Student bags £3,000 in freebies due to Amazon glitch

Amazon accidentally sent a huge haul of free goodies to Robert Quinn, a 22-year old student from Bromley in Kent. A week ago he started receiving everything from a £889 Samsung 3D TV and a £338 Galaxy tablet to a £130 Draper leaf blower and a £150 Cosatta Supa Baby Buggy. In total he has received 46 items worth £3,600 - and Amazon says he can keep it all.

Quinn told The Sun newspaper that the items first started arriving a week ago, and he now has a huge haul including a laptop, a Sony PSP console, two more tablets and even a single bed. He contacted Amazon who told him that it has been a mistake, and that he could keep the items.

He added that he thought a glitch had meant items had been sent to his family home instead of being returned to Amazon - because the items are packaged with returns labels - although the retailer assured him that shoppers would still be getting their money back. Amazon has not commented on the story.

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Glitches

It's not the first time a glitch has landed someone a brilliant freebie. There have been four stand-out accidental freebies this year:

Back in August, a Glitch at Curries accidentally gave shoppers £20 off. It sent a voucher to apologise to people who had pre-ordered the Xbox One and received it a day late. It was only meant to be used by the recipient, and then only to buy Xbox Games, but a glitch meant it could be used by anyone to buy anything on anything on the site. Currys cancelled the code when it discovered the problem, but by then hundreds of items had been ordered and it decided to honour them all.

In January Screwfix accidentally priced everything in the catalogue at £34.99. The mistake happened in the middle of the night, and early shoppers were able to choose 'click and collect' and pick the items up at 7am before the store spotted the mistake. Once they spotted it, Screwfix cancelled the bargains - but not before one person had picked up £1,130 worth of drills for £139.96.

That same month a glitch in a Loyds cash machine meant it started spewing extra notes out as customers withdrew cash. Around 60 people joined the queue for the machine before the bank put it out of service.
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But one of the best accidental freebies has to be back in May, when Greg Heaslip, a security guard for the Arcadia Group, sent his boss a request for some time off. His email was accidentally forwarded to 3,500 staff members and sparked a social media campaign to #GiveGregTheHoliday. As a result Trek America gave him a Las Vegas holiday, while other companies offered clothes and luggage. Greg was oblivious to all of this as he works nights and slept through the phenomenon. He woke in time to claim his freebies though.

There will be those who argue that taking advantage when a company makes a mistake is morally wrong. They might point out that when people take advantage of glitches, the companies will put up their prices for everyone else in order to maintain their profits.

There will be other committed deal-hunters who point out that companies don't hesitate to take advantage when we make a mistake - so we are merely returning the favour. But what do you think?

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