a £100 discount from what I remember.

A 20GB Karma costs $360 on Amazon. As they're going for $70 on Dell, they're making roughly $290 loss on each one. So for a conservative estimate of around 5000 players ordered (It's not that unlikely, some people on the Anandtech forums seem to have ordered 30+ each) then that's $1.45 MILLION in losses... Even Dell doesn't have pockets that deep.

What's likely to happen is that Dell will offer the Karma at the correct price but give people a discount voucher worth $50 or so.

I was able to get in under the gun, but have not gotten a confirmation. I can't imaging Dell is going to honor this. This has been posted all over the Internet. Even if just 1000 units were ordered, that would be at least a couple of hundred thousand in lost profits for Dell.

Great way to advertise the Karma though... And to stir up additional interest... So, Nanook, who did you bribe at Dell for that little, uh, "mistake"??? (Just Kidding!!!)

It's the idiots who ordered 30+ that ruin it for everyone!

heheh. yeah, when you put it in monetary loss figures... i'm not holding my breath.

In the future, create threads in the proper place.

That way your local admins can get in on these deals .

Can anyone say "Rio Central"???

Not that this would be worth pursuing in a legal forum, but does anyone know whether there is any legality around internet advertised pricing? I think there are some laws out there about false advertising in print, but on the internet?

Rio Central!

All the same, i'm now smacking myself for not doing overnight shipping! DOH DOH DOH DOH.

wait... looks like they all have the same ship date no matter what method you chose. unDOH.

When I first looked at it, it was still 5-7 days before shipping. I don't think Dell had any in stock.

--Nathan

At the bottom of the confirmation page, it clearly states that Dell isn't responsible for typographical mistakes regarding prices or information.

Having said that, I ordered one :-)

"Dell cannot be responsible for errors in typography or photography" is the exact wording.

Link is now dead...Before I could order one.

Not sure about the US but there are loads of complicated laws about it in the UK.

It all boils down to whether they've taken your money or not. If they've actually charged your credit card and received the money in their account then they should ship the item to you for the agreed price. If however they've just reserved the amount and it's currently being held by the credit card company then the transaction hasn't actually been completed yet.

About false advertising they have to show that it was a mistake and that nobody would actually believe that the price was correct. A chain called Argos advertised a TV for £0.01 once. Several thousand people bought it but Argos didn't supply the TV's in the end. A few people actually tried to sue them because of that but their case was shot down because it was obvious that the price was a mistake.

Kodak advertised a £300 digital camera as a special offer for £100. Since £100 isn't too unrealistic for a digital camera and they also advertised it as a special deal they were on shakey ground. The order confirmation email was also worded poorly and implied that the order was accepted and was being processed. In the end they decided to sell everybody the camera's at £100 each as a sign of good faith.

IANAL etc...

In case anyone is interested about how the legal system has dealt with previous cases such as the one we are currently facing with Dell, check out this article:
http://www.haledorr.com/publications/pubsdetail.asp?ID=161216302003

As I said, not that we all have enough time to sit around and sue Dell, but it makes for an educated argument when speaking to the supervising staff at Dell concerning any potential refusal to fill one's order.

My orders from Dell always state this at the bottom of the email:
"Dell cannot be responsible for typographical or other errors, and reserves the right to cancel any orders resulting from such errors."

Of course for a large company for Dell, reputation can mean everything. Legally they may not be held liable but trust of the consumer is another thing altogether. I'm curious, is there an outside chance that the 40 gb is being secretly released and the 20 gb is being dumped? (I doubt it too . Just raising conspiracy theories.) It appears you can put the 40 gb in your cart. If it's not in stock or being delivered their ordering system is very deceptive. A "sorry out of stock" should pop up to warn you that the product isn't even available yet!

Dell makes these "mistakes" all the time. When are they going to take responsibility for that?

--Nathan

Wow I got in on this one a little bit late although I think I was able to order it. As soon as I ordered it I tried to go back and add another to the shopping cart and it said "ERROR Sorry we are unable to process your request at this time. Please try again in a few minutes. If this problem persists, please come back later or call one of our sales representatives."
so who knows whats going to happen. Only time will tell

Eh. Talk about Karma... from all the days I have to stay after school, it had to be today. Oh well - good luck to all that ordered!

And by any chance, if these do come... if anyone ordered a spare, please PM me a price if you're willing to sell it. I'm poor enough as a high-school student... been saving up for a Karma. Profit for you and a good price for me.

ditto

not that i'm holding my breath that it will work