Amazon Reviews are not for Amazon

I have had a few issues lately with Amazon where things that are sold or fulfilled by them are not delivered as promised. Either the item was wrong, or the 2-day shipping actually took 3-4 weeks. But get this, you cannot post reviews about Amazon service. Verbotten. Prohibited. Amazon can completely ignore the agreed-upon contract of your order AND your paid-for Prime Membership and just send you whatever they want whenever they feel like it. AND YOU CAN"T COMPLAIN. You cannot post a review to the Amazon site because Amazon has to approve all reviews and they simply don't allow anything negative to be said about themselves. They have worked themselves into quite a monopoly, with my help I freely admit, but now they are starting to act more like a police state.

pinchvalve wrote: I have had a few issues lately with Amazon where things that are sold or fulfilled by them are not delivered as promised. Either the item was wrong, or the 2-day shipping actually took 3-4 weeks. But get this, you cannot post reviews about Amazon service. Verbotten. Prohibited. Amazon can completely ignore the agreed-upon contract of your order AND your paid-for Prime Membership and just send you whatever they want whenever they feel like it. AND YOU CAN"T COMPLAIN. You cannot post a review to the Amazon site because Amazon has to approve all reviews and they simply don't allow anything negative to be said about themselves. They have worked themselves into quite a monopoly, with my help I freely admit, but now they are starting to act more like a police state.

You can review them on Yelp, or google or elsewhere.

No marketing and sales organization in their right mind would plaster complaints about themselves on their own marketing materials. Honesty about products, fine. Maybe. Saying the store sucks? No way. It's a business not a news outlet, and that's bad business.

The high cost of low prices.

Wal-Mart and NewEgg are trying to compete with Amazon now (and NewEgg does a fine job of it for electronics and computer stuff at least). So those are some options.

if you complain in the right way they will give you free extensions of your Prime membership, that's the only thing you can really do.

Maybe there this isn't what you're getting at, but I've called out poor service from outside fulfillment vendors in my reviews along with information about the product itself.

I have such a love/hate with Amazon. Where else can you get a 60lb bag of dog food for less than the grocery store and have it delivered in 48hrs for free? Or TPMS sensors for your BMW motorcycle 80% cheaper than the dealer and faster than the dealer can get it for themselves?

But, yeah... when I've ordered some Prime stuff and had it show up in 2 weeks from China rather than 2 days from NJ there isn't a damn thing I can do except send polite emails and hope for a coupon off my next eBook. Except not shop there but berkeley ... I'm going to need O2 sensors soon and I'm not dealing with Auto Zone again.

I've never had a problem. On day 3 I use Amazon's customer service chat and point out that my item hadn't arrived. Every time I either get a replacement sent next day guaranteed or my money back. They are very proactive if you hit them up right away.

Amazon sometimes won't even allow you to post negative reviews about the items they sell. I get that it's not a charity, but at the same time if I buy a tool/electronic and it breaks six months later, I think other buyers should have that information.

I noticed harbor freight doing the same thing with reviews lately. I went searching for the 3 star review I left on the portaband, in which I said (paraphrasing) "awesome saw, first one died within 30 minutes, replacement is going to cut itself in half, glad I bought the extended warranty"

Well, my review isn't there, and neither are a lot of other "warning" style reviews that were before I made my purchase.

Which I find strange because there are bad reviews listed, you can even filter 1 star reviews, but they're all just that, stars, or maybe a sentence.

Appleseed wrote: The high cost of low prices.

Not necessarily. Since Amazon has stopped being the one fighting "the man" and has become "the man", some of their pricing has gone the same way.

It's not hard in many cases to find prices lower than Amazon. They also recently raised their minimum order for free shipping to $50.

You may say, "hey just get prime, shipping is free". Well, it's not free, you are paying about $10 a month for it and if you make less frequent orders, like I do, you pay $0 a month by doing orders that meet the minimum for free.

(Btw, I am not demanding or expecting free shipping, just highlighting how the system works).

aircooled wrote:

Appleseed wrote: The high cost of low prices.

Not necessarily. Since Amazon has stopped being the one fighting "the man" and has become "the man", some of their pricing has gone the same way. It's not hard in many cases to find prices lower than Amazon. They also recently raised their minimum order for free shipping to $50. You may say, "hey just get prime, shipping is free". Well, it's not free, you are paying about $10 a month for it and if you make less frequent orders, like I do, you pay $0 a month by doing orders that meet the minimum for free. (Btw, I am not demanding or expecting free shipping, just highlighting how the system works).

Kinda. Prime includes a lot more than just the free shipping though. If you buy it at once, it's cheaper per year than netflix, with I feel a better catalog of movies and shows. That makes free shipping more of a bonus to prime than a reason to get it.

4k netflix is I think 12 a month, 144/year. $44 more than Amazon prime, without music, apps, and free shipping.

I also learned recently that you can get discounts on other goods if you're not in a hurry and select regular delivery instead of prime 2 day.

I do agree with them having become "the man" and prices and attitudes reflecting it though, but compared to the competition of Wal-Mart, netflix,and even aliexpress, they've made themselves pretty tough to beat.

That said, editing and censoring reviews doesn't make them any better, but not much worse than companies paying for positive or negative reviews on yelp or anywhere else.

The big advantage for Amazon is that they literally sell EVERYTHING, so stuff you would normally get from multiple vendors you can combine and get free shipping on Amazon. I'm trying to cut back on purchases from the 800-lb. gorilla, but they make it hard to say goodbye.

I've not had a bad experience with Amazon themselves. Some sellers have sent bad stuff, but Amazon has always sided with me in those cases.

The last couple of years I have gotten most of my tax return in the form of A-zon gift codes, as I get 10% more back that way. SO this year I maxed them out. $5000 in Amazon gift codes + $500 free for the 10% bonus. I'm sure it won't take me long to burn through that with car parts and electronics.

In reply to t25torx:

How do you get Amazon cards for your tax return??

dculberson wrote: In reply to t25torx: How do you get Amazon cards for your tax return??

I do my own taxes with H&R block software as they carried the bonus offer this year. You have to buy it off Amazon and can get it as digital download. Here's the link.

At the end it asks how much you want to get as Amazon gift codes up to $5000, so I said screw it and maxed it out this year. I'll take the $500 free dollars no questions.

On Amazon if you leave a review that gets approved, you can then go back and edit or add to it additional informtoin which doesn't seem to need to go through the same approval process.

Here's some links to some of my negative reviews:

SMP pedal sensor

paint storage shelf

Dickie's jeans

cat spray

A/C condensor