To answer a few questions:
-I spoke to Household Products originally to inform them of the mistake at around 1pm yesterday.
-I did not pay for expedited delivery, though it did arrive on a 24 hour DPD service.
-I've spoken to the manager again this morning. He has confirmed the error is between Amazon and Household Products systems (two Household Products SKUs mapping to one Amazon ASIN). The issue here is that Household Products cannot differentiate the problem orders from genuine orders - The orders at £5.95 come through to Household Products systems as an order for a single bottle - which is what they expect for £5.95 hence they did not spot it.
The remedy here is:
-People who receive a single bottle expecting 40 will be given a full refund and can keep the bottle. This will be confirmed by email to all affected within the next few hours, giving instructions on how to process the refund. Additionally, those affected will be offered a good will gesture/offer in the same email. I've not been told what this offer is (the MD is currently working out the details). Clearly this will not be 40 bottles for £5.95 but I've been told it should be an 'attractive' offer.
For anybody that wants to confirm this or ask further questions Household Products can be contacted directly on 01924 764002.
To confirm: After speaking to Household Products about this for quite some time I am certain this is a genuine mistake and one that appears to me to very much in Amazon's hands. Despite this the company are going to the ones taking the hit (indeed it is causing a bit of a storm over there; the manager has cancelled his holiday to rectify this, etc.). I'd hope that given the nature of this nobody leaves 'negative' feedback which could unfairly damage the company’s reputation when they are clearly trying to do everything they can to resolve the problem.
Remember: If an offer seems too good to be true it probably is. And in this case it was. But none of us will be out of pocket and should have a little something to sweeten the deal. I'm not sure what more people could hope for!
