Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

I'm just saying that ultimately, it's the seller that is responsible for making sure that the package gets to the buyer successfully. The buyer has a relationship with the seller, not the shipping company. The seller is the one who has a relationship with the shipper, in that they are the shipper's customer, and they select the shipper that they contract with to deliver the product safely to the buyer. A problem with the shipper is ultimately a problem for the seller.

Really? State sales taxes are usually applied equally to goods AND services.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

Which is why they shipped a replacement out instead of not doing anything. Amazon can't send an employee out to personally track down where a missing package might be in the country.

Now if they didn't bother to send a replacement out, then I'd blame Amazon but they didn't do anything wrong. They did what they were supposed to do.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

I always buy things in spurts (Blu-rays and everything else)...keep a list of things I'd like to buy, and eventually when the list gets long enough I'll buy a bunch, usually online and usually on Amazon. So I'm currently searching for things and adding them to my cart, and I'm amazed at how many things are out of stock that I want. A frying pan, compression running pants, protein powder, a dry erase board, and a pair of shoes. I've never had this issue with Amazon in the past. Did they change the way they handle inventory? They're obviously not items that sell a ton, but it just seems odd that like 5 of the 7 things I want aren't available (from Amazon themselves).

Having Prime shipping doesn't do me much good when everything I want is backordered. :(

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

My experience as a frequent Prime user is that when an item has been backordered it usually isn't for very long. And since nothing I'm ordering is of an urgent nature I'm usually fine with that. Plus, with the 1-2 days I'm getting on deliveries I can't complain.

I tend to notice it more - though not often - on items not supplied by Amazon, but by 3rd parties that are not Prime eligible.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

OK, so here's a new one... Amazon Prime member. ordered a bluray mid day yesterday, Thursday...

check out my shipping options

FREE regular 3-5 days
FREE Prime Two day shipping (estimated arrival Tuesday 29th) -- huh?
and then I could pay another $3.99 to have it arrive Saturday (which by my math is technically 2 days from my order date)
and then I could pay $8.99 (!!) to have it delievered the next day today, Friday.


Seriously? Are you seriously going to call it FREE Prime 2 day shipping?

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

As a buyer the only complaint I have is the constant price fluctuations and their refusal to PM stuff that has significant price drops. with BBY and Target PM'ing Amazon, they are going to start losing some business, at least from me.

As a seller, I'm getting sick of the listing restrictions. It's bad business and makes Amazon a "bully" who has gotten way too powerful. These restrictions can seriously affect people's livelihood and will drive some to eBay.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

Has anyone here ever had difficulty canceling an item? I bought a cheap in stock blu-ray and a book that was on pre-order. The order was over $25, so I got free shipping. The movie was delivered last week, but I received a Barnes & Noble coupon the other day and was able to order the book for less than what Amazon was selling it for. I logged on to cancel the book from the Amazon order and got the following message:Yes, I used a gift card for the order -- but I don't see how canceling an item increases the total. Even if they wanted to charge me shipping for the blu-ray, the funds would still be on the gift card to cover it after the cancellation. Anyway, I entered my credit card and it still displayed the same message and won't allow me to cancel the book. In 12 years of shopping with Amazon, I've never seen such a thing. I contacted customer service and am now waiting for a reply.

EDIT: Here's the response.

Weird.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

Well Monday was a holiday, so no deliveries on Monday. Sunday never has deliveries, And sometimes UPS doesn't deliver Saturdays either, depending on where you live.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

Still doesn't make any sense. The 29th is six BUSINESS days later. I ordered something with prime on the 19th and its scheduled to come today.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

I like Amazon so much that I didn't think I'd have anything to contribute to this thread but I have to say that my gold box deals in 2013 have really stunk. Seems like they used to be based on purchases I've made there but now it's whatever.

Cat food when I don't have a cat.

Windows 7 when I bought a computer from them months ago with Windows 7 on it.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Bummer. I used to like those a lot. Now all I get are a bunch of coupons and local deals which are just echoes of what's in the local deals emails, anyway.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

Same. I used to get 6-9 movies in the gold box each day with at least a couple of them being of actual interest. Now, if I get any movies at all it isn't something even remotely in line with what I've bought from them.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

Good and bad within the last 24 hours...

The good: I got a free one-month Prime trial. I was a Prime member for a year back in 2010-2011...so I didn't think I'd ever get another trial, but I did.

The bad: Anyone else have to type in ReCaptcha-style letters and numbers when logging in? Because I just noticed that today and it's annoying.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

I typically have been happy with Amazon service, but they have been slipping in the shipping department. I order a good amount from them, and if I don't need it right away I usually pick the 3-5 day shipping. But the last 4 orders I have had shipped either two day or next day has been late.

This time for some reason they decided to ship USPS and of course it is running late.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

LOL My Gold Box finally has some great books in it! I know they're great because I already own them when I bought them from a store besides Amazon. Isn't there a way to tell them that? Isn't there a way to give them even more personal information?

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

Go through "Your Recommendations" for Movies & TV and Books, etc. and indicate which ones you have and which ones you're not interested in, leaving the ones you are interested in on the list. Could take a while if you've never done it before. Afterward, wait 2 or 3 days and usually your recommendations that are still on the list will start to show up in the Gold Box. Then periodically repeat the focusing of the recommendations to the items you're interested in and for the most part they'll show up.

I just updated my recommendations the other day and I now have 8 items in my Gold box, all from my recommendations list.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

Easiest way is to add it to your Wish List and then immediately delete it. As you're deleting it you will have the option to click a little box that says "I own it" after the following message appears:

Please tell us more so we can improve the quality of our recommendations for you.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

More and more of my Prime stuff is coming via USPS. I'll have something sitting in the mailbox for days and forget that I ordered it. Not the same "Christmas" feeling I get when I come home and see a package at my door.

Still having a problem with my post office not leaving large packages at my door even though they are marked "leave if no response" or something like that. No worse way to spend a Saturday morning than at the Post Office.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

Ordered a disc from Amazon Canada, shipped really fast (making the outrageous shipping charges hurt a little less) but it is going to a town in PA with the same name. I'm in MD. Apparently states and zip codes don't mean anything to DHL. It boggles my mind why Amazon still uses DHL

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/7499/pennies.png

versus

http://img831.imageshack.us/img831/5453/dollars.png

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

My Gold Box picks are usually related to what I purchased--lately I've been getting Criterions after my bingeing on the sale a few months ago, and now the prices are not in my buying range. But occasionally I'll get days of completely random stuff.

The weird thing is when I get stuff THAT I'VE ALREADY BOUGHT FROM THEM. It's not even a different version because if I click through I get the order acknowledgment at the top of the page.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

Had a couple of strange occurrences within the same order. The first was an unsealed copy of Ip Man. There was no cellophane anywhere in the package, so it hadn't been torn off...it looked like a copy that had been returned to them & then resold to me. There was no chapter insert, either, but maybe it didn't come with one.

The second weird thing was a copy of Sanctuary Season Two with a small price label attached (the type of 'homemade' price sticker you often see in used outlets...looks something like a small grocery sticker). Never gotten an item like that from Amazon before in hundreds of orders. One corner was also crushed pretty badly even though the box wasn't damaged & the other six items were all in new condition.

Anyway, I called and a CSR authorized a return on both items and emailed a return label. The replacements came today (now yesterday) in perfect shape. Normally, if an item is for my personal collection rather than a gift, I'd just keep the opened/slightly damaged copies, but I didn't want to encourage this behavior. I've kept enough items that had loose discs, etc. as long as they were in almost new condition. I appreciate the deals & savings (free shipping, no tax...until next year, at least), etc. and consider myself a loyal customer, but having used items sold as new is a bit much. Hopefully, just a screw-up in the shipping dept., but it's hard to see how anyone could pick an unsealed item & not even notice.

As for Sanctuary, the price on the sticker was the retail price, although it didn't resemble any price stickers used by major retailers. At least Amazon apologized and send replacements with one-day shipping. If they looked at my order history, I'm sure they felt like I was had achieved platinum status if Amazon had such a thing.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

I've found that if I search for a particular item several time, it often shows up in my Gold Box picks. This has become a pattern. If I'm not in a big hurry to get something or it's not on sale (or likely to go out of print), I usually wait and save a buck or two.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

I've had that happen once from them also, with the DVD of Thirteen Ghosts. The case looked a little beat up, but not too bad, but there was zero cellophane. They wound up refunding me as I'd ordered the last copy before they discontinued carrying it.

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

More of a USPS problem than an Amazon problem, but here's what I found when checking an order status today:

http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/7760/trackingb.jpg

Re: The complaining about Amazon thread
 

This used to work for me but not so much in the last year or so.

That finally happened to me this morning. Whatever.