Possible Bestbuy.com PS3 preorder lawsuit

[jrt1138]

Just saw this story on a local news website:

http://kstp.com/article/stories/S19985.html?cat=1

It will be interesting to see how this shakes out. This guy really got screwed:

"I was stunned because not only was I not given the PS3 from Best Buy, I was not able to go buy it somewhere else if the chance arose," Erlandson told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS.
That's because Erlandson, who spoke to us by phone from California, still has a hold on his debit card after the pre-order situation.



I can almost hear the lawyers scrambling for a piece of this one.

 

[gofishn]

Sounds like a good question for a contracts exam.

I doubt the guy has a valid claim. I'm sure Best Buy has disclaimers all over their site saying they aren't responsible for glitches (such as the one they claim occurred). Additionally, you have to take into account that Best Buy (as far as I know) never advertised it anywhere. Somebody one of the "deal sites" found the link somewhere. On top of that, advertisements are usually considered "an invitation to an offer" rather than a binding contract, hence the nonexistence of the mythological "false advertising claim." It does get a little iffy with the issue of Best Buy placing a hold on the money. I'm not sure how a court would look at that, but to me it doesn't seem like performance on the buyer's part simply because they didn't actually take the money.

I mean, there's a question of whether or not there's a valid contract in the first place, there's doesn't seem to be any real consideration other than a hold on the money, and other than this guy not having his money for a couple days, he'd probably have nominal damages at best.

I'm sure other people on this site can explain the situation better, I don't take the bar exam until February of '08 anyway.