The Tale of Toys R Us and the East Coast Server

Follows is an email detailing this past Saturday's funtimes that I sent to Consumerist.com.  Enjoy!

So, here's a fun story, one that I'm willing to accept some blame on.

Last week, Toys R Us had an ok little sale where you could buy one
Xbox 360 game and get one at half price.

Not an *awesome* sale, but good enough.

I put off buying anything because, well, money is tight, but, near the
end of the week, the wife convinced me that the two new games would be
ok to buy.

Well, great, I've been looking at finally getting The Orange Box and,
since it was $30 online, finding something else to get equally
"inexpensive" in the store.

But, when we got to the store, The Orange Box was list price of $60.
Well, I'm not a complete idiot, I knew that I'd save more money if I
went to the online store and bought it there, since the sale was valid
both online and in the brick and mortar store.

So, we head home and try and figure out what the other game we want
is.  In the end, around 915pm Pacific Time, we decide that Lego Indy
calls to her more than Assassin's Creed, so, I go and place the two
games in my online cart.

Lo and behold, no sale price.  I knew it should be reflected because
it had earlier as I was moving things in and out of the cart trying to
figure out which to buy.  I look at the clock and realize 'The fools!
Their shopping cart is on east coast time!'

So, I head up and fire off a quick email to their customer support:
Hi,  I headed out to a Brick and Mortar store today to pick up a
couple of Xbox 360 games to take advantage of the Buy 1, Get one half
off sale.    I was surprised to see that the game is $60 in store,
while only $30 online.  Obviously, even with shipping and handling, I
knew that it'd be cheaper to get the game online rather than in store.
My wife and I discussed what game to purchase and, around about
9:15p, I went to place my order.  Imagine my continued surprise to see
that the sale is off, despite it still being 8/23 here on the west
coast.  I can only imagine that the servers are located on the east
coast, thus my 9:15p is really Sunday morning and thus post sale.  I'd
really like to purchase Item#: 31331 and Item#: 775937 at the buy one,
get one half off sale price.  Is there any way we can make this
happen?

Now, I realize this is partially my fault for waiting til the last
minute to purchase, so, I'm completely fine with either of the two
answers:

"Sorry, we can't give you the sale price, but, this is indeed an issue
with our servers so we're going to try to fix it for future
customers."

or

"Sorry that happened, since it's such a specific sale, call in to
###-###-#### and we'll place your order and make sure you get the sale
price *and* we're going to try to fix this so future customers won't
have this problem"

Perhaps you can see the common thread between the two acceptable
answers:  We will fix this problem for future customers.

The answer I got, however, was not acceptable:

Mr. Eddy, I do apologize that there is a difference between on-line
and land-based stores. I am sorry for any disappointment and
inconvenience this caused you.

The sale times are on Eastern Standard Time.  I am sorry that we
cannot get these products at the sale price.  Again, I am sorry for
the inconvenience.

If you have other questions, Mr. Eddy, please call 1-800-<redacted>.

Thank you for contacting Guest Relations.

So, does this mean that the sales in the Toys R Us brick and mortar
store in Hawaii end at 3pm?  Is this worth fighting (iow, any
experience trying to fight the Giraffe)?

Or, is this common that a website sale is specific to the location of
the server and not the customer?  I mean, sure, if it was a European
based store without a local B&M, I might not expect the sale to still
be on at 9p at night, but, this is a store with a B&M about 1 mile
from my house.  Shouldn't I expect the sale to still be on at 9p?
And, ultimately, why do I feel really put out that they're requiring
me to call up to continue questions on this issue rather than email?