Just received my bag today!! Yay!!!
I hope you get your bag soon, Jaded81!
My friend emailed them to complain and she received an email back saying:
The customer service section of our website informs you that items are not guaranteed in stock due to orders being filled from multiple locations. If we are unable to complete your order, you will be notified via email within 5 business days. If you would like to locate an item, you can contact us online or by phone with the item(s) style number(s) so we can search our inventory.
So I think when they receive an order online, it would go through the inventories of Barney's shops. So they are not able to tell right away if the item is still in stock or not. I think that was it. My friend called every store except the ones on the West Coast and came up empty.