HP accidentally sells £2,000 ZBook laptop for £1.58

The company said it was down to a 'processing error'

The computer giant sold customers the HP ZBook 17 for just £1.58 (HP)

It seemed too good to be true, and it was.

Hewlitt Packard have been forced to apologise after advertising one of its latest laptop models for the bargain price of £1.58.

The HP ZBook 17 was listed on the tech manufacturer’s website for a mere fraction of it £2,376 price tag.

The mistake was put down to a ‘processing error’ and HP have apologised to customers who purchased the product after admitting they would not honour the deal.

HP said in a statement: "We can confirm that due to a processing error, select products were wrongly priced on our UK website over the weekend.

"This has now been corrected with related orders cancelled. We apologise sincerely to impacted customers for any inconvenience caused."

The computer giant was forced to take its website offline at the weekend because of the mishap.

According to consumer rights organisation Citizens Advice, companies don’t have to send customers’ goods which have been bought at a price people should have known were accidental.

The website says they can cancel "if it if it was a genuine and honest mistake on their part that you should’ve noticed".

Airlines occasionally honour error fares scouted out by savvy passenger fares online.

Despite being calculated by complex software ‘everything behind all the air fares is still driven by a human’, according to travel deals website Flynous.

The Flynous website, which gives error fare tips, reads: “The whole travel industry is one of the busiest sectors and so mistakes in air fares may appear time by time."