AT&T Device Driver Manuals (was Re: "UNIX Programming on the 80286/80386")

[Tom Tkacik]

In article <913 at vsi.COM> friedl at vsi.COM (Stephen J. Friedl) writes:
>In article <13398 at lll-winken.llnl.gov>, bowles at lll-crg.llnl.gov (Jeff A. Bowles) writes:
>>
>> I am quoting from "Unix(r) System V Release 3 Block and Character
>> Interface (BCI)  Driver Development Guide," (AT&T Select Code 307-191),
>>
>> [quote deleted]
>> 
>> This is the document AT&T offered for $4 before someone realized that
>> there was a price error in their database and they changed the price to
>> about $80(!). I ordered BEFORE the change, but they charged my AmEx
>> account the higher price - I'll let 'em slug it out. Be warned, though.
>
>I put up the original announcement about these AT&T Device Driver
>books, and the first prices were about $4 each.  They corrected this
>bug on or about Monday, 22-Aug-1988, so if you got caught in the
>same boat as Jeff did, you may want to check this date against
>your credit card bills.
>
>It seems to me that quoting one price and charging another without
>notice is a pretty raw deal -- they could have at least called or
>sent a note first.
>
>Go for it.
>Steve Friedl    V-Systems, Inc.  +1 714 545 6442    3B2-kind-of-guy

I also had this problem.  I called and got the price of about $8.00.
Such a deal.  The manuals came shortly, but there was no price, just the
invoice, so it still seemed good.  Then the credit card bill showed up
about two months later, (they were not very quick to charge me), and it
showed that the manuals cost $131, (but they were quick to charge me more).

I called AT&T and complained.  They told me that there was indeed a mistake
in the price quoted for the manuals, (did anyone doubt that?)
But that if I was quoted $8.00 for the manuals, that is what they would
charge me. 

The operator forwarded my message to the appropriate person
who called me back in short order to say that they had credited my credit card
$123.54.  I am now happy again.

They were understanding, and it appeared that Steve's message got heard by
a lot of people, and that there were many orders that day. 
And that they all had this problem.  AT&T was very quick to fix it for me.
Now all I have to do is wait until next month to see that it actually
got fixed.

---
Tom Tkacik
GM Research Labs
Warren MI
{umix!mcf, uunet!edsews}!rphroy!megatron!tkacik