Glitch on Best Buy's website sells $200 gift cards for $15

The offer seemed too good to be true -- and it was.

For a period of time on Tuesday night, Best Buy's website allowed shoppers to buy $200 gift cards for $15, leading to a frenzy of activity as the glitch was publicized on sites such as Reddit. The mistake was then caught and fixed.

Jeff Haydock, a Best Buy spokesman, confirmed that it was indeed a mistake. So no, it wasn't part of the one-day online sale Best Buy had on Tuesday in advance of Amazon's much hyped "Prime Day" sale today.

"Everyone makes mistakes and, unfortunately, we made one last night," the company said in a statement. "We regret the error and we are canceling all pending orders on the affected gift cards."

So all of those people taking to Twitter expressing their hopes that Best Buy fulfill their orders will most likely be out of luck. Some have already reporting having their orders canceled. But Best Buy's carefully worded statement still left open the question of whether some orders did make it through.

The company declined to say how long the glitch lasted and how many orders were placed during that time.

The situation was reminiscent of a mishap back in November 2013 when Wal-Mart's website displayed wrong prices of things, allowing some customers to buy $600 treadmills for $33, among a number of other errant discounts.Wal-Mart did not honor those orders and said it would send affected customers $10 gift cards.