Amazon Pre-Order price Guarantee not being honoured

m1ckr1ck · 17 May 2020 at 6:39PM

I pre-ordered an item from Amazon in February. At the time it was £199.99 and when it was delivered at the end of April, that was the price I was charged. I have since been told that the price dropped to £180 during the pre-order period and under their pre-order price guarantee, I should have been charged £180. The guarantee states:

Amazon.co.uk's price for not-yet-released items sometimes changes between the time the item is listed for sale and the time it is released and dispatched or electronically fulfilled.

Whenever you pre-order an item eligible for our Pre-order Price Guarantee, the price you pay will be the lowest price offered by Amazon.co.uk between the time you place your order up to and including the end of the day of the release date.

A Pre-order Price Guarantee message will appear on your order summary during the checkout process. If you use 1-Click ordering, Pre-order Price Guarantee protection will be automatically applied. The order summary in Your Account will reflect the lowest applicable price within 48 hours of any price change.

So I contacted Amazon about this and was told that the price I paid on ordering was the price I get charged regardless of whether the price goes down or not:

I've just contacted my floor support and according to the confirmation email that was sent to you on Thursday, 20 February 2020 13:24 the price states £199.99

I brought the CS rep's attention to the guarantee terms and conditions but they are adamant that that is the price I should pay. They haven't confirmed if the price dropped or not. Do they have to tell me if this is the case? What recourse do I have if the price did drop?

tearsinrain1 · 27 May 2020 at 2:19PM

A Pre-order Price Guarantee message will appear on your order summary during the checkout process. If you use 1-Click ordering, Pre-order Price Guarantee protection will be automatically applied. The order summary in Your Account will reflect the lowest applicable price within 48 hours of any price change.

Not all pre-order items have the guarantee did it contain the above on the summary page.

The price drop guarantee has always worked for me.

lulu84blue · 10 July 2020 at 8:16PM

I suspect that Amazon ignore their pre order price guarantee frequently and just rely on the fact the customer won’t be regularly checking the items’ price in order to know it dropped. I ordered a book at the start of May for £14.95, that was due to publish on 9th July. I checked the item price on 8th July and spotted it was down to £13.59 and took a screenshot of the page including the date and time stamp. The book arrived on 9th July and Amazon UK sent me an email telling me I had paid £14.95 and that this was the cheapest price it was available for at any time until the end of the 9th July release date. I’ve just spent some time on the amazon customer service chat function tonight and they’ve agreed to to refund the difference but it was fascinating to note that not once during the chat did the customer service person say they were sorry this had happen (despite me picking them up on their lack of an apology) or express surprise/ confusion how this could have happened. Yes, it’s a small amount of money but if lots of other people are also relying on the fraudulent price guarantee, then the cost savings to the company will soon add up.