I’ve reached the point where I buy almost everything (other than food) from Amazon. The few times I run to a local brick and mortar store I find myself disappointed over the poor selection, lousy service, or inflated price.
Last weekend my gf decided she wanted a battery powered lawn mower specifically to mow one awkward slope. She found the one she wanted on the manufacturer’s website and proceeded to attempt to make the purchase. For some reason their ordering process broke down. She asked if I would check Amazon for the mower.
I searched amazon for the make/model and found the exact mower (or so I thought) for the exact same price. I showed it to her (she wasn’t wearing her cheaters) and she asked me to order it.
So, two days later it arrives. I unbox and assemble. When she gets home she freaks out. The mower is a 14 inch wide cut, not the 17 inch she wanted. She is pissed. I look on Amazon, and sure enough, the mistake was mine (ours). I carefully disassembled, re-wrapped, and re-boxed the mower. I then re-boxed the box into the giant shipping box. Then, I went online to return our mistake. Meanwhile, my gf found the mower on the manufacturers page and placed the order. This time the process worked.
Turns out the mower I purchased is not returnable. Fuck! I write an email to Amazon, explaining how this happened. I offered to pay shipping. I offered to pay a restocking fee. I begged. I assumed I’d be stuck with a new, unwanted item that I’d have to sell in an attempt to recoup some of my money.
Two hours later I get a reply from the customer service person who read my email. She apologized for the mix-up, explaining that she understood how this could happen. She said they’d refund the purchase. She explained that there was no need to return the item, I could keep/sell/donate/whatever. And then she asked if she could do anything else to fix the situation.
I ordered a $60 video game once. The notification said the delivery driver left it at my door. I didn’t see it so I called Amazon. They had another one delivered the same freaking day!
A couple of days later my son tells me: "Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, you got a delivery (it was the original game delivered). So I called Amazon back to ask where to deliver the extra game. The lady on the phone basically said: “No worries, you can keep it.”
I wound up giving it to my son so he could trade it at Game Stop (or where ever it is he goes).
A game, I can understand. Probably not worth the hassle. But an expensive lawnmower is insane! :eek:
I ordered a tall lamp with a lamp shade. Later, I knocked the lamp over, breaking the lamp shade (but the lamp itself was fine). I wanted a new lamp shade, but couldn’t find it on Amazon or elsewhere, so I emailed Amazon, asking how I could purchase a replacement lamp shade, explaining that I broke it by mistake.
They sent me a whole new lamp, with lamp shade, for free. Free shipping, too.
This is what I surmise: when you order tons of stuff on Amazon every month, Amazon will do almost anything to keep you happy. If that means sending you some $20 piece of plastic for free, then they’ll do that in a heartbeat. It’s great to be their customer.
If anyone from Amazon is reading, then I’d like them to know that I’d be perfectly willing to pay a bit more for items and shipping if that meant that the infamously shitty working conditions of Amazon warehouse employees were improved.
A couple of years back we were ordering Wellness cat food through Amazon. I’d get two cases of 5.5 oz cans at a time, for about $80 or $90. One time the order arrived, but it was two cases of 3 oz cans. I double checked my order, and they had charged me for the 5.5 oz cans.
I wrote them saying “I understand mistakes happen, no biggie. But my cats have to eat, I can’t return these and wait for the correct order to arrive. All I’d like is some sort of credit on my next order, for the difference in cost.”
Amazon responded with “no no, our mistake. We’ll refund the entire amount, and go ahead and keep what you’ve got.”
This only works when you’re really ordering from amazon, though. I once ordered an RC car from a third party seller on amazon. It cost me, oh I don’t know, forty bucks or so. The package arrived containing a cheap wooden sewing kit that probably cost them about three bucks - and it had two product identifying stickers on it - one for the kit, and one for the car. Attempts to resolve it were met with ‘according to our system, you were sent a car’. Eventually I gave it up as a bad job - fortunately I tend to buy Christmas presents early, so I had time to run out and get something else, at a brick-and-mortar store.
So yeah - with the third party sellers you’re running more on blind faith.
Possibly. But if the OP mentioned to them that he had unpacked, assembled, disassembled and re-packed the mower, they might think that they wouldn’t be able to re-sell it. That, and being a good customer in good standing, probably made the difference.
I appreciate many things about Amazon, including the huge range of stuff they sell, but there are times when I just want to see how something looks and feels in person before I buy it. But often it’s impossible to find whatever it is locally so I just have to try online and take a chance.
My biggest beef with Amazon is the relentless upsells to Amazon Prime. I do not order enough stuff to make it worthwhile for me, and I don’t want to be a Prime “member.” I wish there was a way to permanently opt out of those reminders.
eta: for those who don’t know it, you can contribute to your charity of choice by going to Amazon through smile.amazon.com. The prices are the same but a tiny percentage of your purchase price is donated to charity.
The very thing has happened to me several times. They seem to not want to deal with the returns coming back. I ordered some shoes one time. They were too big for the lil’wrekker. I emailed with the order number and they said they would send the correct size shoes. Again we got the too large size. I emailed again, same thing we’ll send the correct size. Got the correct shoes. No info how to return the wrong ones. I emailed yet again, they said dont worry about it. We thought for sure we’d have 3 charges on the cc, but no, never happened. I gave the other shoes away.
Yep, I’ve had the same experience with them, multiple times. Sometimes they want me to send things back, but most of the time, especially with heavy, awkward items, they’re like “meh, keep it, we’ll send you a new one.”
Not only are they relentless, they can be insidious too. Once it added an amazon prime membership to my order when I accidentally selected the faster amazon prime shipping method -which wasn’t prominently advertised as being prime only. The moment I noticed this had happened I cancelled the order - but I was still on Prime. I promptly went to cancel Prime - and it wouldn’t let me - I had to wait until the trial period was up first. You know, all the better for you to forget to do so and get slapped with a bill. (Or get used to it and shrug at the cost - that’s their actual plan, obviously.)
I was furious, of course - I had no intention of using Prime for anything, even 2-day shipping, and was incensed that they were neither letting me out of it nor letting me choose not to use Prime shipping at checkout, so if I wanted to stick with my guns I’d have to avoid using Amazon at all until the trial ran out. (Or forever, I suppose.)
So I sent their customer service a very, very angry email. And after responding to me with an ‘are you serious?’ sort of response (to which I answered ‘yep’, but much more verbosely), they promptly complied with my very explicit request/demand and made it all go away. Poof. No Prime, no free trial, no nothing - as if I’d never been on Prime at all, even the trial.
So while their Prime shilling sucks, I gotta join the litany of praises of their customer service!
I did this today (accidentally selected Prime for the 2 day shipping) but I noticed it before placing the order. I had to go back two screens, all the way back to the shopping cart, before I could re-do it properly. No, they don’t make it easy.
But they do make it easy. I accidentally selected Prime. And I was sure I could never get it retracted. But, lo and behold, there was a link that said “cancel Prime”. Very easy.
Maybe the huge stink I made when I got snagged is what made them change it!
Maybe I personally am responsible for making the world a materially better place for millions!!
Okay, probably not, but in any case when I did it, both the amazon website and searches in general explicitly said I was boned. (They used different words.) That’s all I know.
I ordered a server motherboard for around $400 from a third-party seller on Amazon. I had paid for 2-day shipping, but the seller took their sweet time. A week later, it had not shipped, but I had been charged for the item, so I opened a complaint with Amazon. In the complaint, I mentioned that I wanted to attempt the purchase again, from a different third-party seller using Amazon fulfillment.
They replied saying they would not be able to cancel the order directly, and would have to have a different department work with the seller first. Then, they shocked me by saying they had picked approximately $400 worth of orders I had made the previous year and refunded those so that I could use that money to make my purchase from another seller. They told me to keep the money when and if I got a refund from the first seller, which I eventually did.
I order quite a bit of stuff from Amazon (and I’ve had Prime for a few years) but your experiences aren’t typical for me! I am not saying I get “bad” customer service from Amazon but it’s all been pretty standard, i.e. send stuff back and once we confirm we’ve received it, then we will refund your money. And this is for dumb, low value stuff.
So you’re the idiot who keeps ordering mowers ------ I knew there was a reason I hated you!
Just kidding; actually we hate people getting dog food and canned sodas from the Prime Pantry more often than we do the big oversized stuff. Those trailers are actually more fun and more of a challenge to unload and a nice break from the routine for us Inbound Beasts and non-con. The dog food bags they put in boxes that constantly break open and over 50% need at least one trip through Problem Solve before it gets to a pallet. That can make a long shift even longer. As for the sodas; two words — fizzy explosions. Again, not a lot of fun if you are me.
On larger things “keep it” is often the policy. Returns come through us as well and while you do see the odd big thing now and then its not nearly as high a percentage coming back as it is going out. Especially when you are talking something that needs assembly and has been assembled. Its going to be a write-off either way so better a super-happy customer than a clearance auction/outlet or dumpster.
For us, Prime has paid for itself several times over just this year (we’ve been Prime since the day it started). With a Fulfillment Center less than 15 miles from my house, I can often order something before I go to bed and it will be delivered before I get home from work the next day. They are also the only decently-priced source for a lot of foreign foods I like.
Amazon is definitely on my “Love you guys!” list. Until Bezos reveals himself to be a Lizard Person bent on world domination, that is. In that case I will down-grade them to “Like.”
I use Amazon and usually like it, but feel guilty for destroying local businesses. Businesses often can’t compete, and the reason they don’t have great service may be they can’t afford the staff.
The thing that has been so annoying to me is there is a local company Amazon uses to do their deliveries much of the time. The courier is a beat-up station wagon stuffed to the rafters with boxes. The driver said once he had 200 deliveries to make, I don’t know how that is possible, but explains how they keep their prices low.
I order to my business, as no one is at home. I always get notices that my package will come before 9 pm. Guess what? We are not open then. I have told Amazon and the courier to please keep it on file that we are a business and cannot handle 9pm deliveries, but that the next day during the day would be fine. But once a delivery is missed, the package goes into courier hell, and I might not get it for a week. So much for prime one-day delivery.
