Last August, Amazon listed the Ambient Stock Orb for sale at $20. It’s a neat little thing, the Orb. Especially at $20. At its MSRP of $150, it’s not all that compelling. I ordered one. A couple of days later, they reported to me that it was a glitch and they cancelled my order. Then they re-listed the thing at $31.99, so I took the time to order it again. Since then, they’ve kept a running delay on the order: each month they push the date out by a month. The most recent ship date was this week but it’s now listed as mid-June.

Scammer? Bait and switch? Out and out fraud? I’d like to think Amazon is better than that, but I don’t know what to make of it now. I mean I ordered eight months ago… I just keep accepting the delays, since it’s not a critical item. And it is being sold at 1/5 of retail. I figure that they’ll eventually cancel the order, if only to save whatever cash they’re burning while tracking the thing – and then I can file a formal complaint: to keep an order active for this long sorta proves that it’s not a pricing error right?

Want shiny lit orb thing!