Amazon SUCKS

[WilliamM2]

I'm used to my Amazon orders being a few days late, no big deal. But this has never happened before.

So I place an order for my wife on Sept. 8, delivery date of Sept. 12, free delivery on $35 plus order (not prime). Delivery date changes to Sept. 15, then Sept. 22, then Sept.28, today I notice it says Oct. 4th. All items in stock when ordered, and still in stock now. In fact, both items claim if I order today, I'll get them the 27th. Time to call.

Call #1, spend 45 minutes talking to some moron, says that it's a credit card issue. No, that's not it, her card is just fine. I point out we used it on another order last week, which we already have received (two days late). Gives me 20 other bullshit reasons, then says, I can't help you.

Call #2, I get a woman this time, seems very helpful, want's me to cancel the order and re-order. I explain that's not acceptable, as there were over $15 in coupons applied, that are no longer available. She says no problem, please hold. Comes back and says I updated the shipping, and I'll now get it on Oct. 1. All in 10 minutes. Cool, another 6 days, whatever.

I get an email they have updated my shipping method? I then go back to my account, there is now an $11.63 charge (plus tax) for 2 day shipping, added without my authorization. Are you kidding me? And the two day shipping doesn't arrive for 6 more days, a whole 3 days sooner than the last update?

Call #3 This guy tells me he can't refund the shipping, as it's already in the advanced shipping stat? 15 minute later? Says I can call when I get it, and then they can issue a refund. Sure buddy, I believe you, it's all been so smooth so far...So he offers a $15 courtesy credit. Guess I'll take it. Nothing like earning $2.67 for an hour and a half on the phone!

An un-authorized charge? That's a first for me. Rant over.

 

[nakedfrog]

I recommend using Amazon as little as possible

 

[WilliamM2]

I recommend using Amazon as little as possible

I do. I placed an order in January, 84 year old neighbor needed a gas tank for his snowblower.

1 order in April.
3 orders in September, one was for my wife.

So I have only placed three orders all year for myself, and 5 total. It's only for things I can't get anywhere else.
I will have to order again, as I still have a gift card balance of about $250 or so. People keep giving them to me....Birthdays, Holidays, etc.

 

[lxskllr]

Wow, that's a bunch of shit. One of the reasons I use amazon more than I should is the safety and convenience. There's an article on ars right now about them losing a settlement with the government due to Prime signup shenanigans. That's the only problem I ever had. I accidentally signed up once. I didn't think I did, but I might've. They setup the buttons to encourage you push them, even when you don't want to. Contrary to the ars story, when I noticed, it was easy unsigning up. That was a bunch of years ago though. Might be worse now.

I ordered a bunch at the beginning of the year, prepping for tariffs and the civil war, but it's been a few months since I got anything from them. I'm pretty well stocked on most of the stuff I need.

 

[nakedfrog]

I do. I placed an order in January, 84 year old neighbor needed a gas tank for his snowblower.

1 order in April.
3 orders in September, one was for my wife.

So I have only placed three orders all year for myself, and 5 total. It's only for things I can't get anywhere else.
I will have to order again, as I still have a gift card balance of about $250 or so. People keep giving them to me....Birthdays, Holidays, etc.

Yeah, unfortunately there are times when it makes the most sense
Ordered a specialized audio cable from them earlier this year because it would have cost twice as much anywhere else I could get it. Was disappointed when I went to a hot sauce's website to order direct from them and they bounced me to Amazon for the order.

 

[deadlyapp]

Just checked. I've ordered 86 times this year from Amazon. My wife probably has a similar number.

I can think of probably less than a handful of times that they've delivered outside the delivery window, as long as it's not coming direct from China, which I check religiously.

The overnight delivery with Prime at no charge is one of the most convenient things I've ever had, so Amazon gets a ton of my business.

The convenience is more than worth the $140/yr I pay for prime without even considering the video service and everything else.

Long live amazon.

 

[purbeast0]

Amazon owns.

Sometimes I'll place an order at like 1pm and have it by 4pm lol.

 

[dullard]

One key detail missing from the OP: Are you dealing with Amazon or a 3rd party seller?

That piece of information is needed to know if Amazon sucks or if blame is being incorrectly assigned.

 

[WilliamM2]

Wow, that's a bunch of shit. One of the reasons I use amazon more than I should is the safety and convenience. There's an article on ars right now about them losing a settlement with the government due to Prime signup shenanigans. That's the only problem I ever had. I accidentally signed up once. I didn't think I did, but I might've. They setup the buttons to encourage you push them, even when you don't want to. Contrary to the ars story, when I noticed, it was easy unsigning up. That was a bunch of years ago though. Might be worse now.

I ordered a bunch at the beginning of the year, prepping for tariffs and the civil war, but it's been a few months since I got anything from them. I'm pretty well stocked on most of the stuff I need.

That was my issue last week. It said they were offering me a free 30 day trial. They have been offering if for almost a year. They offer it every year after the last trial expired. I needed lug nuts for my car, the old ones were destroyed by the last place that worked on my car. Then I checked, they had billed me $14.99 for a month, the normal charge. There is a current investigation into this practice.

So I called, and a woman refunded my gift card balance instantly. But she also cancelled my 30 day trial. She argued that I had gotten the offer in Dec. '23, and you only get it once, that's why they charged me? I told her that wasn't true, to look at my account. She checked, says you used the offer in '23, '22, '21, '20, '19, etc. - she still refused to reinstate my free trial.

I did get the lug nuts on time, the first time ever, even with Prime.

 

[Dulanic]

Just checked. I've ordered 86 times this year from Amazon. My wife probably has a similar number.

I can think of probably less than a handful of times that they've delivered outside the delivery window, as long as it's not coming direct from China, which I check religiously.

The overnight delivery with Prime at no charge is one of the most convenient things I've ever had, so Amazon gets a ton of my business.

The convenience is more than worth the $140/yr I pay for prime without even considering the video service and everything else.

Long live amazon.

Amazon owns.

Sometimes I'll place an order at like 1pm and have it by 4pm lol.

This is what prime does. They do internally make shit slow if you dont have prime.

With that said, amazon has gone way downhill from its earlier years. But there is no doubt there is some convenience to it.

 

[WilliamM2]

Just checked. I've ordered 86 times this year from Amazon. My wife probably has a similar number.

I can think of probably less than a handful of times that they've delivered outside the delivery window, as long as it's not coming direct from China, which I check religiously.

The overnight delivery with Prime at no charge is one of the most convenient things I've ever had, so Amazon gets a ton of my business.

The convenience is more than worth the $140/yr I pay for prime without even considering the video service and everything else.

Long live amazon.

Good for you, we never got orders on time, even with prime. I thought it would improve when they opened an Amazon warehouse here this spring, and started delivering with their own trucks. Nope.

 

[WilliamM2]

One key detail missing from the OP: Are you dealing with Amazon or a 3rd party seller?

That piece of information is needed to know if Amazon sucks or if blame is being incorrectly assigned.

I only order if it's shipped and sold by Amazon. This order was as well. Well it was supposed to be...

 

[lxskllr]

My orders almost always beat the time estimate(< 1 week), and have never been late. There's a huge amazon presence here though, so I have a bit of an advantage. I've never had Prime.

 

[WilliamM2]

Amazon owns.

Weird:

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/national-international/amazon-ftc-settlement-prime-program-deception/6396355/#:~:text=Amazon%20has%20reached%20a%20historic,annually%2C%20or%20$14.99%20a%20month.

 

[WilliamM2]

My orders almost always beat the time estimate(< 1 week), and have never been late. There's a huge amazon presence here though, so I have a bit of an advantage. I've never had Prime.

10 years ago, I could order, without Prime, and always got my orders in two days. They didn't give expected delivery dates then. It's BS that they hold orders for non prime customers.

I'd be happy though if it arrived in the stated time of 4 days, or even a week. But I ordered on Sept. 8th, and now, even with two days shipping, it will arrive Oct. 1st? That means they are still holding it until at least Monday. That's a 23 day delivery time. But I'm certain it will be late.

 

[lxskllr]

It's BS that they hold orders for non prime customers.

I /think/ that's happened to me. I've had orders inexplicably delayed, where they should've gotten to me fast, but didn't. Still within the stated time though. I don't know enough about amazon logistics to even speculate on what's happening. I try to run my life so nothing is a rush when I order something. Almost everything I get can come any time, and it's fine. Faster is always better though. Even getting something within two weeks is fucking amazing compared to the bad old days when you filled out an order form you ripped from a catalog, snail mailed it to a company, and sometime in the next two months your order would showup :^D

 

[WilliamM2]

I /think/ that's happened to me. I've had orders inexplicably delayed, where they should've gotten to me fast, but didn't. Still within the stated time though. I don't know enough about amazon logistics to even speculate on what's happening. I try to run my life so nothing is a rush when I order something. Almost everything I get can come any time, and it's fine. Faster is always better though. Even getting something within two weeks is fucking amazing compared to the bad old days when you filled out an order form you ripped from a catalog, snail mailed it to a company, and sometime in the next two months your order would showup :^D

I don't order there if I'm in a hurry. But this is for my wife, I had forgotten about it entirely, She asked whatever happed to it last week, and again this morning. She's not happy after all this time. Part of the order is for her string trimmer. Maybe it will arrive before the snow comes in November.
But I have to deal with it...

Did you catch that link above?

 

[lxskllr]

Did you catch that link above?

I didn't read it. It looked like the same news on ars I mentioned. Sign/unsign games companies play really do need to be punished. They make it easy to get in, and hard to get out. I'm somewhat protected due to my suspicious and paranoid nature, so I'm not inclined to signup for anything, but it shouldn't be a hassle for anyone. If it's easy to get in, it should be easy to get out.

 

[WilliamM2]

I didn't read it. It looked like the same news on ars I mentioned. Sign/unsign games companies play really do need to be punished. They make it easy to get in, and hard to get out. I'm somewhat protected due to my suspicious and paranoid nature, so I'm not inclined to signup for anything, but it shouldn't be a hassle for anyone. If it's easy to get in, it should be easy to get out.

If you read it, part of the problem is they trick people into signing, like me last week. I read several times, that I was getting a FREE trial. Then they billed me. And again today, they put an unauthorized charge on my wife's card, to change it to 2 day shipping, that apparently takes 6 days.

 

[lxskllr]

If you read it, part of the problem is they trick people into signing, like me last week. I read several times, that I was getting a FREE trial. Then they billed me. And again today, they put an unauthorized charge on my wife's card, to change it to 2 day shipping, that apparently takes 6 days.

That's where being paranoid and suspicious helps. I don't trust "trials" from companies when they're holding my payment info. Regardless of what they say, I assume I'm gonna somehow get screwed, and either lose money or time trying to fix it. The way to win the game is to not play in the first place.

When I accidentally got Prime, I /think/ I clicked a wrong button checking out. I'm usually careful, so a screwup on their end isn't off the table, but I'll assume it was my fault since it hasn't happened again. I noticed when I was looking over the order info, and immediately cancelled it. It was an easy process as far as I remember, and I wasn't too pissed off.

 

[biostud]

I use it for my Kindle and if I order from outside Denmark.

 

[IBMJunkman]

Just checked. I've ordered 86 times this year from Amazon. My wife probably has a similar number.

I can think of probably less than a handful of times that they've delivered outside the delivery window, as long as it's not coming direct from China, which I check religiously.

The overnight delivery with Prime at no charge is one of the most convenient things I've ever had, so Amazon gets a ton of my business.

The convenience is more than worth the $140/yr I pay for prime without even considering the video service and everything else.

Long live amazon.

I am at 117 orders YTD. 3 months to go. 😊

 

[Chaotic42]

I order quite a bit from them. If I factor in how hard it is to find things locally with the cost of driving to and walking around the rando stores (not just gas, but the cost of my free time which is 1.5x my hourly charge rate), it's just too convenient not to use.

 

[lxskllr]

I order quite a bit from them. If I factor in how hard it is to find things locally with the cost of driving to and walking around the rando stores (not just gas, but the cost of my free time which is 1.5x my hourly charge rate), it's just too convenient not to use.

That's my thing. I don't know where I'd get some of the stuff I order if not for amazon. I mean yea, I could do a shit ton of research, and find a dozen different companies to order from, but it would take a huge amount of time, and more likely than not, cost me a good bit more $.

I'd rather not use them, but they're convenient, and though they're the current boogieman, I'm not sure giving my money to a different boogieman is substantially better. I do buy industry specific items from specialists. The prices/service are just as good or better than amazon, but that only covers particular niches.

 

[KLin]

This could have been posted in the first world problems thread.