When they give you the option to have all of your packages to be shipped on your Amazon delivery day and instead of combing them in one shipment they sent them in separate brown mailers or when you order two copies of the same movie in one order and they split them up into two bubble mailer envelope shipments

I'm sure some of you got the email today.

Now Amazon Prime Video will have ads in their streaming content.

But hey, just pay $2.99 a month for no ads...on top of the $140/year membership.

Yeah, I think I complained about it back in September when they announced they would do it in 2024 (of course it's January of 2024).

I am sure Bezos will use that ad money to give his employees raises and better benefits.

Streaming services -- and Amazon Prime in particular -- are really a goldmine for advertisers. They know your name, where you live, and what you watch. And, in Amazon's case, they know also know what you shop for and buy. And, on top of all of the information we voluntarily give out to social media sites like facebook, tik-tok, and instagram, there are probably insanely detailed profiles available out there for advertisers.

I remember a while back that a father found out his teenage daughter was pregnant because Target was keeping track of her shopping habits, figured out she was pregnant, and started sending her exclusive deals for baby items.

Corps datamine all available info on every consumer in the United States. There are methods to confuse the system unless you have an incredibly unique name. The EU was very smart and proactive passing those data privacy laws.

I assume you can't cancel the $14.99 Amazon prime monthly fee and just get prime video with ads for $2.99?

Ads are annoying but that might be a great deal and if it covers 2024 Thurs Night football games as well.

I mean you still need to pay for prime video with ads ala carte.

So I ordered a book that was due to arrive today, but they sent me a message of a "problem with your order" and the explanation was the product was damaged and undeliverable.

So they're giving me a refund. Why don't they just send me another copy of the book?

That happened to me before. They refunded me because the product I ordered was out of stock.

Is this the place to complain about Amazon Prime movies having commercials now? Despicable! Totally ruins the movie. I’m considering canceling in protest.

Here and/or here: https://forum.dvdtalk.com/streaming-...ng-thread.html

Posted in the Amazon Prime Streaming Thread:

You want 4K DV/Atmos then you gotta pay or you cancel. I pay and expect the 4K/DV/Atmos.

I wonder if it is because the commercials are not in Dolby Vision or Atmos?

Rant mode on:
I guess I can't be too picky but I ordered a Genie outside keypad to replace mine that has seen better days due to sun and general weather exposure.

I figured I'd have it sent to one of the Amazon Lockers thinking they would bulk drop those earlier to partially empty the truck and I'd get my stuff sooner in the day. Well, that's not how it works because as I type this, 4:40 PM local, it's still not delivered. I might have just had it dropped off at my home even if it arrived at the somewhat regular time around 7 PM.

OK, perhaps I'm just passive-aggressive since I just saw my Prime membership renewed earlier today and I forgot I was considering canceling with fewer orders and now ads on Prime. I guess I can still cancel but I guess I'm too lazy.

OK, rant mode off.

AND,

We’re sorry for the delay. If you have not received your package by March 10, you can come back here the next day for a refund.

In my experience they would often drop locker shipments late at night after regular deliveries.

I'd been on an Amazon boycott for some time, but my cousin wanted a toy for his birthday that you can only order there. So I begrudgingly logged in to my account yesterday to place my first order in four years. I received a confirmation e-mail, but as of this morning I've been locked out of the account due to "unusual activity". The site is instructing me to upload a billing statement if I want to regain access. I believe that's overstepping it.

Amazon is not the government - I'm not sending them any scans of my banking documents to gain approval to buy a $50 children's toy. Security measure or not, that's absurd. The account is over twenty years old and I entered the same address and payment method that was used on my last order in 2020. They obviously don't need my business, so they may as well cancel the damn thing. Thank goodness I never spent money building any kind of digital library with Amazon or I'd be really pissed right now. For me, the major downside of having the account frozen is that I'm unable to delete my personal info stored on this evil corporation's site.

You likely got flagged because you hadn't logged into the account for four years, then suddenly logged in to buy a toy, which is something you'd probably never bought or even did a search for before.

On their end, it probably looked suspicious.

I'd logged in to the account occasionally since 2020 to monitor prices of items on my wish list. This was only to help with comparison shopping and I almost always found a better price elsewhere with a bit of searching. Ironically, an action figure was the last item I'd ordered on Amazon in early 2020 - so this wasn't an unusual purchase. I'd ordered quite a few similar items on the account.

But to me, this is overkill. It would be like a Walmart cashier asking me to show my bank statement at the register because I hadn't used a debit card there for a few years. I'd just go somewhere else. There are more efficient and less intrusive ways to verify a customer's payment method. My billing and shipping address match, not to mention providing a security code. The only time I can recall being forced to show a personal billing statement was for proof of residence to obtain a Real ID card.

You could always try a customer service chat and see if there's some other way to unlock your account without being so intrusive.

Edit: Never mind. Sounds like a nightmare situation: https://www.reddit.com/r/amazonprime...th_resolution/

^ No chat when you can't even log in. Apparently calling gets you nowhere. There's no getting past the screen where they ask you to upload a billing statement at the bottom:



But yeah, I went down the Reddit rabbit hole on this topic yesterday. It seems even if you provide the documents they ask for, they often still mark it as "insufficient" and keep the account locked. What if this happened to an elderly shut-in who depended on Amazon for food delivery and medical supplies? The whole thing is Kafkaesque to me. I did nothing wrong, yet something triggers a security algorithm and an outsourced office drone in another country just passes blame to the customer and keeps them running in circles. That's what this creepy monolithic company has come to.

If you read deep enough in the Reddit threads, it seems the people who managed to get their accounts unlocked had to upload utility bills and/or a photo of them holding up their credit card/driver's license next to their face. Here's an idea, Amazon: Why don't you leave the security of my payment method up to my credit card company? They're pretty good at handling that themselves.

I agree it's dumb but I can understand why they don't just leave security in the hands of the credit card company, which will make you whole but not amazon (as I understand it).