Amazon.com - The End

A day after I sent the letter in my previous post (and again at a VERY early hour of the morning) I received the following e-mail:

Greetings from Amazon.com.

Please accept my sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused due
to the delay of this order (**ORDER NUMBER CENSORED**).

Rest assured that I will be sure to pass your complaint to our
shipping department as I know they will want to read about your
experience and will make sure that this type of delays are not
happening in future.

It’s always important for us to hear how customers feel about all
aspects of shopping at Amazon.com. Strong customer feedback like
yours helps us continue to improve our store and the service we
provide.

Please be assured that this matter will be taken care.

However, if you do need to contact us in the future, you may send us
an e-mail via this online form:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/contact-us/general-questions.html

Thank you for shopping at Amazon.com–we hope to see you again soon.

Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:

If yes, click here:
**LINK**
If not, click here:
**LINK**

Please note: this e-mail was sent from an address that cannot accept
incoming e-mail.

To contact us about an unrelated issue, please visit the Help
section of our web site.

Best regards,

**NAME CENSORED OUT OF CURTESY**
Amazon.com Customer Service
http://www.amazon.com

Guess they didn’t want their $17? Somehow, I remain unconvinced I got through to them… I’m once again tempted to e-mail the executive customer service group to see what they’d say…

Amazon.com - My Decision

So, after looking into the history of my orders and seeing that at least the past three I can see say that they were actually shipped the same day they were listed as “carrier notified to pick up package” and all arrived the next day after they shipped, I’ve decided to keep the book and ask them to take back the refund. Since my book is now showing as having ACTUALLY shipped yesterday (don’t you love retconning?), it’s likely to arrive today. My memory is still that previous packages have sat in “carrier notified to pick up package” for days, but since the tracking for the orders I can still see tracking on doesn’t show that (maybe that status retcons to the day when the package actually shipped?) I hardly have any evidence to back up my claim. I sent the following response:

Dear Customer Service,

Refunding my order was a powerful gesture, but I feel like it’s one that misses the point of my complaint. While I appreciate that you’re willing to go so far to appease a customer, I would prefer that you simply pass the complaint on up and actually try to resolve the issues in inventory management and communication with your shipping services that caused the initial problem. Also, since the item is most likely arriving today anyways, there’s little reason for me to go looking for a copy of the book locally. I will be keeping the book, and request that you rescind the refund. Thank you for your prompt responses and quick action. You have at least restored a little of Amazon’s brand equity in my eyes.

Respectfully,
**BRAVE MAX**

We’ll see if they rescind it. I suspect they’ll be too lazy… Maybe I should forward all these e-mails to the Executive Customer Service folks I keep hearing about over at the Consumerist?

Amazon.com’s Rebuttle

So I wasn’t expecting any kind of reply after yesterday. Obviously this probably happens often enough that Amazon really has no obligation to do anything about it. For all I know there’s a legitimate reason why my order was delayed and why the “Carrier notified to pick up package” status exists (beyond encouraging me to pay for next-day shipping). I simply wanted someone over there to pass the complaint along so that maybe someone higher up would start thinking about trying to figure out why these delays are happening and whether or not it’s in Amazon’s best interests for them to continue.

This morning, however, I woke up to the following e-mail in my inbox:

Thank you for writing to us at Amazon.com.

We are very sorry for the delay in completing your order. I have reviewed your account and can see that this experience has been far less than positive.

We strive for convenience and efficiency at Amazon.com, but in this instance we have fallen short of our goal. I’m truly sorry that your impression of doing business with Amazon.com has been so negative.

As previously mentioned there’s been an unexpected delay in obtaining the item **THE BOOK I ORDERED**.

Unfortunately, we can’t cancel your order for because it’s already been shipped.

However, we obtained this item and shipped your order on February 12, 2008. We expect it to be delivered by the date currently listed in Your Account: February 19, 2008.

We here at Amazon customer service continuously strive to assist the customers in each and every way can and feel disappointed when we are unable to address customer’s concerns. I hope you can understand our limitations in this regard.

I can understand your dismay in this regard, and owe my sincere apologies for this inconvenient situation.

Due to the circumstances surrounding your order, I have made a one-time exception to our standard policy. I’ve requested a refund for the full amount of this shipment, including shipping costs.

This refund should go through within 2 to 3 days and will appear as a credit of $16.88 on your next credit card billing statement.

You may view your refund by:

1. Clicking the “Your Account” link at the top of our web site, then
2. Clicking “Go!” next to “open and recently shipped orders.”

Completed refunds will appear at the bottom of an individual order’s summary page.

Please note that, you are welcome to return or refuse the shipment once it arrives. Refusing the shipment allows you to return it without having to pay for return shipping. As you stated in your mail that the order does not meet your requirements, please refuse the package once it arrives.

If the package is delivered by U.S. Mail, simply write “Refused - return to sender” on the unopened box and leave it for your postal carrier to pick up. For other delivery services, please contact the carrier for instructions on refusing a package.

To return a package, once you receive the e-mail confirming your shipment, please visit our Online Returns Center for returns instructions and to download and print a return shipping label:

http://www.amazon.com/returns

In addition to our large selection, one of the benefits we’d like to offer our customers is convenience, and I realize that we have not met that standard in this case. I sincerely hope that you will give us another chance to prove the quality of our service to you.

Thank you for shopping at Amazon.com.

Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:

If yes, click here:
**LINK**
If not, click here:
**LINK**

Please note: this e-mail was sent from an address that cannot accept incoming e-mail.

To contact us about an unrelated issue, please visit the Help section of our web site.

Best regards,

**NAME CENSORED OUT OF CURTESY**
Amazon.com Customer Service
http://www.amazon.com

So basically… “We screwed up, but we’re not going to do anything to solve the larger problem. Instead, here’s some money. And oh yeah - we’d like our book back, BTW.”

Yeah - I was a lot more impressed before I read that hidden “Please refuse delivery”. Obviously the book is sitting in their warehouse still, so it’s not like they couldn’t stop it from being shipped if my keeping it was all that big an issue, but it’s still a little duplicitous to imply that you’re offering a refund when you’re really just facilitating a return. At any rate, they’re really missing the point. Personally, that $16.88 is not as important to me as getting the message into Amazon’s system that their customer service has started to smell fishy and that their shipping policies are ridiculous. I’m still deciding what to do, but it clearly comes down to two options for me:

1) Refuse delivery and take the refund
2) Refuse the refund and take delivery

Either way, you can be assured that Amazon will be getting another e-mail from me once I decide what to do. I think the timing will probably decide which I go with, but I welcome comments, criticisms and suggestions from my readers (I have readers?). Of course, the e-mail I eventually write will be posted here when it’s written.

An open letter to Amazon.com

So I bought a book on Amazon. Lately my faith in them has been much eroded, but they’re still the only/cheapest game in town and I felt I might as well take a chance. Once I check the status, I find (to my delight) that the order is scheduled to ship the next day - wowsers! - and settle back in, expecting my book by the end of the week.

The next day, however, I received an e-mail explaining that my order had been “unexpectedly delayed” and would not ship until the 14th. Naturally, I was upset - I wanted my book soon, and I figured it was now worth my time to simply walk to Barnes and Noble. So I log into my account, intent on canceling the order… Only to find out that Amazon has locked my item into “preparing to ship” status, meaning that I can’t cancel it. I just have to wait until it ships eventually. What the hell? What if the book is delayed for a month? Naturally, I sent Customer Service an e-mail:

When I ordered this, I expected it some time later this week, even with free shipping. Now that it’s been delayed with no explanation, I think it’s perfectly reasonable for me to find somewhere else selling it so I can get it sooner. I’d like to request that you cancel the order, since this is apparently not something I can do by myself. It’s a little unfair that you lock people into buying something when you’ve changed the terms of the transaction.

Respectfully,
**BRAVE MAX**

Not necessarily the most tactful e-mail, I know, but I figure whatever - it’s their fault. I log in the next day after their is no reply, only to discover that my item has “shipped” and is marked as “Carrier has picked up package”. So whatever - I’m not mad anymore. One day delay is a little bad, but I’m sure it won’t translate into much of a delay, especially since I’m not in the hell that is “Carrier notified to pick up package”. A few hours later, the following appears in my inbox:

Thanks for writing to us at Amazon.com.

I’ve checked into your order and found that we sent you an e-mail message about this order on February 12, 2008 to let you know that there’s been an unexpected delay in obtaining **THE BOOK I ORDERED** I’m sorry if you didn’t receive this message. Please check your spam messages to see if our message was filtered out by your security measures.

However, we obtained this item and shipped your order on February 12, 2008. We expect it to be delivered by the date currently listed in Your Account: February 19, 2008.

Please note that you can always check the status of your order by clicking the Your Account link at the top of most pages of our store or by following this link: http://www.amazon.com/your-account ;

Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience caused by this delay.

We value your business and hope that you’ll visit us again soon at Amazon.com.

Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:

If yes, click here:
**LINK**
If not, click here:
**LINK**

Please note: this e-mail was sent from an address that cannot accept incoming e-mail.

To contact us about an unrelated issue, please visit the Help section of our web site.

Best regards,

**NAME CENSORED OUT OF CURTESY**
Amazon.com Customer Service
http://www.amazon.com

Not only have they failed to read and comprehend my request, they’ve been completely unhelpful and unsympathetic towards the problem at hand. Effectively I’ve been told, “Oops - sucks to be you.” Now - I understand that legally Amazon is fine. Nobody’s being swindled here. But from a basic customer service standpoint, this is ridiculous. Does anybody remember when Amazon used to be one of the good guys?

Naturally, a response was forthcoming. I clicked the “No - not resolved” link and wrote the following. I don’t expect it to reach anyone useful, but if it serves its part in generating public awareness of Amazon’s loosening of its commitment to customer service maybe it will help galvanize a return to the days when Amazon deserved my money:

Dear customer service,

While the point is now moot (seeing as how the item has shipped), and I feel reluctant to press the point (given that I work in customer service and suspect that you, like me, are in no way able to do anything about Amazon’s policies), I do feel the need to at least clarify in the hopes that at some point Amazon will get enough of these that something will be done about it.

My original e-mail never said I didn’t get an e-mail telling me my order had been delayed (which I did) only that there was no apparent reason for the delay (which there wasn’t). What is causing the issue here is that suddenly, as I said, instead of being able to expect my order being delivered by the end of the week, there’s a strong possibility that it won’t arrive until sometime next week. Given that likelihood, I felt it perfectly within my bounds to ask that you cancel the order so I could go get it from someone who would actually deliver it on time.

What’s even worse is that, while initially my package was listed as “picked up by carrier” when you marked it shipped - which would have placated me and restored at least some of my trust in Amazon - it has now regressed to the infamous “carrier notified to pick up package” hell which indicates that it has not only not shipped, but is likely to sit in your warehouse until such a time as it needs to be shipped so as to meet the absolute latest arrival deadline.

You know, it may be inconsequential, but I remember the days when a “5-7 business day” estimate with Amazon meant I could expect the package ACTUALLY shipped the next day, and arriving at most three days after that. I know that’s atypical, but I live within driving distance of an Amazon distribution center, so it was quite a predictable pattern. Back then, Amazon deserved my patronage.

I don’t know what’s happened these days, but I find that more and more Amazon relies on the “carrier notified to pick up package” status to cover my packages just sitting in the warehouse. More and more my orders are “unexpectedly delayed” - a pronouncement which locks me into waiting until whatever problem caused the unexpected delay is resolved because there’s no way to cancel my order.

Again, I know that my dissatisfaction or refusal to buy from Amazon won’t make a difference, but sooner or later this kind of customer service is going to start eating into sales and eroding brand image. If anyone’s listening, I suggest you contact whoever you ship through and tell them to step on it. Or else call your distributors and find out what the hold-up is. Sooner or later, customers always decide whether or not your business lasts - it is always a good idea to put them first. Amazon used to understand that.

Respectfully,
**BRAVE MAX**

Next-Gen Phones…

Click this link for another example of why the US makes me cry about the fact that I have to deal with its cell phone providers.

In Japan, my 3500 yen a month (about 28 dollars maybe?) got me unlimited e-mails, 40 minutes of calling (more than I needed in Japan - trust me), and something like 5000 text messages. There was a 3100 yen cancellation fee, a 3500 yen activation fee, and a nice new-model phone (albeit one without the “latest” features - still better than current US features) cost me 1 yen. The charger cost me 980 yen, which sucked, but they threw in an alarm clock, 2 cotton puffs, 2 packets of tissues, 2 packages of band-aids, 2 cell-phone straps, and 2 packages of Q-tips. Any thing incoming - calls, texts, e-mails, you name it - was free.

In the US, I have to pay $39.99 for 600 minutes a month (more than enough…), with some ridiculous “night and weekend” variance which activates at inconvenient times tacked on for little apparent reason, and I have to pay $4.99 a month for 400 text messages (incoming OR outgoing), and another $5.99 for the privilege to use their ridiculous “web browser”, which can’t even check my e-mail like I wanted it to. The only upshot this time is that, after 3 weeks of wrangling at them, I managed to get a nice phone for “free” with a $50 rebate. I might point out that the interface on this phone, unlike that of my Japanese phone, is ridiculously counter-intuitive, and the camera is 2nd-rate.

I miss Japan.

The next-gen phones in the link above… Especially the one that looks like a glass pebble… Wow. Just wow. I mean - I have no idea how well the interface works, but if the ease with which the iPhone seems to work is any indication, touch interfaces are the wave of the future indeed. I’m especially liking the use of a touch interface to replace the dialing pad because of the ability to swap out that pad for more useful interfaces when you’re not calling someone.

My only reservation, really, is about whether the touch pads will be resilient enough to handle the abuse people heap on their phones. The people I know who have iPhones are treating them like a new porsche - that is to say, they’re only driving them when they have to, and they’re doing their best not to scratch them - and as a consequence it’s hard to see just how resilient they really are…