In the last 6 months, between work and home, I've placed 130 orders. Everything from metal stock to a couple of sequined jacket from China. Most orders have showed up on time, several have showed up early.
I've had issues with one order due to me not reading the description and ordering the wrong item. The return of that item was painless and at no cost to me. I have zero complaints.
Javelin said:I returned five hedge trimmers to the UPS store two days after Christmas. Each kid brought one in to the delight of the patrons. Amazon's remedy was to change their website so that the $90 tool with battery was now a $90 tool without battery that literally shipped the same thing as the $54 bare tool. I gave up. Six hours of talking with customer service got me a $30 credit.
I am absolutely done with them.
I have seen this as well. If I'm looking for something on amazon, I'll look at a few listings to see the lowest price with prime... I bought Innovative EF B-series swap mounts this way for under $75. Latest was an MSD HEI module for $70 shipped, all other listings were $110+, etc. However I absolutely despise how amazon lists multiple items for sale on one page, like the problem you had. Its really easy to order the incorrect item, especially if amazon doesn't accurately describe the item. Its really disappointing.
I had a good one. Amazon driver threw the package containing a new milwaukee impact gun on the ground near my mailbox. My rural mailbox. Which is basically in the neighbors yard across the street with 2 other mailboxes. Yes my house has a number on it. Yes it is visible. Yes, every fedex, ups, dhl and other amazon driver has managed to put packages somewhere on my property for ten years now. Not in the middle of the yard across the street.
The best part is i got an email alert with a photo of the delivery "in a secure location". An amazon provided photo of the box sitting alone in the middle of the neighbor's lawn, in the rain. I actually laughed my ass off at that. Way to own it! That driver gave no berkeleys that day.
In reply to RedGT :
Their drivers are treated as bad, if not worse in some ways, as their shipping location workers. I'm really not surprised that there are so many horror stories about shipments.
From what I've read, delivering for them is akin to most MLM schemes.
My main complaint about Amazon is how they have killed most specialty stores. So often I want to go and hold something in my hand, or look at what the options are and I cant cause the store that used to stock those things is gone.
I think I said it earlier in the thread but we've been backing out of Amazon and using Target/HomeDepot for day to day stuff we want delivered. Between the two they cover everything we were getting from amazon except E36 M3ty chinese electronics. At least from what I can tell, their workers are treated better and the delivery is done by UPS/Fedex/USPS with all their unions and regulations and so on. However this tool was a solid $30 cheaper than elsewhere and I was weak.
the chinesium content is getting out of control.
I was looking for a massage gun. It looks like there are 4 or 5 made in China with 400 Private label names, fake reviews... Ugh. That's a nope.
Mr_Asa said:In reply to RedGT :
Their drivers are treated as bad, if not worse in some ways, as their shipping location workers. I'm really not surprised that there are so many horror stories about shipments.
From what I've read, delivering for them is akin to most MLM schemes.
My main complaint about Amazon is how they have killed most specialty stores. So often I want to go and hold something in my hand, or look at what the options are and I cant cause the store that used to stock those things is gone.
Amazon didn't kill specialty stores. We the consumers did by declining to keep shopping locally.
I quit using amazon years ago after they sent me 2 empty laptop boxes..... Then we tired again this fall around oct. They put a box on top of my miata setting out front. Box was printer paper.
berkeleying Amazon.
Bought a tensioner pulley for the truck, Motorcraft #YS-181, they send a box labelled correctly but inside is (what looks like) YS-216. Return it, go to buy a replacement, price has gone up roughly $5.
Order carb jets for Susie. Edelbrock 1427, 0.098" drill size. Get 1426, drill size 0.095"
At least with this one they didn't make me do a return, they just shipped out the new part.
Odd one for me yesterday- ordered two items, normal free shipping, and they showed up early yesterday.
Well, not exactly- an envelope arrived, it was totally empty. Thankfully, Amazon returned my money for the order, and I reordered it. I made sure the customer service person understood that he was the one paying for this out of his profit sharing check (if they even get one).
Clearly, the prep location didn't actually put anything in it. And it was funny that one of the items they said they shipped would not have even fit into it.
Since this thread was bumped again I'll report my recent Amazon experience. I ordered 3 books and received all of them. One had a few bent pages but it was a cheap book, both in price and quality. So nothing worse than what I would expect. At this point I don't mind using Amazon for books but I shop elsewhere for everything else. Even though they haven't done me wrong yet, shopping has become somewhat of a chore trying to determine if the thing you added to cart is actually the thing you want to buy, and if there is a problem I'm not real confident in their customer service. Taking returns and issuing refunds is nice but not as nice as actually getting the thing you bought.
Math book I rented for school was cheaper on Amazon than the book store on campus.
It was also the right book; the campus book store was putting the wrong edition out. A bunch of students aren't happy.
I sell a Japanese made pump at a rate of about 500 per month. About half go to brick and mortar retailers and half are resold by an on line store using UPS for delivery. The return rate on the across the counter sales is a rounding error. The online store sees one in twenty returned. They all suffer impact damage. The pump is rated and tested to withstand a 90 cm drop so one pump in twenty is being thrown farther than three feet or handled with a force similar to throwing it that far. They weigh eleven pounds and when two are taped together they cannot be thrown as far and the survival rate improves.
In reply to bearmtnmartin :
Not uncommon. I spend some time on the inside. The final sorting process is performed by clerks and referred to as throwing packages...seriously. A 3 foot toss is generous. 8-12 is average. 20 footers are usually followed by a yayy assuming it lands in the correct hamper.
Actually street delivery personnel are aware of the presence of cameras so care is usually taken. That being said, it’s tough to care when your on your tenth workday in a row, it’s pouring down rain and your supervisor is calling wondering what’s taking so long.
I've watched packages fall 15 feet from the sorting conveyor to the warehouse floor. People are so concerned about how the delivery man handles the package, they don't have a clue what it's already been through. I don't ship anything I can't throw 10 feet.
Ah yes, when you urgently need a tool and buy it from Amazon because they can get it to you quickest, and the result royally berkeleys up your weekend plans. Again.
To take my S2k calipers apart all the way, I needed, ordered and paid for this:
But hey, at least they sent me a Knipex tool. I guess that counts for something.
In case anybody's wondering, that's a pipe cutter for plastic conduit. Close enough I guess, but a bit short in the cigar stakes. Yay.
It's also about a quarter of the price.
I mean, they only do like $500 million in sales PER DAY.
Mistakes occasionally happen.
Year to date. 145 orders. Still zero problems.
z31maniac said:I mean, they only do like $500 million in sales PER DAY.
Mistakes occasionally happen.
Very true, but that's not the point. The point is Amazon's customer service after making said mistakes. It used to be really good, the kind of customer service that was rewarded with more purchases because you knew that they would take care of you. Now it's like trying to get ahold of the unemployment office and then bring accused of fraud when you finally do.
In reply to Javelin (Forum Supporter) :
For the above mistake, there is no reason to contact or even speak to anyone. About 8 clicks of your left mouse button and one printed page will take care of it. It will even take care of it when the screw up is ordering the wrong size or even just changing your mind.
My last return was a pressure washer. It didn't work out of the box. I had a replacement in less than two days. The return process took less than 15 minutes, including repackaging the item and attaching the label. It doesn't get any easier than that. No waiting to speak to the next available rep. No dealing with a bored customer service person. Just click, click, click...done.
By far the best customer service I've ever experienced in a retail environment.
In reply to Toyman01 (Moderately Supportive Dude) :
That is exactly the customer service I had experienced at Amazon for the 8 years leading up to last fall. If they are back to their old standards, then that is good. Unfortunately for them, they lost me as a steady customer during their downturn in service.
Speaking of customer service - my first order of felt tape apparently never made it out of their warehouse, so the app tells me to hit the "request a refund" button. Which is promptly answered by an email telling me that I need to "contact them". So I guess I now have to have a discussion with them about them delivering the wrong stuff or no stuff multiple times within a short time frame in order to get my money back.
And that's on top of the replacement order of felt tapes allegedly being delivered yesterday and not being delivered at all. Yeah, I know that's on the carrier, but what the berk is going on with felt tape orders?
And to make matters more interesting I ordered a new washer and dryer from Costco a couple of weeks ago (yeah, I know it's the Amazon thread) and I can't get a dang order update on it. Given that the earliest delivery date listed on it is now well in the past, you think you'd be able to get at least an updated estimate as to when you can get it, but of course you can't talk to a human about that, oh noes. So now my wife is complaining that the washer is about to give up the ghost and that I should go to a shop instead right now (which is what I'm trying to avoid - my sales weasel allergy and the 'rona don't make good bed fellows).
To paraphrase the thread title: American retail is circling the drain. Amazon will be what is left when it's all over. Nobody will like it, except Amazon.
1988RedT2 said:To paraphrase the thread title: American retail is circling the drain. Amazon will be what is left when it's all over. Nobody will like it, except Amazon.
Quoted for truth.
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