Amazon Finally Pissed Me Off!

This has been my experience over the past several years.

Up through around 2014 or so, Amazon would usually ship out preordered new release discs to me on the Friday before street date, and while they'd usually arrive on Tuesday as advertised, occasionally one would arrive on a Monday.

Now, everything is either shipped on Monday evening or Tuesday morning. Nothing ever arrives a moment before street date from Amazon for me anymore. But miraculously, even shipping at the last second, they get there on time more often than not.

 

Good to know. Thanks. Whenever they are fully consolidated, I will no longer trust Amazon to deliver Fox discs either, but for right now Missing Link did finally ship out at 12:57pm according to the timestamp on the email, which seems awfully late, but I got it.

I also have a CD pre-order from a while back that was released on Friday, July 18, which I expected to get on the release date. However, it was listed as "Temporarily out of stock" as soon as it stopped being a pre-order, and my order was updated to a delivery date of tomorrow. I thought that perhaps they would combine this in the same package with Missing Link, but according to the shipping notice, Missing Link is coming on its own. The CD (which I ordered far enough in advance to normally qualify for release date delivery of but didn't get) is still listed as arriving tomorrow with no shipping progress yet. Since it's a Broadway cast album not likely to be stocked in Targets or Wal-Marts or the like, I decided to keep the order since I don't really have a way of getting it sooner than Amazon can deliver it,, but I did notice their inability to deliver on the release date.

We'll see what happens as far as getting that one.

 

Well, Missing Link is firmly on the way....but the CD I was expecting to get today is not.

Late last night, I got an Amazon rep to admit that they would miss the delivery date listed in my account because they have no inventory of it -- new orders are listed as shipping within 1-2 months and generate a delivery estimate as late as September -- even though mine was a standing pre-order and should have been reserved earlier. (Isn't that the whole point of pre-orders?)

The best he could do is offer to send me an email when there was a known delivery date -- which of course is something Amazon automatically does.

As a result, I cancelled that order and tried to order the CD directly from the record label's website. I tried to do this in the first place, as the label has a cheaper price than Amazon does, but their website refused to process my payment even though I tried three separate times to place the order. That's when I decided to go with Amazon since it was worth the extra money to be able to place the order easily.

Fortunately, this time -- on my fourth overall attempt to buy it from them -- the label's website worked and was able to process my payment. So I have it coming, though it won't arrive today and Amazon lost that sale.

 

Amazon sent me a heavy collectible comic strip reprint book in an oversize blu-ray bag. Fortunately, they have made returns very easy at Kohl's after the predictable result from shipping in such packaging.

 

I placed an order for some Gnat Sticks (we have a few indoor plants that have gnat issues) on Monday morning, Amazon gave me a guaranteed delivery date of today (Tuesday), only to find out Amazon decided to take a gamble and use UPS Ground to ship them to me. Well, I think we know what happened, the order missed its handoff to my local UPS distribution center this morning, so it may arrive tomorrow. Amazon tried to give me the excuse that it was delayed due to weather (it was shipping out of Fresno, CA to Northern Nevada), so my "guaranteed delivery date" doesn't apply. UPS says the shipment is not delayed, and as far as they are concerned, it is actually ahead of schedule since UPS Ground from Fresno to my house is 1-3 days delivery time. I contacted Amazon again, and they continue to blame UPS, and tried to even say that they have now asked UPS to deliver as soon as possible. Yeah, right.....

 

The physical presence rule was based on a Supreme Court ruling, Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, that stated that states trying to collect sales tax from out of state sellers was an unconstitutional imposition on interstate commerce.

Quill was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2018 with South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc. Since then, states have successfully used the federal courts to force companies to remit state sales taxes in accordance with state law.

 

1st world problems:
Hi Bryan,
We won't be able to deliver your package as it's been damaged.
The package is now being returned. We're very sorry for the inconvenience.
A full refund will be processed within the next 24 hours and should appear on your bank account within 3-5 business days. * We will notify you when your refund has been processed. If you don't receive a notification about your refund, please contact us.

SanDisk 128GB Extreme microSDXC...


L

Lost In Space: Season 1 (2018)...

M*a*s*h: The Complete Collection

All of the items are in stock (Except the memory card) but not at the Prime Day price ...

 

I would be on the phone with US Customer Service (not the outsourced overseas knuckleheads) and demand they ship a replacement for the entire order at Prime Day pricing since the order was damaged in transit. If you are nice and speak with the right person (which is why you don't want to use chat or speak with their overseas support), they should have no issue in matching the prices, although you may have to escalate to leadership (and again, ask to speak to someone in the US).

You may have to place all the same items in your cart and what will liekly happen is they will then issue a promo credit for the difference in prices.

 

I guess my experience isn't important -- I basically quit preordering things from Amazon in 2014 or so except for a couple significant price errors. They did end up delivering them 1 week late and minimal packaging reminding me of why I moved on. Once the quit using boxes for shipments and dropped post price protection it made no sense to keep using them. Every other retailer had the same or better prices, equal or better packaging, delivered on time just about the same, and gave me 30-90 days or protection. Their ongoing issues with Disney, Allied Vaughn and apparently again with Warner and Fox just cemented my dis-use.

My main use for Amazon Media is occasionally to find a rarer title (usually from their marketplace sellers), the occasional price error, some of their '2 for' or '3 for' deals esp with UHD have been pretty good, and about twice a year a Deal of the Day or Lightning Deal they have a better than everyone else price. I've averaged about 10-15 items per year from Amazon since 2013 or so. At BBY, DMC, Kino, or esp B&N sale I'll do that in a single order


If you damaged an item in transit and esp a major sale package -- it's not your decision to refund or replace, it's the customers decision. I'd certainly be firmly reordering my items at the price I originally ordered assuming there wasn't something time sensitive

 

Although this isn't for a Blu-ray, I had a surprise this morning from Amazon behaving like they did back through 2014 or so.

This week, I have two copies of the same CD, which is a new release coming out on Friday, pre-ordered. One is coming to me, and the other is a gift order for a friend in Omaha being sent directly to him. I expected that because the release date is Friday, both CDs would probably ship on Thursday.

This morning when I woke up, I saw in my email a shipping confirmation on the one going to Omaha. It was sent from a fulfillment center in Ohio and was shipped with UPS. This is a while earlier than I expected it to ship, but that's fine. It was a genuine surprise to see it ship out so early though.

My copy of the exact same item is still pending. Because we have a big Amazon warehouse two hours from here, I suspect mine will come from there, I suspect mine will be sent from there and won't need to ship out until Thursday in order to accomplish Friday delivery.

 

Alright...so...MY copy of the same CD as Amazon already shipped to my friend back on Tuesday has still not shipped out yet. They sent a completely worthless email to me apologizing for the delay in shipping my order without providing a new delivery estimate. But -- since I ordered two copies of this CD and the other one shipped out days ago -- I already know they have copies in stock. Mine was ordered first, which should mean, theoretically, that it should be "spoken for" first and that any delay in shipment would affect later orders. But the gift copy (which I ordered four days later than my own) shipped out first.

If you were to place a new order for the same CD today, you would get a delivery estimate of Tuesday (which is better than no estimated date at all.) But when I tried to cancel my existing order and re-order it, they said my existing order was being prepared for shipping and couldn't be cancelled, even though they had no shipping estimate.

Trying to figure out what they do gives me a headache.

 

Had a similar incident with BestBuy.com a few years back with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 4K/3D steelbook, which I ordered within hours of pre-orders first appearing on their site. A number of my friends pre-ordered several weeks later. My friends got their copies on street date, while I received an e-mail the day before indicating that pre-orders had exceeded demand and that mine was on backorder with no guarantee of stock replenishment. When I called to complain, the rep on the phone apologized but kept telling me that orders were filled in the order they were received and that I was not able to cancel my pre-order due to a system glitch. The morning of street date, I then placed an order for in-store pickup, and had it in my hands a few hours later. Two days later, my pre-ordered copy shipped.

 

Just noticed this while checking out:


Not sure how long it's been like that. But apparently, they are now claiming Prime 2-day shipping does not start until the package actually leaves their hands, and it's now business days. So it can sit around in their warehouse as long as they like and they're still in compliance with the promised Free Prime Delivery shipping benefit, even if it gets stuck in the post office over the weekend.

This Prime benefit is worth less and less. I'll have to consider whether my next renewal is worthwhile, as I don't use any other Prime benefits outside the free shipping. I imagine I could bunch up my orders enough to avoid hitting $120 in shipping charges for the year.

 

According to nearly every rep I've spoken to over the last few years, that has been the "policy" for two day shipping. It looks like Amazon may have eventually reworded it on the item page due to all of the confusion.

Prime does not mean what it used to when it was first introduced - essentially order today and receive it in 2 days if ordered before the daily cutoff. Now, Prime means free shipping (with variable shipping times) on items sold or fulfilled by Amazon, a selection of free video programming on Prime Video, a (dwindling) selection of free music streaming on Prime Music, free reading material on Prime Books, exclusive items and sales, discounts at Whole Foods, etc.

 

I hate to be greedy, but I have so many Blu rays etc. that I want, that I never have a problem boosting my order up to free shipping. Also, I have such a big back log that I am in no rush for new discs. I also live near distribution centres, so the most I usually have to wait is a week.
Why would I bother with the racket that is “prime”? It just sounds to “extended warranty” to me.

As in — give us more money and we will treat you like we are supposed to treat customers anyway.

 

Maybe that's for what you'd ordered. I have ordered stuff in the past with a "May take longer to deliver" note on the product page.

I just dropped a BR in my cart and went to the order page. Here's what I saw:



No "once shipped" stuff but delivered Friday - in 2 days. Had I placed the order that way I have every confidence it'd show up Friday unless there was an issue with the carrier. It's also rare I take advantage of 2 day shipping as most of what I order I don't "need" in 2 days. I go for "No-Rush Shipping" for the $1 digital credit 99% of the time.

 

In somewhat related news …. Amazon has cut its ties with FedEx for ground shipments.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/07/fedex-to-end-ground-delivery-contract-with-amazon.html

Apparently they cut the ties with FedEx for air shipments a short time back.

 

Because FedEx was losing money on the deal....

 

I'm actually surprised that Amazon didn't just buy out UPS. They have the money. I'd even bet that HQ2 would be in Louisville KY since that's where a big UPS hub is located.

 

The UPS headquarters is in Atlanta.