1) News and weather updates while I get ready for work.
2) Playing music while in the shower or bath
3) Listening to sports radio while getting ready in the morning
4) Turning on and off a UV sterilization device I keep in the bathroom
5) Occasionally reordering shaving supplies as I need them.

I would think there would be easy alternatives to each of those. The bathroom would be the last place I'd want an active listening device.

"Alexa... please play JOI."

"Hello, Dave, I have predicted that you have wiped your ass 200 times since you last ordered toilet paper. Would you like me to place an order now?"

What happened to Amazon's online customer service? Their "Chat" is now a robot (it says you can connect to a live person, but I can't figure out how to do so - they just keep giving you options to click on, but no option to chat live or type anything in on your own) and their link to email them has totally disappeared. You can have them call you if you want.

Has it been like this for a long time and I'm just now noticing?

Maybe a month or so... it was just there one day. You have to either navigate the options til you can type or scroll to the bottom and click on 'I Need More Help'. Once you get a box you can type in, just put in live person and you'll get connected.

Sure there are alternatives, this works better for me.
Here’s the thing though : isn’t a smart phone an active listening device as well? If you say “Hey Google” or “Hey Siri” your phone well respond.

I have to bring up Google, otherwise my phone just stares back.

It's configurable, at least on an iPhone.

Oh my, that's hideously bad. The few times that I did have problems with Amazon orders, I must give them credit for handling them well, and usually over live chat. In olden days, I actually CALLED them over the phone, and also had good experiences.

NOW, all bets are off, it seems, let's check the boxes

- No live person chat
- No telephone number to call -- or if so, you're connected to India with a robot anyway.
- No E-mail support now ??!!!

What's left, crying to the nearest rock on how the mighty have fallen?

Is my understanding of "the new way" of customer service at Amazon incorrect?

The only kind of complaining I can do is about the delivery dates shuffling to a later date and then arriving early. And I'm sure it was due to Black Friday/Cyber Monday because usually they're accurate. And they gave me a $1 credit because I used my Prime Delivery Day of Friday and it's out for delivery right now (Thursday).

Sure, but so is Alexa. And supposedly, the Echo only starts listening if you say the wake word "Alexa". If the fear is that someone can listen in when you don't want them to, then it's certainly possible that could happen on a cell phone as well, right?

If they're not already listening, how do they know you say "alexa" in the first place?

Exactly.

My assumption, and it could easily be incorrect, is that when I tell iOS not to listen for 'Hey Siri' that it's not listening for anything. Unless, I hold the home button.

I just recently disabled it, as iOS 13.1.3 is brutal on battery life. Since it would have to be listening all the time, I figured that was contributing to battery drain.

Got an email this morning my order was cancelled because it was undeliverable?! It's a "TBA" tracking number, so doesn't that mean it goes through Amazon delivery? It never went to "out for delivery".

And to top it off, they're not giving me a refund until they receive it back?? How is that my fault?

I didn't ask them to cancel it, why didn't they just resend it? Of course it was a couple of "black Friday weekend" deals.

The only way this could be "undeliverable" was either there was something wrong with the mailing label, or their employee decided they didn't want to deliver it. It was determined to be undeliverable at 4:57am too?

And of course I got a different delivery from Amazon today, only this one came by FedEx.

Urgh, who thinks it's a good idea to put stickers on the slipcovers of blu-rays? On both sides too! Where's my goo-gone...

What stickers would Amazon put a blu-ray? I've never had them do that.

It's two barcode stickers, one on the front and one on the back. The weird thing is the barcodes aren't even the same and they're not covering the existing barcode.

Looking it up, these are LPN stickers which means some kind of return (although the blu-ray itself is sealed). Maybe the second guy returned it because he didn't like that it already had a barcode sticker on it. But that kind of sucks because I bought this as "new."

Huh, weird shit. Might be smoking funny cigs at the fulfilment center.

Hmmm, in my area, it looks like Amazon is not allowing the use of lockers for BDs.

I tried to get Creed II sent to a locker, due to the porch pirate risk going on, and it would not allow it as my delivery address. It says this item requires "special handling" which is BS. I had no issues before. Maybe the lockers are too full with small items and they only want them used for bigger and most expensive stuff.

I wonder if the lockers you requested are already full or if you ordered something else immediately after if that would be delivered there?

I found this interesting. Discussing How Amazon Squeezes the businesses behind their store. From what I've read in the past they are following WalMarts store practices with their vendors.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/19/t...n-sellers.html

Amazon knows how to track its costs down to the penny. Including the cost of leaving a package in a locker. They're probably not profiting enough to allow it.

I returned a fulfilled by Amazon item this afternoon. When submitting my return request, it simply listed "Refund" as the only option. I assumed the money would go right back to my credit card, as there was no option to select a gift card for a quicker refund -- which I didn't want anyway.

I received a refund confirmation e-mail after I dropped off the package stating the return total was "now available" to use on my account. Sure enough, they'd processed the refund as a gift card without me having selected that. This has never happened before and if it's some new policy, I'm done shopping there.

I opened a chat and asked that the amount be refunded back to my original payment method. The rep said "Good thing you didn't spend this balance already, otherwise I wouldn't be able to reverse this." Not that I needed his clarification, but it should have never happened to begin with.