People often forget that there are typically 3 delays built into email delivery. You have the delay in sending and the delay in receiving. Go ahead! Send yourself an email right now through a service like yahoo mail (haven't tested gmail). There is also a delay in the routing of that message but we won't get into that right now.

Not taking them off the hook, but if it was a 12 hour sale or something like that, then it's wholly possible that it wouldn't arrive on time. Not sure how the blackberry interface is but the delay could vary with a cellular phone internet provider.

@nstonep: Unless one of the servers in the path is overloaded or its connectivity is crappy, the transmission should still take seconds. If the OP still has the original message, then the header will show whether the message was sent at an appropriate time or not.

@nstonep: So send it at least 24 hours before the sale starts. Also the delays you see are mostly due to the fact that with big lists of emails (like all known users of Heartland America) it just takes time to get through the entire list and send the email. Also Yahoo in particular has problems where their email servers are constantly overloaded and anyone sending large volumes of email is routinely blocked from sending for hours on end (and that is why craigslist was not accepting yahoo emails for a while)

Heartland America always has SOMETHING in their catalog that I am interested in. Always. But I NEVER order from them because they have the stones to add a $1.99 "processing fee" on every order,online or snail mail. Fark them.

Processing orders is a COST OF DOING BUSINESS. If it's so damn vital to your business model ,raise prices or , ( heres an idea so crazy that it might just work ) - become more efficient so that you don't have to charge a processing fee.

It's a matter of principle with me ,so flame away...

@nstonep:
There is no built in delay in e-mail, if your mail host takes more than a few minutes to send your mail then you need a new host.

@Snarkysnake: Dude, I wouldn't order from a place with a processing fee either. (Well, okay, the DMV charges me a processing fee to buy my new stickers online, but that's a matter of statute.)

The people who sent those emails were probably not IT people, therefore they don't realize that email isn't necessarily instantaneous.

Not only are there often delays (as has been already mentioned), but if any of those servers has been greylisted (google it) then it could be DAYS before the message was delivered. Or how about if they are sent from / to moderated lists, which means someone needs to be there to manually release them.

Case in point, I received several emails in the last few days that had been sent in AUGUST.

The lesson from this story should be: if you want your customers to receive your emails in time, you can't be cute and email them the instant they are useable.

This reminds me of an unfair promotion that Fandango (the online movie ticket seller) does every Friday that really ticks me off. They send an email newsletter every Friday afternoon with a promotion code which will let you buy a ticket to one of the newest movies that is out that week for a $1. The promotion code is limited to the first 50 people who redeem it. 50 people! When you send an email to a large group of people, it will inevitably take several minutes if not several hours to get to everyone. Depending on the algorithm the mail server they are delivering from uses, it is likely the messages will always go the same people first as it did the previous week. I've tried to convince them the promotion should be handled a different way but their Customer Service always seems to ignore my pleas.

@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!):

It amounts to an upcharge that is not disclosed until you try to order.

Consider: If Best Buy (One of the Consumerist's favorite puching bags) tacked a "processing fee" on at the register . The crowd here would find a rope and a tree and crucify them (metaphorically,of course).

Pre-expired coupons save them the trouble of turning you down at the checkout.

Is their way of weeding out the regular customers from the dedicated customers. A true dedicated customer would go back in time to use the coupon and then and only then will they get true value.

@psikic: They (Fandango) probably don't care whether it's fair or not. As long as it's doing its job - getting people to rush to buy tickets - then why change? Once everyone catches on that, besides the chosen few, no one is ever going to get to redeem the code, the marketing ploy will stop working and Fandango will move on to something else.

@Snarkysnake: Crucify them with a rope?

@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): Really? The Va DMV does the opposite: if you want to do your routine transactions (such as buying your stickers) in person, they charge you $5 to help offset their additional labor costs. Doing it over the phone or online saves you $5- heck yeah!

And yes, this is the only sane DMV policy I've ever come across...

Stuff can get delayed on the internet. Just ask Ted Stevens. an Internet was sent by his staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday. He got it yesterday [Tuesday]. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the Internet commercially.

@Alexander Saites:

I ran it up the flagpole and the ship sailed.No one mixes metaphors (or dry martinis) like me.

@Alexander Saites: Crucifiction: Yer doin' it wrong.

@Razor512: And a truly dedicated Consumerist would make their own time machine at home.

(Insert eye roll here.)

@nstonep:
I just sent myself an e-mail from my msn account via my Blackberry to my gmail account. It came immediately. Who in the world are you using as an e-mail provider that it's taking so long for you to get e-mails?

@BarkingLeopard:
That's a much smarter way to do it, since it's saving them money for you to transact online. The Arizona MVD doesn't charge processing fees in person or online, at least I've never paid any.

@psikic: you're likely right. the email service provider we use for our marketing emails at work sends the emails out in batches alphabetically. The solution, register an email address starting with a zero and have it forward to your regular address.

@madanthony: That's a LOT of stuff that his staff sent - now many exabytes was the entire internet anyway?

@JennQPublic:

Actually, no--many, many roman crucifixions entailed tying the victim to the cross--the whole nailing thing was actually the less common way of doing it.

@nstonep: These delays have disappeared mostly in this modern age. Back in 1999, you might see a 2 hour delay on emails, but now, I can send a message between my 2 emails and back in about 35 seconds (14 seconds wait each time). (Gmail/Verizon)

@enine: Woot's pre wootoff emails routinely get to me roughly 10-12 hours after the wootoff started. (i have 2 woot accounts, linked to 2 different gmail accounts, and every wootoff, one will get the email on time (let's say 6+ hours pre-wootoff) and the other will get it significantly delayed (anywhere from 1 hour after wootoff to 24 hours after)

i suspect that this has to do with a mail server with too little bandwidth - if they're embedding images in their emails, and sending said emails to a lot (it's in the millions, i recall the number 10 million, but can't find a stat) the amount of data they're trying to push out and route in a very short period of time can be immense, especially on a too-small pipe (of course, tehy really should either bring an extra email server online to do the wootoff emails, or start sending them out earlier)

Should have made the coupon 9.99 off select Time Machines.

It's called a "get you in the store, sucka" promotion. They are betting that most people (victims) will just shrug buy something anyway once they are there and pay full price.

They probably also have the cashiers trained to take complainers and turn them into "upsell" opportunities, and if the cashiers don't do enough of these in one day cashiers fired.

We REALLY need the FTC to start arresting some business owners and closing their doors for stuff like this.

Here is a question - what federal laws require legitimacy in coupons and prohibit foo-pons? I wonder if there even is such a law...

@Alexander Saites: I guess it beats strangling them with a cross lol.

@Snarkysnake: Thank you Snarky! And 10-fold more of that to the Airlines! Gone is the days when you just bumped the fare to cover all understood costs, NO, now today the consumer must be slapped in the face, "educated" on costs with 27 different fees and made to "appreciate" their economic footprint through insult and told THEY DON'T DESERVE anything they are accustomed to. Pay up, shut up and have a nice day!

All those pro-business people out there wonder why consumers are so upset and difficult to please these days? This is one of many reasons, thank you.

@Areyouagoodlittleconsumer: And by the way, before some of you start asking or observing what I "don't understand about running a business" let me say this:

I do run a computer support business. And I most certainly don't charge a "reboot fee", a "software install fee", a "spyware removal fee", a "system maintenance fee", nor a "re-educate the customer who can't listen and screws it up again" fee.

It is simply a flat hourly rate, which takes care of me well and doesn't instead make sure I don't get repeat business like these stupid insulting fees do on airlines and at banks. DUH!

No worse than the "Thanksgiving morning sale from 6 to 9 am" ads that ran last Thanksgiving evening.
I believe it may have been a national ad.

It's called "planning ahead." As in, the business owner anticipates delay time and sends these things out a day early.
This is either pure laziness, or willful scamming.

I got a double whammy recently.

A local family fun center sent me an e-mail about party discounts and coupons for extra tokens if I came in on my birthday.

Not only was this e-mail sent to me about 4 days after my birthday, but the coupons expired 5 days before my birthday.

But it's the thought that counts, right?