I pit cdplusdvd at Amazon

The BBQ Pit
1

I placed a large online order this week on Amazon to buy some books and DVDs from various sellers. One of these sellers was “cdplusdvd” from whom I was buying four DVDs.

Today I received an email saying they were “unable” to fill my order due to a “technical problem”. I assumed they must have listed items for sale that they did not actually have available. I was surprised that all four DVDs were affected but I figured that while it was unfortunate it was unavoidable.

But I did a little checking and discovered that “unable” was not the operable word - it was “unwilling”. Cdplusdvd was still offering all four of the DVDs I ordered for sale - but they had marked up the prices on all four of them. And I found that they had done the same for dozens of other customers. They apparently put a whole bunch of itmes up for sale in October for prices about 30% below what they wanted. So they cancelled everyone’s order, raised the prices, and put the items back up for sale.

If you check their seller profile, you’ll see this has had quite an impact on their ratings. (I never saw a 39% negative rating before.) I wonder if the potential increase of a few dollars will make up for the loss of sales?

2

So, how does one look up individual seller ratings on Amazon?

3

I think this goes to the heart of why they didn’t give a shit.

4

You just click on their seller name in the “new and used” listing. From there you get a summary page, giving a breakdown of recent feedback. Funnily enough, of the recent feedback shown, all of it refers to cancelled orders but while three are negative, two are full of praise for the seller. Bizarre.

The problem is that their “star rating” still averages four and a half over the last twelve months, which you’d usually think is good enough, but just doesn’t reflect the fact that they seem to be shipping only one sale in 20. Maybe an email to Amazon is in order? Surely there must be something in their terms about abuse of the cancellation system. I had one guy tell me he’d already sold the item, and that I should wait the 60 days Amazon require, then claim fraud to get my money back. It’s weird what people will try.

5

Ah, I understand. You have to be looking at something that they’re selling before you can check their feedback.

A little different from eBay, where you can search out feedback by simply typing in the seller’s name.