Listing out-of-stock item for sale

Question

I was purchasing a product off a website and the product only had one in stock, but it turns out the product was already sold and the product had still been up for quite some time after the purchase, and after I tried to purchase it the company told me it had already been sold. I had actually brought a similar product that was advertised as the product I wanted to purchase. So I was just wandering if this is considered illegal or if there is anything that can be done?

Answer 1

This would not be a crime. Most activities that are illegal are not crimes.

It might violate the consumer protection laws of some jurisdictions, which are sometimes called deceptive trade practices acts. (Determining which jurisdiction's laws apply is non-trivial in an internet based transaction.)

It is not illegal anywhere to have only a limited supply of something to sell and to run out and suggest something else instead.

"Bait and switch" advertising, which is sometimes a statutory deceptive trade practice, but almost never a crime or a basis for a civil fraud claim, involves a situation in which a very good deal for a product is advertised knowing that almost none of the orders will be possible to fill in the first place, with the intent to make someone purchase something else which is a much worse deal after having made a psychological commitment to buying something from the vendor based upon the first attempted purchase.

Simply not instantaneously updating a website to indicate that the vendor was out of stock is not itself "bait and switch" advertising.

The facts in the original post are not sufficient to show that it is likely or even plausible that this vendor was engaged in bait and switch advertising.