img109.imageshack.us— After refreshing for hours people either faced connection errors or this screen telling them that it was sold out.
Nov 23, 2006View in Crawl 4
I was able to purchase one for the $100, I refreshed the page at 2PM EST and the xBox deal was completely gone, I then refreshed again at 2:01PM (According to my Verizon cell) and the xbox was back with a purchase button. Screen shot of my order below for proof:<a class="user" href="http://www.x10hosting.com/xbox360.JPG">http://www.x10hosting.com/xbox360.JPG</a>Also, I'm on the east coast (New Hampshire). I refreshed a total of 4 or 5 times ;)
So, here is the response after I sent them a polite, yet irritated, email. The long and short of it is that you shouldn't bother complaining to them.--Thank you for writing about this situation which you encoutered with our web site.First, please allow me to express my sincere apologies for any frustration that has been caused. It is certainly not our intention for our customers to have anything but a pleasant experience at our store.We are working hard to provide a stress-free and convenient holiday shopping experience at Amazon.com. Unfortunately, we have not met that standard in this case. Please accept my sincere apologies.Please note many customers voted for X-BOX 360 and were waiting to place their orders at 11 A.M. this caused high network traffic and hence our web site was slow.We utilize top of the line servers, internal routers and network connections. Although we often wish we could avert this problem, many issues regarding speed are actually a result of complexrouting patterns over the Internet itself. Even the best Internet services can't get around this fundamental problems.We here at Amazon customer service continuously strive to assist the customers in each and every way can and feel disappointed when we are unable to address customer's concerns. I hope you can understand our limitations in this regard. Please be assured that each and every Amazon customers are always esteemed in our sight and we will not let them down at any circumstance.Unfortunately, this item is no longer available at the promotional price. Please note that voting for an item does not reserve that item for you. I'm sorry you were not able to purchase the item at the price you desired before we sold out. It may still be available for purchase from Amazon.com at the regular price or from third-party sellers on our web site.These discounted items are only available in limited quantities immediately after the winners of Amazon Customers Vote go on sale each week. You can vote, make purchases, and find more information at our Amazon Customers Vote page:www.amazon.com/customers-voteEach week, we post information on how many units of each product are available at the promotional price and when they can be purchased. As soon as we sell out, we make every effort to put this information on our web site immediately.The full terms and conditions for Amazon Customers Vote are available here:www.amazon.com/gp/holiday/cv/fineprintAs a representative of Amazon.com, I want to assure you that we value our customers' trust above all else--it's the foundation on which our company was built. Please know that we'll continue working hard to ensure that you receive accurate service, and to minimize the chances of anything like this occurring again.If you are still experiencing the same problem while using our web site in future, please use the direct link below to e-mail our appropriate department and select a subject for your e-mail as "Other questions & comments", so that we can investigate further:<a class="user" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/contact-us/general-questions.html">http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/contact-us/general-questions.html</a>Please copy and paste the URL into your web browser to reach the specific page.Rest assured that when we receive the email from you using the form above, we will investigate and take any actions available to us to resolve the problem. However, if you require immediate assistance, here are our Customer Service Department phone numbers:=======================================================Customer Service is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week------------------------------------------------------- U.S. and Canada: 1-800-201-7575 International: 1-206-266-2992=======================================================In addition to a wide selection of items, one of our aims at Amazon.com is to provide a convenient and efficient service; in this case, we have not met that standard. I am truly sorry that we were not able to fulfill your expectations for this level of service. I hope you will be able to take advantage of our future promotions.Again, we are very sorry for this inconvenience. We appreciate your business and hope that we will see you again soon at Amazon.com.Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:If yes, click here: <a class="user" href="http://www.amazon.com/rsvp-y?c=hdcgcrdy3351314931">http://www.amazon.com/rsvp-y?c=hdcgcrdy3351314931</a>If not, click here: <a class="user" href="http://www.amazon.com/rsvp-n?c=hdcgcrdy3351314931">http://www.amazon.com/rsvp-n?c=hdcgcrdy3351314931</a>Please note: this e-mail was sent from an address that cannot accept incoming e-mail. To contact us about an unrelated issue, please visit the Help section of our web site.Best regards,Ramya A. Amazon.com Customer Service<a class="user" href="http://www.amazon.com">http://www.amazon.com</a>
Yup, just the typical, thick-headed corporate response. "Apologies. The item is available if you still want it, for full price." Blah, f**king, blah. Please, tell us something we don't know or don't bother replying, that applies to all customer service reps. Or you might as well be replaced with a retarded bot.
I, too, was unable to access the site. I logged into the site 30 minutes before and began refreshing at 5 minutes before but site stopped responding at 10:58AM PST. I filed a complaint with Amazon.com customer service. I received a response from a Customer Service Rep from India that stated there were no server outages today. $%@^@#! Clearly, they must have missed the hundreds of complaints on the Customer Vote page's discussions and the blog postings and even the former Amazon.com engineer (Geeking with Greg) that posted about it today. I hope Amazon.com will provide some concellation for this collosal uber-screw-up. Somebody responsible for coordinating between marketing and IT should be fired!<a class="user" href="http://digital.reprintarticlesonline.com/Geeking_with_Greg/2006/11/24/Amazon_crashes_itself_with_promotion">http://digital.reprintarticlesonline.com/Geeking_with_Greg/2006/11/24/Amazon_crashes_itself_with_promotion</a>
I don't really understand, why you are all complaining - there was 1000 pcs - of course most people wouldn't get one.And in this case servers did the picking of the winners. It's as fair as anything else.
I think it is bullsh*t. I'm going to start a website selling stuff, then post a contest for 1000 free xbox 360, but only allow 50 concurrent connections on my webserver so nobody ever gets one. And for somebody that somehow gets in, it will of course say “SOLD OUT” But I'm sure people will buy other stuff and click on my ads. FU Amazon!
checkmarshallNov 23, 2006
<a class="user" href="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a255/checkmarshall/ScreenShot001.jpg?t=1164317661">http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a255/checkmarshall/ScreenShot001.jpg?t=1164317661</a>
underduckNov 24, 2006
lol i got one a fraction of a second past the time
sciontunerNov 24, 2006
ill buy 1 for 200 lol ijumpnbushes@gmail.com
jdhf99Nov 24, 2006
I was able to purchase one for the $100, I refreshed the page at 2PM EST and the xBox deal was completely gone, I then refreshed again at 2:01PM (According to my Verizon cell) and the xbox was back with a purchase button. Screen shot of my order below for proof:<a class="user" href="http://www.x10hosting.com/xbox360.JPG">http://www.x10hosting.com/xbox360.JPG</a>Also, I'm on the east coast (New Hampshire). I refreshed a total of 4 or 5 times ;)
Closed AccountNov 24, 2006
So, here is the response after I sent them a polite, yet irritated, email. The long and short of it is that you shouldn't bother complaining to them.--Thank you for writing about this situation which you encoutered with our web site.First, please allow me to express my sincere apologies for any frustration that has been caused. It is certainly not our intention for our customers to have anything but a pleasant experience at our store.We are working hard to provide a stress-free and convenient holiday shopping experience at Amazon.com. Unfortunately, we have not met that standard in this case. Please accept my sincere apologies.Please note many customers voted for X-BOX 360 and were waiting to place their orders at 11 A.M. this caused high network traffic and hence our web site was slow.We utilize top of the line servers, internal routers and network connections. Although we often wish we could avert this problem, many issues regarding speed are actually a result of complexrouting patterns over the Internet itself. Even the best Internet services can't get around this fundamental problems.We here at Amazon customer service continuously strive to assist the customers in each and every way can and feel disappointed when we are unable to address customer's concerns. I hope you can understand our limitations in this regard. Please be assured that each and every Amazon customers are always esteemed in our sight and we will not let them down at any circumstance.Unfortunately, this item is no longer available at the promotional price. Please note that voting for an item does not reserve that item for you. I'm sorry you were not able to purchase the item at the price you desired before we sold out. It may still be available for purchase from Amazon.com at the regular price or from third-party sellers on our web site.These discounted items are only available in limited quantities immediately after the winners of Amazon Customers Vote go on sale each week. You can vote, make purchases, and find more information at our Amazon Customers Vote page:www.amazon.com/customers-voteEach week, we post information on how many units of each product are available at the promotional price and when they can be purchased. As soon as we sell out, we make every effort to put this information on our web site immediately.The full terms and conditions for Amazon Customers Vote are available here:www.amazon.com/gp/holiday/cv/fineprintAs a representative of Amazon.com, I want to assure you that we value our customers' trust above all else--it's the foundation on which our company was built. Please know that we'll continue working hard to ensure that you receive accurate service, and to minimize the chances of anything like this occurring again.If you are still experiencing the same problem while using our web site in future, please use the direct link below to e-mail our appropriate department and select a subject for your e-mail as "Other questions & comments", so that we can investigate further:<a class="user" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/contact-us/general-questions.html">http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/contact-us/general-questions.html</a>Please copy and paste the URL into your web browser to reach the specific page.Rest assured that when we receive the email from you using the form above, we will investigate and take any actions available to us to resolve the problem. However, if you require immediate assistance, here are our Customer Service Department phone numbers:=======================================================Customer Service is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week------------------------------------------------------- U.S. and Canada: 1-800-201-7575 International: 1-206-266-2992=======================================================In addition to a wide selection of items, one of our aims at Amazon.com is to provide a convenient and efficient service; in this case, we have not met that standard. I am truly sorry that we were not able to fulfill your expectations for this level of service. I hope you will be able to take advantage of our future promotions.Again, we are very sorry for this inconvenience. We appreciate your business and hope that we will see you again soon at Amazon.com.Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:If yes, click here: <a class="user" href="http://www.amazon.com/rsvp-y?c=hdcgcrdy3351314931">http://www.amazon.com/rsvp-y?c=hdcgcrdy3351314931</a>If not, click here: <a class="user" href="http://www.amazon.com/rsvp-n?c=hdcgcrdy3351314931">http://www.amazon.com/rsvp-n?c=hdcgcrdy3351314931</a>Please note: this e-mail was sent from an address that cannot accept incoming e-mail. To contact us about an unrelated issue, please visit the Help section of our web site.Best regards,Ramya A. Amazon.com Customer Service<a class="user" href="http://www.amazon.com">http://www.amazon.com</a>
oaksiderNov 24, 2006
Yup, just the typical, thick-headed corporate response. "Apologies. The item is available if you still want it, for full price." Blah, f**king, blah. Please, tell us something we don't know or don't bother replying, that applies to all customer service reps. Or you might as well be replaced with a retarded bot.
webonicsNov 24, 2006
I, too, was unable to access the site. I logged into the site 30 minutes before and began refreshing at 5 minutes before but site stopped responding at 10:58AM PST. I filed a complaint with Amazon.com customer service. I received a response from a Customer Service Rep from India that stated there were no server outages today. $%@^@#! Clearly, they must have missed the hundreds of complaints on the Customer Vote page's discussions and the blog postings and even the former Amazon.com engineer (Geeking with Greg) that posted about it today. I hope Amazon.com will provide some concellation for this collosal uber-screw-up. Somebody responsible for coordinating between marketing and IT should be fired!<a class="user" href="http://digital.reprintarticlesonline.com/Geeking_with_Greg/2006/11/24/Amazon_crashes_itself_with_promotion">http://digital.reprintarticlesonline.com/Geeking_with_Greg/2006/11/24/Amazon_crashes_itself_with_promotion</a>
madeingermanyNov 24, 2006
I don't really understand, why you are all complaining - there was 1000 pcs - of course most people wouldn't get one.And in this case servers did the picking of the winners. It's as fair as anything else.
robtowneNov 24, 2006
I dugg you down for the caps mostly. Just a hint for the future, no one at amazon cares about your rants on digg. Save it for them not us.
ebp24Nov 24, 2006
I think it is bullsh*t. I'm going to start a website selling stuff, then post a contest for 1000 free xbox 360, but only allow 50 concurrent connections on my webserver so nobody ever gets one. And for somebody that somehow gets in, it will of course say “SOLD OUT” But I'm sure people will buy other stuff and click on my ads. FU Amazon!