Donkeys and Elephants and Delegates,oh my!
Check out the most popular
Amazon Xbox 360 Thanksgiving Day Scam
xxdesmusxx.net — I just thought I would congratulate Amazon on a very well planned scam. You announce that you will offer Xbox 360s at a ridiculous price, 11a.m. PST rolls by, the site magically dies, and then when it comes back up magically again it says all sold out.
xxdesmus- 90 diggs
- digg it
- guitarpro411, on 10/12/2007, -25/+5I agree man.
I was refreshing every 10 seconds and at about 11:58 MNT (10:58 PST)
It stoped responding took about 3 minutes to load and when it did it said out of stock.
Pretty lame.- CheckMarshall, on 10/12/2007, -5/+29Actually, I won one, and I have talked to a couple other people (from local areas and 2000 miles away) that won. The speed that the orders are sent over the internet are at fault not, Amazon. Dont hate. I just went to the http site too. Did nothing special. Just lucked out.
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a255/checkmarshall/ScreenShot001.jpg?t=1164317661 - CheckMarshall, on 10/12/2007, -4/+35Sounds like a bunch of baby-back-bitching to me.
Yeah, servers slow down during heavy traffic. Welcome to the internet.
Anyone who shops on Woot.com's one item a day sale is used to this. You log on at Midnight and by 12:00:03 a great deal on a great item is sold out...the server even goes to *****. That is a daily event.
Bottom line, you win some, you lose some. - Four20, on 10/12/2007, -4/+17agreed, how did this get to the front page
one too many internet kiddies crying because they missed on on a real deal. . .so they call it a scam.
didn't you get tired of doing this in elemetary school?
damn, grow up - rockforever, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9Wow, I know everyone here is accustomed to the Digg effect but when it happens somewhere other than from digg its *****? Thats what happens when they have a crazy deal. Wake up tomorrow and check wal-mart it'll be the same thing with people instead of computers.
- wahooka, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4thanks for posting the picture of a valid order. congrats on getting one.
obviously there was overwhelming response for this and perhaps millions of people were clicking reload. that's enough to slow down any server.... even google.
not amazon's fault, amazon is great for this promo. - gxcdesign, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4You guys know you'll bitch just as much if it were a Wii for 100
- djlosch, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3submitted CheckMarshall's image as a story. frontpage this.
http://www.digg.com/gaming_news/Amazon_s_Xbox_360_promo_was_NOT_a_scam - izzybomb, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3This blogspam is ridiculous. WTF? He posts a blog that says "wahh it was a scam" and posts a link to it on digg. Wow, good job getting traffic by being an ass.
I wouldnt bother going to the site, the WHOLE post is in the subtext of this "article" - sych0, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1you guys clogged the tubes
- CheckMarshall, on 10/12/2007, -5/+29Actually, I won one, and I have talked to a couple other people (from local areas and 2000 miles away) that won. The speed that the orders are sent over the internet are at fault not, Amazon. Dont hate. I just went to the http site too. Did nothing special. Just lucked out.
- xxdesmus, on 10/12/2007, -21/+5yeah, at 10:58 PST the servers just died, and that was it...all gone by the time amazon.com loaded again.
such *****. - wonkabu, on 10/12/2007, -19/+5Same here, the site died and then it showed "Sold out".
Total lie. - xxdesmus, on 10/12/2007, -26/+3For the record, I have already have a X360, this was going to be my brother's Xmas present.
I hope more people digg this, I want Amazon to be aware that we know about the ***** they just pulled.
I already sent an email to customer support with the whole contents of the article I wrote. Feel free to do the same if you agree with me. - cwoolf34, on 10/12/2007, -18/+7They said limited quantities. So that could have legally just been one Xbox.It's ridiculous to get pissed over something so obscure. As the saying goes... "If something sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't true." Quit your whining and enjoy your day off. This is the most immature reaction I have seen in a while (well that might be an overstatement). Everybody is so sue happy these days, that letter is a joke. I can understand that you are angry (I am too), but talking about suing a company over this kind of thing is just stupid.
Think about this...
a few hundred years ago people where having a celebration of the fact that they SURVIVED the migration between two continents. Today, people are talking about suing a company because they couldn't buy a game console at a low price.
Wow... we have really made a lot of progress in society.- Plaguefox, on 10/12/2007, -6/+9Disregarding the rest of your post—especially your snappish little "lot of progress" snark and your insinuation that the "legal action" comment was anything more than a frustrated person's poor choice of words for expressing their displeasure—I thought I'd point out that they offered one-thousand units. That's the limited quantity mentioned. So "They said limited quantities ... could have legally just been one Xbox." is false.
Just so you know. - cwoolf34, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8That wasn't the point, I was saying that they did nothing worthy of a lawsuit. And I stand by my comment (or "snark" as you call it). When people sue (or even talk about doing it) over something like this, it just goes to show how ridiculous our society has become. My point is that some people need to just chill before jumping to conclusions, such as "THIS IS A SCAM". Maybe he should have thought things through before actually taking the time to email Amazon that he is so pissed off that he wishes to take legal action.
"In reality, you didn’t sell a single unit at $100"
Check your facts. I have already seen proof of people getting the deal. You had to go to the secure server https://www.amazon.com and answer a few simple math questions to get the deal. - HalBSure, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8It always said that there were only 1000 available at that price.
EDIT: My reading comprehension sucks, the 1000 was already mentioned. I'll leave this up for anyone who is just skimming through.
- Plaguefox, on 10/12/2007, -6/+9Disregarding the rest of your post—especially your snappish little "lot of progress" snark and your insinuation that the "legal action" comment was anything more than a frustrated person's poor choice of words for expressing their displeasure—I thought I'd point out that they offered one-thousand units. That's the limited quantity mentioned. So "They said limited quantities ... could have legally just been one Xbox." is false.
- jasonprussell, on 10/12/2007, -5/+28Or just maybe the 400 trillion people who were refreshing the page brough their servers down. I got mine, I'll be reselling on eBay for $250 for anyone who wants it. In the future, I'd recommend using https:// instead of http://, their secure site was up while their non-secure site was down.
- maninblac1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Amen, if the digg effect can bring down a server as anyone who uses this site knows. Trying to service 1000, or 10,000 HTTP requests in a matter of seconds is likely to bring any server down. I know our local database stresses out when we have more than about 500 people on it with a few minutes of each other.
- everywhereasign, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12Thank you Jasonprussell, I've seen three screenshots of people who did get them. I know it's shocking, but maybe, just maybe the Amazon servers couldn't handle it and there were only 1000 available. They have no reason to "scam" everyone.
"OMG, The Lottery is such a scam, I always play and have NEVER won 15 million dollars. Way to go Lottery, you say that you're giving away a chance to win millions by paying 2 dollars, and when the numbers "magically" come up, they're never mine. It's obvious the people who "claim" to win are planted to help scam more people"
makes just as much sense.
- Steaminx, on 10/12/2007, -15/+2Amazon is too good of a store to boycott it. I was one of the people waiting to grab one and to my surprise they were sold out. I haven't heard one person come out and say "I'M SO EXCITED! I GOT AN XBOX360 FOR $100!"
Maybe it was just a marketing ploy. - tyevind, on 10/12/2007, -18/+2It was a marketing ploy that is backfiring hard.
- DevilDogs, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4"It was a marketing ploy that is backfiring hard."
That's what I don't get. It was clearly stated, 1000 units available. You had to know there would be rush on them. I hoped I'd get one, but I wasn't counting on it. Why are people so venomous about this? Backfiring? The only backfiring I see is the whole Amazon site went down (at least the http: portion of it), so anyone trying to purchase anything else wouldn't have been able to. To me, that could hurt their business more than some angry people who think they deserve an XBox360. I don't know how many people shop Amazon on Thanksgiving, but for that 30 minutes or so, they probably lost a significant amount of business. Now they have to contend with people threatening a lawsuit? Are you kidding me? Let me guess, you're suing Sony because they didn't produce enough PS3s. If people really do sue, I doubt Amazon will do such an event again. Ever. Thanks to another whiny baby for ruining it for the rest of us.
- DevilDogs, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4"It was a marketing ploy that is backfiring hard."
- RMnTnA, on 10/12/2007, -11/+1They knew they couldn't afford to give away 360's at this price. I would like to see some proof from Amazon of how many they actually sold.
- gharding, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I'm sorry. Did you just say that Amazon couldn't afford to give away 1,000 360's for $100? You don't think Amazon has $200,000 in cash? I imagine they spend $200k in advertising in a matter of hours. For $200k, they got their name plastered all over major online news sites for days and increased traffic to their site SO MUCH that it couldn't even handle it. I'm pretty sure Amazon got its moneys worth.
- nomechingues, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12they offered 1000 I'm sure they gave them away and i am sure the server crashed because millions of people where trying to get in at once, as a matter of fact i bet the cost of amazon being down was a bigger loss than the actual Xbox's
- ggko, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Suck it up, You were 100,000th in line of 250,000 people pounding the servers at 11am. If you were 5th in line with an xbox in your basket, you'd be telling everyone about teh awesom deal1!!!!
- DevilDogs, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Actually, no you wouldn't. It is fairly well known that a satisfied customer tells 1 person about their experience, but a dissatisfied customer tells everyone they know. Or they post it on their blog for people they don't know to read about the "bad" experience.
- Infideler, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17WWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I didn't get an X-Box 360 for $100 and I'm too stupid to comprehend the concept of SERVER LOAD
WWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - Karted, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10I won one so its not a scam.
- skinrock, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Why is this stuff making it to the first page? Not enough people on here to make the algorithm accurate enough?
As was said, welcome to the Internets. Everyone who was sitting there, refreshing non stop, and complaining that the site wouldn't load...guess what, you were all part of the reason the site went down in the first place.
Congratulations on screwing yourself out of the deal. - au071, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Well said, probably there are tens of thousands of people refreshing at the same time, no server can survive this. I didn't get one myself; well, better luck next time I guess. But honestly, the choices for week two kind of sucks...
- dscottp, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13Your blog is slow because it's getting a lot of traffic right now... Is you blog a scam too?
- infiniti029, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9every digger that dugg this story needs to get stabbed in the eye for their stupidity.
BURY THIS! - kidhero, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1digg is so easily gamed
- rick2k, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Im laughing at a story made by sore losers.
You seriously expected to definitely get a $100 360?
LOL welcome to the real world, not everyone wins.- kidhero, on 10/12/2007, -5/+0this is a lame story, but when you're insulting somebody on the internet it's probably best you look up the big words you try to use. otherwise you end up looking dumber.
- rick2k, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3@ kidhero
?
Big words? where?
- everfalling, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4lame. marked as such.
- Xyber411, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3ROTFLMFAO... DIGG EFFECTED... NOW THERE'S A LESSON IN SERVER LOAD!!!
- morgrar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3$100 for Core.
$99 for Hard Drive.
$49 for Wireless Controller.
$39 for HD Cables.
$19 for Headset.
------------------------
$306.
I still don't feel bad about my $399 purchase of the Premium back in Jan. I've also used it for 11 months. Figure if you want to get the Core up to the level of the Premium, what's another $94 (plus taxes and whatever).
Go get one. Go play Gears of War.
I'll see you on Xbox Live :) - sonthiar, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2http://www.xxdesmusxx.net.nyud.net:8080/ee/index.php?/weblog/comments/amazon_xbox_360_thanksgiving_day_scam/
HAVE FUN USING THAT $100 SAVED UP FOR THE XBOX FOR YOUR BANDWIDTH COSTS ^_^ - BoomShake007, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5buried as inaccurate. 1000 units, hundreds of thousands of potential buyers at the same time. server load. the same thing happens when class registration day rolls around at a university.
- sonthiar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2yeah, sucks, boomshake. registration won't load until midnight. registration ends midnight. :(
- NevinW11, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1First off, I was one of the 80000 billion people trying to get ahold of this great deal and I knew it was impropable. I also understand the premise that server's overload and crash since I run and design websites. However, the fact that pisses me off is I live on the east coast and most of Amazon's servers are located on the west coast which means the server load rate is unbalanced. After reading forums after the deal, almost everyone who received an Xbox is from the west coast...How is that fair? I understand sales, such as black market sales aren't fair. But, making an offer to people unable to even have a CHANCE of receiving the offer and giving other people a BETTER chance of receiving a deal is NOT FAIR.
- rick2k, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1You make it sound like its your right for them to have servers close to you..
If it was so then i want a hospital, burger king, supermarket football stadium, internet backbone, cinema etc. all walking distance from my house... the perfect world :) - MalDON, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Hey, doesn't matter where you are, the servers died. I don't think Amazon even thought this would happen. Besides, it was probably all automated anyways.
- rick2k, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1You make it sound like its your right for them to have servers close to you..
- remyz16, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Re: CheckMarshall
And that's the truth...with some cheeeeeese on it! - jdhf99, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1I also wanted to add that I got an xbox from Amazon today at 2PM EST. I am located in New Hampshire on the east coast. I had to answer a simple math problem and it let me place the order. I've attached a screen shot of my order page for proof. It wasn't a scam, just too many people on at one time.
http://www.x10hosting.com/xbox360.JPG- blueigloo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2lol, internet explorer 6 ;-)
- NevinW11, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1But when you have an internet service such as Amazon.com, one of the world's leading online stores, everyone, no matter where you live, should have the same opportunity. What they should have done is offer 500 systems to the west coast and 500 systems to the east coast, if that could be possible.
- xopherg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Amazon's servers are primarily on the east coast.
- maskedm564, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Honestly. I was pissed that I didn't get one
Yes I was one of the people that was on like 3 minutes before and felt good about getting it before it sold out.
Yes I was one of the probably thousands and thousands of people who watched in shock as the site went dead and then suddenly came back saying the product was sold out.
Yes I do feel kind of cheated because of how it happened. I wouldn't have felt as bad if the page stayed up and I was just too late, instead of having to look as "page can't be displayed" errors for 10 minutes and then just see it sold out.
But you know what....oh well, that's just how it goes. I went and ate a lot of food and forgot about it :)
Besides, that's $100 bucks than can goes towards building my new computer :)
I will make a note of the https:// trick for next time. - TheFinestShadow, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Agreed that server load is an issue, but there was nothing preventing amazon from spreading the thing out, giving away a certain number of consoles at a certain hour until the 1,000 were gone, or a method similar to that.
- xxdesmus, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I find it amusing how many comments this has received if this is so "inaccurate" ...oh well.
Blog is loading just fine, but thanks.
Trust me, I understand server load just fine, and this was ridiculous. end of story. - jrking, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3In order to be a "scam", the scammer has to have a purpose. What would have been Amazon's purpose here? To have a blue million people try to hit their site all at once for an Xbox deal that doesn't exist? I'm sure Amazon doesn't need page hits that badly. It might have been handled badly, I don't know, but I see no reason to label it as a "scam".
- soxfan2004, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Want some cheese with that whine? I also attempted to get the 360 for $100...1000 units...millions of users ==> way too much traffic for the amazon server. Sure, it was slow and almost impossible to get one, but a scam?? Please!
On another note, I did manage to get the Barbie for my daughter, bait and switch...I don't think so!! Get over it and go wait in line for a Wii it's worth it! - JohnKFisher, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I know! I once heard a radio station say the first 5 callers got free concert tickets -- but when I called - the phone was busy! And when it wasn't busy anymore, they "claimed" people had already won! Well HOW COULD PEOPLE HAVE CALLED THEM SINCE THEIR PHONE WAS BUSY?!?!?!?! Impeccable logic that it was a scam, and there WERE no tickets. hell - it might not have even been a real radio station!
Well, I never listened to THEM again - no one makes a fool out of me!
Digg is coming to a city (and computer) near you! Check out all the details on our 
© Digg Inc. 2008 —
Content posted by
