The offer seemed too good to be true — and it was.
For at least a couple of hours late Tuesday night, Best Buy's website allowed shoppers to buy $200 gift cards for $15, leading to a shopping frenzy as word of the glitch spread on websites like Reddit. Some commenters bragged that they snapped up dozens of the cards before Best Buy eventually fixed the price.
On Wednesday, Best Buy confirmed that it was indeed an error.
"Everyone makes mistakes and, unfortunately, we made one last night," the company said in a statement. "We regret the error and we are canceling all pending orders on the affected gift cards."
The company declined to say how long the glitch lasted and how many orders were placed during that time. It also didn't say whether some orders were successful.
The situation was reminiscent of a mishap in November 2013 when Wal-Mart's website displayed the wrong prices, allowing some customers to buy $600 treadmills for $33, among a number of other errant discounts. Wal-Mart did not honor those orders and said it would send affected customers $10 gift cards.
Tuesday's wasn't Best Buy's first online hiccup. Last year on Black Friday, it had to take down its website at least two times after mobile traffic overwhelmed its site. And one day in January, its site didn't allow customers to buy items from it for several hours. A company spokesman said then that a system update led to the temporary loss of site functionality.
Kavita Kumar • 612-673-4113
