Hello,
A couple of things first :

1) How do you know you where the first to order ?
   Emails don't work that way and even if you
   may be the fist one to send it, yours may
   stay on your provider SMTP server for days
   before it's delivered.

2) There is another world outside of Internet :
   A dealer may well sell a cel directly to a
   person, not over internet. It's unfair that
   we didn't read our mails every few minutes
   in case you sent one just a few minutes before
   someone visit our shop in real ? So be it...

3) Ever heard of pre-order ? Some dealers will
   search cels for someone when asked to. You
   will have to understand that this person
   usualy get priority then.

> When you  get on the inside you find out lots
> of interesting things.

4) You mean when you sneak around on a website
   trying to figure pictures names ? What make
   you believe those cels ever were for sale to
   the public ?
   If you want to sneak around, that's your
   problem.

Except for all that, yes, in most business, there 
is prefered customers. Because they buy more,
because they are less a pain in the a... than
some others and so on.

When my company buy computer hardware, I have
to pay in the next 30 days while a friend who
has a shop has to pay before he get the goods.
That's normal...

A friend of mine has an anime shop. When he
order 60 times the same video and there isn't
enough for everybody, he get priority over shops
who order 1 or 2 copies from time to time.
Once again, that's normal...

It's just plain regular business. Good, long-term
business relation usualy have some advantage.

Yes, if you get a confirmation telling you
that you got the cel and then it's canceled,
I think it's awfuly bad practice.
But as long as you didn't got a confirmation,
the cel is not yours.

Cheers,
Yann Stettler