Josh-da-man

Ah, there's that awesome Amazon customer service...

Meathead

Amazon just refunded me a $140 item (and I don't have to send it back) because it was a day late... no rhyme or reason to Amazon.

TheBang

Meathead

Yup... unfortunately the days of getting a month extension to your Prime subscription are long gone.

Wolf359

So can you no longer avoid tax by picking a 3rd party seller not based in your state? I always used that to save some money.

andicus

What I find strange is that even if I purchase an item that is 'Fulfilled by Amazon,' I don't get charged tax.

I can't tell where the sellers are located (which pisses me off), but it seems to happen consistently with 'Fulfilled by Amazon' items.

zyzzle

Yes, sadly, and unfortunately. Amazon just went up about 10% across the board for a huge number of people and no one's really complaining. Ordering from 3rd party sellers (not located in your state), especially on expensive items, and getting out of paying tax, was the one and only last great thing about Amazon. Now, even that has died and Amazon's 3rd-party sellers are out to pasture for me (and hopefully for others as well due to this sudden, silent 10% upcharge). That kills the deal every time.

Wolf359

Ok yeah that really sucks. I let my Prime lapse this year because of the price increase and now this. I think I'll continue to give Walmart and Target more business. Amazon is almost never cheaper than Target anyway and you at least get the 5% Red discount.

movieguru

They are usually giving $5 credits on your next Amazon purchase though.

Meathead

They are low-balling you... I've been getting $10 credits (on sold/ships from Amazon) on late packages since they dropped the Prime extension.

movieguru

I've received $10 a few times. It may depend on the cost of the item they are shipping to you. Many of my late ones are under $10 and some are under $5, so I'm usually being offered only $5. A lot of time I don't need the items right away, so I'll often opt for the $1 digital credits so i can watch some movies not available on Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Prime. What's annoying though is when I really need the item within the two days, it will end up being late, or the post office/Amazon driver will mark it as delivered and deliver it the next day. about 25% of the time when I opt for the $1 digital credits, I still get them within the 2 business days whenni ordered it.

stvn1974

Just received another "Sold by: Amazon.com Services, Inc" item that is clearly an item from a third party. Even had the seller's barcode on the plastic wrap that stated it was a new item. The "Sold by: Amazon.com Services, Inc" was $12 more than the cheapest third party seller's price. Oh yeah, it looks like it was used in a game of street hockey too.

Josh-da-man

Ever since Amazon started selling "third party" shit, they've turned into some king of sleazy flea market or pawn shop.

A lot of these sellers are hawking a bunch of beat-up shit that was either stolen, or jammed into some kind of storage lockers they bought. It pisses me off when I buy a "new" DVD or CD that's a cut-out. Or a dodgy foreign release or outright bootleg.

slop101

Amazon won't let me sell on their site like they used to a few years ago.
They're making me set up a new account to do so, instead of using my previously established and still active seller account that I use for buying.

mndtrp

I recently bought a third-party item, and waited weeks for it. When I finally looked into the seller, which I should have done first, there was nothing but negative reviews stating the items were never shipped out. Amazon, for their part, did refund me the money, but didn't respond at all when I asked if they look into their sellers with more than a year's worth of 100% negative reviews.

I then bought two of the same item from a third-party seller. One showed up in a WalMart box, with their tape and label, the other one never did show up. Amazon's price was cheaper than WalMart, so it wasn't like someone was making a couple bucks buying from one place and selling at the other. Anyway, when I messaged the seller about the second box and if it still had to be shipped, they just refunded me the money for both. No comments given, just a full refund that I didn't even ask for.

Otherwise, Amazon is still doing fine for the 15 or so items I buy a year.

rjh_54

I canceled my Prime membership and was refunded for the remainder of the year. I was really sad to do it, but honestly I was getting exhausted being given the run-around by customer service. Tried chatting with them again earlier in the week and I was asked what my issue was. After explaining the issue I got transferred to someone else. This would've been fine but this happened three more times. The last "representative" that helped me just completely stopped responding after I explained my situation.

I closed out of the chat and gave a one star review, to which Amazon wanted to "make it right" by having me e-mail them. Well, this time I got a response - once again, asked to elaborate on what my issue was. I told them the apartment in the photo on the delivery page for the item that was delivered by their own service wasn't mine.

Once again, I didn't hear from them for two days. I e-mailed them back letting them know that this had been going on for almost a week at this point and that for a company who claims to value their customers, they're entirely unprofessional and don't seem to show that they care. I told them I wanted a refund for my Prime membership because I don't want to do business with a company who doesn't make customer service a priority, and that if they continue to ignore me like they have been, I would be e-mailing every day until some sort of resolution was reached. Minutes later I was sent an email stating that I was refunded and my membership was canceled. Oh, and rather than getting any sort of apology, the email was accompanied by a Prime registration link, in case I ever want to try it again.

My big issue is just that it's the principle of the whole thing. Their customer service used to be decent and attentive. Now they can't solve a simple issue like this? Luckily my package only cost like $30, but after this incident there's no way I could ever buy a high-ticket item from them with confidence.

JoeySeven

I do not really care for the 3rd party listing,as when searching by low price they show up and you click on the
item and a shipping charge usually shows up,maybe because I do not have prime right now.Not sure if you can do a search that exclude them.

And I hardly ever see a good price on a move anymore without them price matching someone else.
So I'm buying more at Target,walmart and Best Buy when I can.

We drop prime about 4 months ago,just not buying much on amazon and watching Netflix more.
But going to start it up again and see if my family and me use it enough like to buy low price items like books,movies,games etcs.

JoeySeven

Screw you Amazon.
Price matching some of Walmart bf deals, but sometimes only for 10 minutes to hour.
And not a lightning deal.

Decker

So I come home and see my Alexa in my bathroom flashing yellow. I ask "Alexa why is there a yellow flashing light?" It replies "You have one new Notification. Would you like to hear it now?" . I say yes. It says "Judging from your order history, you may be running low on toilet paper. If you would like to order some, open the Alexa app". I was so pissed. I don't need Alexa guesstimating my household rate of toilet paper usage and I am quite able to procure my own supply with no help from Amazon.

Why So Blu?

I've noticed this as of late, as well. When I first started using Alexa I would see the flashing light and it would notify me that something had shipped and was in transit. Now it guesstimates that I may need to reorder something.

Josh-da-man

Wonder how long it will be before people start getting notifications like...

"Using GPS data, we believe your wife has been fucking a guy from work behind your back."

"Your son has a 88% probability of being gay."

"Using data acquired from websearches and shopping history, Alexa has concluded that your sixteen year-old daughter is pregnant."

(The last one actually happened with Target.)

zyzzle

I knew this day would come. Anyone who thinks a little bit about what Alexa really is between the lines of the hype and hyperbole knows that it's just a big glamorous way for Amazon to spy on you, track you, and mine your data.

This is why I never even considered ordering one. I wouldn't take one for free. I wouldn't take one if Amazon offered to pay me. A very bad bargain either way. Alex is an abomination with a crooked, partial and very keen interest in seperating me from my money as quickly as possible.

Is there actually a device like Alexa that is completely above the board, honest, and not surreptitiously tracking you and always trying to make money from you? Every 'personal assistant' that I know of is made by one of the evil "Big Six". Hope the day will come when a phlanthropist and / or rich hobbyist makes one of these devices which is truly impartial and useful. Feel like I'll be waiting a very long time.

TomOpus

Alexa is probably just going off your ordering history with Amazon, if there is history.

Plus, you can unplug Alexa when you're not using it.

And why even have it in the bathroom?

fujishig

I'm curious what information they would get on you via alexa that they wouldn't already have with your shopping history, which is presumably where this TP alert came from?

rduncan

I'm batting 1000 lately with Amazon and eBay.
Ordered a replacement part, leaf collector bag, for some lawn equipment and found decent price from a 3rd party seller on Amazon. Expected delivery early Thanksgiving week.....of course, late but delivered on Black Friday. Opened box and wrong item with a different part number. Part delivered was considered but really bad reviews and about a third less from several sellers. Immediately opened return expecting a "sorry, keep it" type response. Nope, they sent a return label so I trudged to USPS on Saturday to drop off. Then USPS delivered a Display Port adapter bought on eBay later in the day.....yep it was an HDMI adapter. Reported SNAD and they also sent a label to return. It was a $5 item and did expect them to tell me to keep it and issue a refund.