Deftones

I purchased a plasma TV from amazon (Panasonic P46s2) on December 27th. It showed up fine and that part of the experience was positive. I have no complaints about that part.

My negative part comes in when I see Fry's has the TV I bought listed for $549. I called Amazon and told them about it. The representative told me that they will only match the Fry's website and not a local store. I told them it would be ridiculous to have me send back this TV but if they won't match, I will buy it at Fry's. Even after taxes it's $100 cheaper. They balked, so now I'm likely to send the TV back.

I even told the rep I would give them the store number so they could call to verify, but she said they can only call the main Fry's number and use the price on the website.

My experiences with Amazon have all been positive, and I can somewhat understand their price matching policies, but this seems somewhat ridiculous. They are going to pay $100 to a freight company to take back this TV when that discount could nearly cover the difference in price. Oh well.

I will still continue to shop at Amazon because my experiences are positive with them and I enjoy their lower prices. But this is a time when a local store beats them.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

There's lots of times when local stores beat Amazon, especially if you use coupons. I always shop around first.

fumanstan

Have you tried calling back to see if other reps do anything? I'm not surprised that they wouldn't price match it given their policy, but it's possible you could get someone to give you a gift certificate for $50 or something.

Mr. Salty

I thought Amazon only paid for return shipping if the product was defective or damaged, or if there was some sort of mistake. In the rare instance that I've returned a purchase to Amazon because I didn't want what I ordered, I had to eat the shipping. (I shipped free with a prepaid mailer, but the cost was deducted from the refund.)

Deftones

With tvs they have a free 30 day return policy.

jjcool

So return it to Amazon. They are just like any other store, online or brick and mortar. Sometimes they are going to get beat by other stores. I used to love when people would come in to my music store and tell me that such and such store had such and such items for a price lower than usand I needed to lower my price. I would tell them, "I would buy it there then". Meanwhile the closest store that ahd it for the lower price was 50 miles away, and shipping would take a couple of days.

danwiz

Yeah, jjcool, I used to do the same thing when I managed a store. Somebody would come in and say that "that store" (which was all the way across town) had something for $1 less than us. I always suggested that they should drive over there and buy it then. That's the way it happens! Some stores will sell some products cheaper than other stores - if that's the case then a person should buy where the price is lower! I especially get a kick out of people who will drive all over town doing grocery shopping to save 5 cents on some items - do they realize how much gasoline costs nowadays?

Deftones

Amazon is usually pretty good with customer service. I'm just sharing an experience.

I'm still on the fence about returning it. I probably should, since $100 is $100. Will probably hit up Fry's tomorrow and see if they have the TV in stock.

Dragon Tattoo

Maybe I'm just extremely lazy, but that seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to over $100.

Deftones

How is it a lot of trouble? I buy the same tv at fry's and call amazon to have someone pick up the other one. Pretty painless, imho.

dsa_shea

I would say that a day's work for $100 is a lot of trouble. I've taken back games and movies for far less than this.

fumanstan

For me the trouble would be whether I already have the TV set up and configured the way I want. It would be a pain in the ass in some cases to unplug everything, repack up the current TV, take the time to drive to another store and purchase and bring home and re-setup the new one. Although for some people setting up new equipment is fun.

$100 is a decent chunk of change. I don't give two shits if a Blu-ray drops $2 after I buy it, but $100 is enough to care. Of course, I still think you should try a few different CS reps and see if any of them will give you something in return if you haven't already.

foxdvd

send it back....

I love amazon, but their customer service has dropped the last year. They worked so hard to improve their image, and they are benefiting from it now, but once they got to the top they are letting it slide.

I had some recent problems with amazon prime. When you get 2 day shipping and it shows up late because of a mess up with UPS I can understand that...my problem is their NEW improved shipping system thinks it can get me a package using cheaper shipping methods in two days. This happens a lot when I place an order on Friday or late Thursday. If you order something on Friday, it will not get to you till Tuesday. During the last 2 months I had 9 total packages show up later than the expected, with 5 of them being because it was mailed USPS or the slower UPS shipping. I am sure in their system it told them it would get to me on time but it did not. 4 packages came a day late, 4 came 2 days late, and one came 7 days late (they shipped it the slowest USPS).

I contacted Amazon with my complaint expecting a least a gift card, or some reassurance that it would not happen again. What I got was a cookie cutter response. I wrote again, and another stupid response. I finally gave up on complaining.

If I had paid for the two day shipping I could have gotten my shipping cost back. Because I paid in one lump sum of 80 bucks with prime, I get nothing back for my trouble. If I buy 40 items in one year, I am still paying 2 bucks per item to have it shipped 2 days. Most people don't order that much, and I in fact order way more, but you get my point. If you have prime you are almost losing your ability to get back the shipping cost if they don't get it to you on time.

drq2

Some people do order alot , what pissed me off is. I paid for Prime, in print (at the time) and on the phone. I was told my items/orders would be ship by UPS or Fedex. Great as the Post office is over 40 mins away one way and the line wait is anywhere from 45mins to 2 hours (yes I did say 2 hours).

foxdvd

what did you end up doing Deftones?

kayak99

Send it back if it saves you money.


What if it was $5.00? $10.00? $100.00? $1000.00? I love store managers like you. I don't make an extra trip but I'd walk out of your store not spending a dime, apologizing for wasting your time. Then I'd email the store hq, also apologizing for wasting your time. All you have to say is you don't match prices then allow the consumer decide.

drq2

It all depends on what it is. In truth thought. Most people that ask you to price match. You need to know how far that other store is. If its down the street then give it some thought. If its across town. Tell them to go there. What your saying if if they do not wish to lose money on you, that you will stop shopping there?

jjcool

Oh well. No big loss.

Deftones

updated for closure. apparently that fry's deal was a stock on hand kind of deal. i couldn't make it there during the week and the stock was gone by the time i had the chance on the weekend. so i just ended up keeping the amazon tv. i probably could've made more of an effort to go during the week but i had family in town and it was tough. oh well. i'm still happy with the tv and the service amazon provided getting me the tv.

Xbox69

This could have easily been a Fry's negative experience had you first contacted them about the TV being in stock. I would guess they may not have lasted 48-72 hours with the "limited" stock they had on hand.

Spottedfeather

I didn't used to have problems with amazon's shipping....until the last year or so. It started with the complete set of the Beverly Hills Cop movies. It was supposed to come with an outside slipcase/box. The first order that they sent me didn't have the box. I sent it back. The next order they sent me didn't have the box, either. This time, they allowed me to keep the dvds and sent me another order. This time, luckily, it had the box. Next. I ordered two movies that were supposed to have slipcovers. They sent me new ones. Didn't have the slipcovers, either. And last year at Christmas, I ordered a bunch of stuff. It didn't come when they said it was supposed to. So, they sent me a whole new order overnight mail. This came. I also got the original order because the mailman said the P.O. sent it to the wrong address. I didn't have any problems whatsoever when they used just UPS. It was only when they ship things through the post office that I have problems. I have never once lost a package or received a bad package through UPS.

Deftones

i actually did, and they said they had only 4 on hand.

SethDLH

Sounds more your local PO branch screwing up than Amazon at least lately.

Jeffforensics

Amazon is a great company,however some of the vendors are NOT. We tested 5 online DVD companies/sellers from Amazon and other 5 from eBay to determine which ones are doing business with counterfeit products, by purchasing 10 recently released DVD’s from each.
See the results from Amazon below.
Two companies/ sellers that disproportionately failed on Amazon
Seller # 1: mango64 8 fake from 10
Seller # 2: 2easy2shop4you 7 fake from 10

Two of the DVD’s did not even play in regular DVD players, producing "wrong disc" error message. Other movies get pixelated randomly.
How to Train Your Dragon (Single Disc Edition) (2010) easy2shop4you mango64 DreamWorks
The A-Team (2010) easy2shop4you mango64 20th Century Fox
The Other Guys (The Unrated Other Edition) (2010) mango64 Columbia Pictures (Sony)
Easy A (2010) mango64 easy2shop4you Sony/Screen Gems
Despicable Me (Single-Disc Edition) (2010) mango64 easy2shop4you Universal Studios
The Town (2010) mango64 easy2shop4you Warner Bros
Shrek Forever After (Single-Disc Edition) (2010) mango64 easy2shop4you DreamWorks
Machete (2010) mango64 easy2shop4you SONY PICTURES

Jeffforensics

Maybe I should open a topic regarding this.