Quit second guessing me, Amazon, and send my damn books the way I tell you to!

The BBQ Pit
1

I order from Amazon a lot, living in a place where the local book, music, and software stores are either nonexistent or tiny. In fact, I order so much from them that when they came out with Amazon Prime, offering 2-day shipping on all orders for a flat $79 yearly fee, I jumped on it. “Whoo whoo!” says I, “I can get my books FAST, all the time, and it’ll be CHEAP!”

So far, it’s worked well. Except last night. I come home from work, anticipating my newest load of books - five of 'em, all on the Booker Prize long list. They’re not there.

I double check the Amazon site. “Your books were sent out Friday, August 19th!” it tells me. OK, by my count, books sent out on Friday, 2nd day, oughta get here on Tuesday. I call UPS.

“Oh yes!” they say “We have them! They’ll be delivered tomorrow!”

“They were sent Friday?” I ask.

“Yup,” they say.

“So by my count, sent out Friday, 2nd day, they oughta be here today.”

“Oh,” says UPS, “But they weren’t sent 2nd day. They were sent ground.”

Excuse me? Ground? Didn’t I ante up $80 a few months ago so that every fucking thing I order from Amazon is sent 2nd day?

Luckily, I have the super-secret Amazon customer service phone number. I call them, and explain the situation to Melanie of Amazon, who confirms my packages were sent ground.

MofA tells me “We’ve determined that packages sent to your address from that particular fulfillment center are received within two days, even when sent ground. We’re sorry for the inconvenience.”

Now I’m really getting mad. What the fuck? I ask for 2-day service, I pay for 2-day service, and you determine that ground is good enough? Fuck you, Amazon. I don’t care if you’ve scientifically determined that sending my packages by dogsled gets them from you to me in 12 parsecs, if I say I want 2-day shipping, I want TWO DAY SHIPPING.

MoA sympathizes with me. I tell her “I’m in the middle of nowhere. NOTHING gets here in 2 days unless it’s sent 2 day. Heck, for a long time, when FedEx first opened, they wouldn’t guarantee overnight service up here.”

“I’m sorry,” says MoA, “I’ll pass your feedback on to my supervisors.”

Fuck that. I’m pissed. I push her a little more. “So you’re saying that even though I paid for second day shipping, you guys sometimes decide it’s OK to ship it ground?”

“er, yes,” she says. She sounds apologetic. “How about I send on a $15 gift certificate for your troubles.”

Free books? My book slut personality comes to the foreground “OK,” I say, free books are good. I quell the book slut, and get back to horrified customer personality. Goddamn it, Amazon, send me my fucking books the way I want them to be sent, quit second guessing me, and throw out your goddamn business model experts and mid-level managers and greedy VPs who came up with this fucking idea. And, since this is the pit, go felch a goat while you’re at it.

2

You know, I hate to say it because I’d be peeved if I was in your shoes too, but this sounds pretty reasonable to me. (I’m a whore for Amazon.com too, in case you were wondering.) That $79 a year doesn’t cover all that many two day shipments, at least at their normal cost. I’m sure most folks who sign up for Amazon Prime (would that I could afford enough books and CDs to make it worth my while!) are getting a lot of items at that shipping speed.

If, the great majority of the time, the items arrive within two days and Amazon can save on the shipping, it makes pretty good sense for them to do so. That allows them to offer Amazon Prime at a lower price than they could otherwise, at the cost of occasional - hopefully, very occasional - screwups like this.

I guess I don’t demand absolute perfect service from businesses, because I know it’s impossible. I’m perfectly happy to shop at a grocery store that screws up my order and inconveniences me one time in a thousand if they’re willing to fix the problem promptly. No service can be perfect, and in a lot of cases, the small incremental improvements when you’re already doing “pretty good” cost disproportionately more. If Amazon offered two day shipping and actually paid for it on every Amazon Prime shipment, it’d probably end up costing a lot more. If ground shipping will get purchases to a particular customer 95% of the time, I’d say that’s a way better deal than charging twice as much to improve that to 99% of the time.

Like I said, I understand your frustration. But hey, it’s only a day, and for me at least the $15 would easily make up for that.

3

Hey, at least it sounds like Melanie was a reasonable human being. You got a $15 dollar voucher, and your remarks will be passed up the line. That’s probably the limit of what she could do for you. I agree tough, their ‘determining’ that they can provide the service you have paid for, by using a lower priced mail service sounds like a crock of shit. Did your payment guarantee 2 day delivery or not?!

4

I totally understand why you’re upset at their decision – business models so seldom take into account the realities of those who don’t fit the model exactly. But at least you were able to reach a human being, who was actually sympathetic and offered you something to make up for your troubles, instead of just blowing you off. When dealing with a corporation as big as Amazon, that’s about all you can expect.

5

According to the Amazon Prime page, I get " Free Two-Day Shipping on over a million in-stock items sold by Amazon.com" That sounds like a guarantee to me.

Sure, the $15 helps - but I just read the email they sent me, it’s only good for a month. I tend to order in spurts, like 3 orders in one week, then no orders for 6 weeks. So I may or may not be able to use it.

It just pisses me off to no end that they play this kind of game.

6

Shouldn’t you be complaining to UPS? Presumably they’re the ones who determined it’ll be delivered in 2 days, and failed to do so.

7

I beleive she said Amazon determined that that sorting facility usually handles ground shipments in two days, not UPS.

8

Yeah, it’s definitely in Amazon’s hands. UPS gives estimates of when an item will arrive, but unless you specify one or two day service (and pay extra) they don’t guarantee it.

If I specify one or two day shipping, what I’m paying for is the guarantee that it will be there in specified time period. If you’re close to where it’s shipping from, maybe ground will get it there in the same time period, but there’s no guarantee. And living where I do, the guarantee means something - things never get here in the estimated times.

9

I am curious as to why UPS didn’t deliver it when they had it. You said you called them and were told that they had it but were holding it because it was shipped ground. Wouldn’t it be in their best interest to get the package to the destination ASAP?

10

Sorry, I didn’t explain thoroughly.

They were not holding it because it had shipped ground. They had it in their system (that’s what I meant by “UPS had it”) but it was still two states away. When I asked why my package that I thought had been shipped 2nd day air was two states away on the day it was supposed to be delivered, they told me it hadn’t been shipped two day, and that the scheduled delivery date was a day later.

From what I understand about UPS, if you ship something ground, it has a delivery range based on where it’s being shipped. IE, “Illinois to Michigan 2-4 days.” If you ship it 2 day, it’s a guaranteed to be there in 2 days.

That’s my beef. I specified and paid for it to be shipped 2 days. Amazon, in their infinite wisdom, decided that most of the time, things shipped from their warehouse to me get there in 2 days, even when shipped ground. The guarantee that I paid for was missing, and Amazon saved a few bucks.

It pisses me off, because now I really can’t trust them to send things the way the should be sent.

11

Just keep letting them fuck up, and keep collecting those Coupons. It won’t be long before that Prime rate has paid for itself in free books!!!
If you don’t use that voucher coupon in the next month, be sure to call them up again when you ARE buying stuff. And tell those fuckers that they still owe you 15 dollars worth of books even though your last coupon expired. Tell them you’re now ready to use it and would like a valid one. I’m sure they would do that for you.

12

Wow. I’ve considered shelling out the 79 bucks a couple times myself. This load of hockey makes me rather pleased that I haven’t. Get 'em Athena. Maybe call 'em again and ask for an extension on that “gift certificate?”

13

Uh, I don’t get it. You have a gift certificate. Since you’re an Amazon Prime member, you don’t have to pay shipping. There’s zero reason for you to delay using the thing until it expires - you don’t need to consolidate it into a larger order or anything.

14

Yeah, but what if there’s nothing I want from Amazon in that time period?

It’s not a big deal - I’m sure I can pick out something - but chances are that since I just bought 7 books from them, I’d be set through September. But I can suck it up and find something, I’m sure.

15

:eek: This boggles the mind. My mind, anyway.

16

We ship a lot of stuff UPS at my job. We have a map from UPS divided into regions with guaranteed UPS ground delivery times. Much of where we ship is in our guaranteed 2-day ground delivery zone, so when given the chance we will use ground. Of course, we have made no guarantees to our clients and they haven’t paid for anything to guaranteed delivery times, but if it isn’t delivered in the ground-guaranteed times, it’s UPS’s problem.

I believe your complaint really is with UPS. At least, Amazon’s complaint is with UPS, because I’m sure they have a similar setup. I would recommend that if you call Amazon again to request that they take your beef up with UPS. I think the complaint takes more weight if given by the shipper rather than the receiver.

17

So if Amazon isn’t providing the service you’re paying for, why pay? I’d call back, cancel your Prime membership, and demand your money back, since they’re not living up to their end of the bargain. What exactly are you paying for now, really? You can apparently still get two day shipping via ground without the $79.

18

I’m curious, at what point does one go from being an occasional Amazon lecher to a full-blown slut? I just added up 4 pages of 2005 invoices from ‘my account’ - and was wondering if it’s time to seek out a local AmAnon meeting?

19

Sorry, but i believe that’s all irrelevant.

Amazon explicitly sells Two Day Shipping as the benefit of signing up for Amazon Prime. Whether the people who sign up for this service get “a lot of items at that shipping speed,” and whether or not it saves Amazon money to ship Ground, the fact is that they promise Two Day Shipping to Amazon Prime members, and they should deliver on that promise. It only “makes sense” for them to save on the shipping if by “makes sense” you mean violate their contract and piss off their customers.

Presumably they had a bunch off well-paid analysts and actuarial types who worked out beforehand how much they should charge for Amazon Prime in order to benefit the company’s bottom line. It’s not the customer’s fault if they fucked up their calculations.

Two things:

  1. A parsec is a unit of distance, not of time.

  2. A parsec is equal to about 3.25 light years, or roughly 19 trillion miles.

If you’re 12 parsecs away from Amazon’s warehouse, i don’t think your package will arrive in two days.

20

Ah…I’m pretty sure Athena knows that and was making a Star Wars joke.

I’m just adding that because you already said everything else I was going to say :slight_smile: .