so i thought i would share my after the situation experience. I called Apple, explained what happened and how I did not really want to argue about the time cut off but that I was more concerned about being double charged. They acknowledged that there was an issue and that they were working on it (this admission came unprovoked in that I didnt ask for reasons for the issue) and that they were very sorry and they would be in touch. A day or so later I got an email saying they were very sorry for the situation and gave me $10 store credit. Today I got a second email which noted the $10 credit and threw in 5 movie rentals for films under $5.
It sounds like their servers just got overloaded and this resulted in the failed purchase attempts and those that called they just decided to do this, which to their credit is reasonable and acceptable.