They're basically trying to make a sale, a windfall, from an existing customer's personal troubles. It's not a sale they would have made except for the guy needing to switch laptops. Frame it however you want, but that kind of thing makes people feel taken advantage of.

Yeah, that's my thought too. The fact that it is cheap makes me think they could have been more flexible, under the circumstances of someone who ran into some hardship.

But even if not, they could have simply said sorry, our policy is that we don't do this. aetherspawn said they were rude about it. There was no reason to be rude, they could have said no while still being empathic to the situation and being courteous. I don't know how rude they were or weren't, of course.