Amazon glitch let shoppers buy anything for a penny

"The ridiculously simple way to increase your Amazon holiday sales!" says the Repricer Express website, a London-based service that is said to be the cause of thousands of Amazon.com products mistakenly marked at only a penny.

According to The Guardian, at approximately 7:00pm Friday night in London (1:00pm EST, 11:00am PST), Repricer Express--an automated service many third party Amazon sellers use to keep their prices competitive against each other--malfunctioned. Subsequently, it marked thousands of toys, clothes, cell phones, furniture and numerous other items for one penny, and many users dashed to cash out on the ultimate bargain sale.

Though the glitch only lasted for about an hour, many sellers were horrified to find Amazon users had ordered thousands of their products marked at a fraction of their cost.

Martin Le Corre, head of MB Housewares, told The Guardian that he received a call from one of his competitors, asking 'do you realize all your listings at a penny?' Within an hour, Le Corre said he received more than 1,600 orders.

"People were buying 10, 50, 100 copies of everything," said Le Corre, adding that the actual cost would exceed over 100,000 pounds ($156,232). One user purchased 95 board games, retailed at 12.99 pounds ($20.29), for $0.99 each. "We can't even work it out."

Judith Blackford, who runs the fancy dress company Kiddymania, said she asked Amazon to cancel the orders, but is still being sent new orders for a penny each. "(Amazon's) charging me horrendous fees. Surely someone has to be accountable for this. I will be bankrupt at this rate by the end of January," Blackford told The Guardian.

Blackford has since started a hashtag, #supportKiddymania, hoping to gain support for her company should she be held to fulfill the penny orders.

Repricer Express CEO Brendan Doherty said he was "deeply sorry for the disruption," according to BBC. Doherty said his company is investigating the cause of the glitch, and working to prevent it from happening again.

According to Doherty, Amazon is not holding the sellers to forfeit such incredible losses to those who only paid one penny, and will not penalize them either. Amazon has since cancelled most of the orders.