Amazon Prime: is there a downside?

I dug out my Kindle to browse the free books (I hadn’t used it in several months) and after charging it for about ten minutes, the screen went blehhhhh, all Max Headroomy on me and is ruined.

This thread killed my Kindle!

^Hard reset?

Thanks. I tried it, but 3/4ths of the screen is permanently stuck on the “out of battery” screen. Disappointing because I don’t use it enough to justify buying a new one. Oh well.

Did you leave it anywhere where it could have been stepped on, had something heavy put on top of it, or otherwise taken some physical impact to the screen?

I had an original Kindle, the white wedge one. The screen got broken, and it just got stuck permanently on the last thing it was displaying. You can only see that it’s broken if you look very closely.

Nope. With what I order in a year, I will never be without it simply for the day after tomorrow gratification.

Don’t give up! Try contacting Amazon customer service. I had a problem years ago with my first generation Kindle (which, by the way, is still going strong almost six years…um excuse me a moment while I knock on some wood) and their suggestion worked and I haven’t needed to call them since. It couldn’t hurt, anyway.

The only downside for me is the automatic renewal - and that’s not such a big deal.

Like others, I’ve been a Prime Member since before they started streaming anything, and all it meant was free shipping. Since we have family and friends spread across the country, it has been very nice to have gifts shipped for free pretty much wherever I want. Also, since you can save a few different credit cards and shipping addresses on the account, my friends will often use my Prime account to order gifts for their husbands/kids.

But for me, it is almost indispensable when it comes time to shop for Christmas and birthday presents. Knowing that the items will be delivered within two days makes it much, much easier to schedule the deliveries for when I’ll be home and can get to the packages first. :slight_smile: That $80 easily covers the stress of scheduling time to shop without my kids and is cheaper than babysitters.

Plus, and I know this is ridiculous, but I kind of feel like it’s a small price to pay for taking advantage of their product research and customer reviews. Almost anytime I want to buy something, even if I know it won’t be via Amazon, I go to Amazon first to see what other people think about it and to see other products similar to it.

I don’t have Prime, I just use the super saver option, and it seems regardless of who they ship with, the post office ends up delivering them. Both Fedex and UPS apparently have partnering agreements with USPS these days. It doesn’t really seem to take much longer to get things with the free super saver shipping, except that if the supply of something I order is low then people who pay for shipping seem to get priority.

No worries. The item ships in two days – meaning it leaves the warehouse in two days. I live in BFE too (Hi neighbor!), and everything comes via the post office.

I love Prime, but I was able to use it free for a year to see if it was worth it.

If you’re a student with an .edu email account, you can get a free year (it might be 6 months now) of prime. After the trial is up, you can subscribe at 50% off, so I pay $39 for a year of prime. The main restriction I’ve seen is that I can’t add family/household accounts, but I don’t see that as a big deal.

I use the amazon video occasionally, since there are things they have that Netflix streaming doesn’t, but I primarily love the shipping. Free 2 day shipping AND you can upgrade to overnight for only $3.99? Oh HELLLLLL yes.

At the end of my trial year, I looked up my order history and added up how much I would have paid in shipping if I hadn’t had Prime and it was a titch more than the (Student) subscription cost. I figured that at worst, I’d break even and get some free tv shows and movies.

No - it’s generally delivered within 2 days (2 business days, that is). I’ve never used Prime shipping and had it depart 2 days later.

Well, I’m being shortchanged then, because my Prime orders are never at the post office in two days. They usually ship the same day as the order, but actual delivery takes longer.

IME, when I pre-order books, CDs or DVDs, they ship early and usually arrive on or before the official release date.

Huh - how much longer? and might it be a post office issue?

If you are using a PO Box you are not getting the shipping benefit of Prime. I have the same issue, as I don’t have street delivery. I get all of my Prime orders via UPS, which I always have shipped to the office as that’s where I am at the time deliveries are made.

I prefer to support the Post Office so I was disappointed about that aspect, but the two-day / overnight deliveries with Prime don’t go through them.

Give Amazon a physical address for your Prime orders and behold the joy that is superfast shipping.

They have my physical address and the PO box – I think the PO box is the “default”. With some items, I get a message saying Amazon can’t deliver to my address. Sometimes it’s for a large item, sometimes for something small. When that happens, I have them deliver to my daughter in another town. The only time I get something quickly, at the door, is at Christmas.

I’ll see if I can figure out what’s going on. I haven’t tried contacting customer service.

(I use the PO box because my town doesn’t have mail delivery except to PO boxes.)

I just renewed and it was $39 and we use it all the time, though we’ve never used the video service. It’s worth it for the 2 day shipping. And sometimes it’ll be faster than two days. I bought a used book for $4, got Prime shipping, and it was inexplicably overnighted to me. I love it.

This is exactly what I was referring to. I have the same situation where I live. Change your default address to a physical address or you will never get Prime shipping, which does not utilize the USPS.

Having been a loyal amazon customer for years and NEVER paid for shipping (on Amazon direct products), due to the free shipping over $25, my question is, what’s the upside? I’ve had Prime when it was free to try for a month, and the video downloads are a nice perk, but I can’t imagine paying $79 for it.

I just keep a wishlist of “stuff I’d like eventually, but no rush” and if I don’t have $25 worth of stuff in my order, I pick something off of there to bring it over the threshold. Works for me.

Work address? I always use my business address for stuff.