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Amazon Has an Honesty Issue

bentasker.co.uk

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Re: Amazon Has an Honesty Issue

#41

Post by johngossman »

shepherdjerred wrote: post #36
johngossman wrote: post #16

Fwiw...this reminded me I had a package ($90) not show up this week. I used their completely automated system and got refunded in 5 minutes. Message even says "if you find the package you can keep it." I think you need a lot of examples to draw any conclusions and self-reporting is going to be almost entirely negative experiences.

I'll share my anecdote: a few weeks ago I ordered hooks for hanging up lights ($25). The package was marked as delivered, but nowhere to be seen. I don't have a problem with package theft, so my guess is that it was delivered to the wrong address or something. I went to Amazon's site and tried to report the issue, but, at least for that item, there was no automated way to report a package as "not delivered".

Good point. There was a very non-obvious "Get Help" button which led to a non-obvious "Get More Help" link which led to a "Call me" button. But they called instantly once I got there

Re: Amazon Has an Honesty Issue

#42

Post by anonymouskimmer »

raincom wrote: post #6

Three years ago, a friend of a friend told me that he knows people inside UPS/Fedex/etc who steal expensive items, and sell them to fencers. Now it is time to pick up your expensive stuff from local stores, even if you place orders online.

I worked as a FedEx package handler for a bit. One item that was shipped was rolled up mattresses, another item that was shipped was cell phones. These arrived on trucks in large quantities. The shipping labels didn't stick well to the mattress packaging, and occasionally came off of the cell phone boxes as well. Sometimes it was obvious which packages the labels had come off of, other times not.

Re: Amazon Has an Honesty Issue

#43

Post by crazygringo »

iamcalledrob wrote: post #17

Amazon (US) has really gone downhill in the past ~5 years. I signed up for Prime a over decade ago because of the reliable 2 day shipping. It worked pretty much as described. It was great. Shipping is no longer 2 days on most items - "Prime" shipping can now take 7 days. Amazon advertise same or next day shipping, but it's really only for big ticket, occasional purchase items. Most everyday purchases now take 3-7 day…

That's not my experience at all.

Shipping is 1-2 days for nearly everything that is sold/shipped by Amazon, in my experience. Occasionally it's a day late.

The idea that most shipping takes 3-7 days isn't my experience at all. Maybe you live somewhere more inaccessible?

I always thought paying for Prime was about free shipping on small items anyways, not about faster speed.

Re: Amazon Has an Honesty Issue

#44

Post by RajT88 »

Buying stealable big ticket stuff like this on Amazon is something I just realized I have never done. I haven't had issues with Amazon drivers stealing my packages, but I sure as hell have gone through issues with my fucking neighbors stealing my packages. Apartment living is hell. /rant

Game consoles and guitars I generally buy in person. Sure, there's corner cases, like buying used (generally retro) consoles on eBay, but these won't be clearly marked as a game console.

Re: Amazon Has an Honesty Issue

#45

Post by aaomidi »

crazygringo wrote: post #43
iamcalledrob wrote: post #17

Amazon (US) has really gone downhill in the past ~5 years. I signed up for Prime a over decade ago because of the reliable 2 day shipping. It worked pretty much as described. It was great. Shipping is no longer 2 days on most items - "Prime" shipping can now take 7 days. Amazon advertise same or next day shipping, but it's really only for big ticket, occasional purchase items. Most everyday purchases now take 3-7 day…

That's not my experience at all. Shipping is 1-2 days for nearly everything that is sold/shipped by Amazon, in my experience. Occasionally it's a day late. The idea that most shipping takes 3-7 days isn't my experience at all. Maybe you live somewhere more inaccessible? I always thought paying for Prime was about free shipping on small items anyways, not about faster speed.

To be fair, Amazon did have 2 day shipping to anywhere in the 48 states. That promise has now been removed.

If you’re in a metro area you’ll still have it.

Re: Amazon Has an Honesty Issue

#46

Post by thelittleone »

Dang I'm no fan of amazon's ethics but it seems bad ethics is the norm among corporates, governments not the exception. Corruption, abuses of power... occurring with such regularity and at worst a slap on the wrist or forced to retire with a huge payout.

Re: Amazon Has an Honesty Issue

#48

Post by shepherdjerred »

xkekjrktllss wrote: post #39
shepherdjerred wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I dislike the most is how unreliable "Amazon Day Delivery" is. Several times I've bought something that I don't need that week, so I chose Amazon Day delivery, which allows all of my packages get delivered during the same day the next week. I expected those packages to arrive, e.g. buying something for a gathering I'm hosting that weekend, but they are often days late and don't arrive in time. Amazon was great f…

[flagged]

What do you think the answer is?

I'm not familiar with this, but it certainly does seem like the startup world is completely backwards, and anything VC funded should be considered toxic.

Re: Amazon Has an Honesty Issue

#49

Post by crazygringo »

I don't think the conclusions presented are true. It seems to be a pretty "standard" case of theft that, unfortunately, yes these things often take time to resolve. And all of the "analysis" is just speculation.

Does it suck that it took extra messages for the return to be acknowledged, and extra weeks for the refund to finally get approved and go through? For sure. Does this mean "Amazon has an honesty issue"? No. Dealing with a package where the expensive contents were swapped out for other content is probably going to take weeks to resolve with any major retailer.

Trying to shortcut the process by filing a chargeback isn't going to help anything. You only do that if Amazon ultimately denies the return.

Of course it sucks it ties up that money. But they can also just leave the balance on the credit card for an extra month and pay, what, $8 in interest? Everything about:

> remain in a state of financial limbo for the better part of 2 months, spending Christmas wondering whether we'd ever see our money again.

feels overly dramatic. Anyone who can put a $600+ Xbox bundle on a credit card isn't going to be left in "financial limbo". In the end, they can rest assured that a chargeback with Amex will work even if it didn't on their first attempt.

Yes this is all annoying. But it's not some conspiracy. These cases are hard for companies to deal with, because for every delivery person who's a thief, there's a customer who lies and gets a free Xbox out of it. So they do take time and effort to resolve.

Re: Amazon Has an Honesty Issue

#50

Post by barake »

SkyPuncher wrote: post #29
iamcalledrob wrote: post #17

Amazon (US) has really gone downhill in the past ~5 years. I signed up for Prime a over decade ago because of the reliable 2 day shipping. It worked pretty much as described. It was great. Shipping is no longer 2 days on most items - "Prime" shipping can now take 7 days. Amazon advertise same or next day shipping, but it's really only for big ticket, occasional purchase items. Most everyday purchases now take 3-7 day…

We cancelled prime this year. I was surprised that shipping cost and timeframes haven’t changed. In fact, on many items it seems like it’s faster to not use prime.

We've had the same experience. Prime shipments were 5-7 days regardless of order size, now most items show up in 1-2 days.

Not sure the logic in that.

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