For a brief, shining moment, Barnes & Noble let customers pre-order the upcoming PC game Battlefield Bad Company 2 for $19.95, far below the retail price. Gamers were skeptical, but placed orders anyway. Their skepticism was well-founded, since the retailer caught the error and canceled all of the mistaken pre-orders…nine days after the deal began to go viral.

Reader Richard writes:

Back on 2/8, B & N had a hot deal going for the upcoming EA video game Battlefield Bad Company 2, 19.95 for the sale of the game. Often times when you see a new gaming being offered well below retail price like this, it brings to mind a too good to be true worry. Naturally Barnes & Noble delivers by affectively canceling every single order of Bad Company due to their own apparent Price Mistake.

The game was featured on many bargain sites and gained much interest, but today, B & N began a mass mailing informing honest customers that they would not be honoring the price they offered. Too good to be true or not, it’s poor practice and made even worse in that they waited 9 days from when this deal was making the rounds on the internet to inform customers.

There’s a common urban legend that retailers are obligated to keep their end of the deal when pricing errors like this occur. They are not. But it’s still very disappointing that it took Barnes & Noble this long to catch the error.

Battlefield Bad Company 2 (PC) Preorder $23 [Slickdeals]

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