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Amazon Has an Honesty Issue

bentasker.co.uk

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Re: Amazon Has an Honesty Issue

#91

Post by desas »

codetrotter wrote: post #13
RecycledEle wrote: post #5

Someone stole am Xbox. I'm not sure it's Amazon.

I think it’s about high time that Amazon disrupts the “leave it on the porch” method. Too many packages are stolen by thieves. And I mean, they’ve already started to some extend to deal with it. There are many cities I’ve been to that has Amazon delivery boxes where you can pick up your stuff. I think that when drones get powerful enough, and regulation allows it, Amazon will adopt drone delivery everywhere. You get…

"leave it on the porch" isn't even a thing in the UK, unless you specifically nominate it as your acceptable secure place.

Amazon knock on the door, if you're not in then they'll come back tomorrow, and if you're not in, then they'll try the next day. If you're not in three days in a row they'll hold the package for three days, to give you time to arrange one final delivery attempt to your home, Amazon locker or pick-up point (neighbourhood shop). Eventually they'll just take the package back and refund you automatically.

Re: Amazon Has an Honesty Issue

#92

Post by inopinatus »

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #88
inopinatus wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author is a case study in sloppy thinking. Sure, they were wronged; they are certainly a victim here. But property was stolen and the retailer is negligently complicit in the theft. When this happens, you call the police, and your insurance company.

I agree in general, but I think he's right in claiming that this isn't a criminal matter on his end, as the console was technically stolen from Amazon prior to delivery, not from him after delivery. What he's doing with Amazon customer service and Amex are the pertinent things from his end.

The point at which Amazon denies this is the moment where they became negligently complicit.

Re: Amazon Has an Honesty Issue

#93

Post by kibwen »

r00fus wrote: post #61
stoorafa wrote: post #32

Amazon took something like 30 days to deliver me an iPad (Pro, so $900) that was supposed to be “Prime” delivered. I asked them to cancel the order after seven days, and repeatedly asked them to cancel, but they wouldn’t. They seem to follow the old Ferengi adage of “Once you have their money, you never give it back” Edit: I returned it for a refund, but was out a decent amount do money for a while.

I simply refuse to buy high value items from Amazon these days. Especially Apple products. In fact I tend to buy most goods via local same-day delivery or pickup.

I don't dare buy technology from Amazon, the commingling of products from random sources means the risk of counterfeits is just too high. Micro Center or Best Buy would have to be actively malicious for something like that to happen, while Amazon can just be passively malicious and say "system working as designed, wontfix".

Re: Amazon Has an Honesty Issue

#94

Post by AlotOfReading »

gnicholas wrote: post #77
stoorafa wrote: post #32

Amazon took something like 30 days to deliver me an iPad (Pro, so $900) that was supposed to be “Prime” delivered. I asked them to cancel the order after seven days, and repeatedly asked them to cancel, but they wouldn’t. They seem to follow the old Ferengi adage of “Once you have their money, you never give it back” Edit: I returned it for a refund, but was out a decent amount do money for a while.

Were they the shipper or seller? I can understand them saying they can’t cancel the order midstream, but once it’s been over a week from the order time, they can’t exactly stand by that default rule. You can’t take someone’s money and leave them with nothing for a month.

Amazon and Apple have had an agreement since ~2018 that limits third party sellers of Apple products on the platform in return for Amazon having access to new devices on the market. It's very likely that the seller was Apple directly and the device already in the warehouse.

Re: Amazon Has an Honesty Issue

#95

Post by eastbound »

barake wrote: post #50
SkyPuncher wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Are we in the game where an event happens randomly, and we’re trying to guess whether any of our actions, if not worshipping Bezos directly, might have an effect on delivery times?

Re: Amazon Has an Honesty Issue

#96

Post by bonton89 »

barake wrote: post #50
SkyPuncher wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Amazon likely does not have separate Prime and Non-Prime lanes in their warehouses. It would be a redundancy and add additional complexity that would increase costs/reduce profits. Since customers never see the warehouse there really wouldn't be any benefit to doing this.

Re: Amazon Has an Honesty Issue

#97

Post by anonymouskimmer »

inopinatus wrote: post #92
anonymouskimmer wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree in general, but I think he's right in claiming that this isn't a criminal matter on his end, as the console was technically stolen from Amazon prior to delivery, not from him after delivery. What he's doing with Amazon customer service and Amex are the pertinent things from his end.

The point at which Amazon denies this is the moment where they became negligently complicit.

Still a civil matter instead of a criminal matter. Amazon has the lawful right to both protect their interests and perform their process of refund (whatever errors and pauses they may make during this process). As such the state of mind necessary for criminal complicity has yet to be shown.

Re: Amazon Has an Honesty Issue

#98

Post by eastbound »

blagie wrote: post #69
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…

Not ≈5 years. Three years and 9 months. Amazon's retail division was broken by Covid and will probably never fix itself. I have no inside knowledge, but I suspect what happened is a bunch of crooks were hired during the massive hiring spree to keep up with Covid demand, and there wasn't capacity to investigate every fraud, theft, and scam. Internal fraud went from zero to prolific almost overnight. Prime also stopped…

I was despairing that those big internet companies were settled for 80 years, but I see that there might be movement.

However, it takes 25 years and unprecedented investment to build Amazon, warehouses, delivery schemes… Unless Amazon sells some of them with the automation, it’s extremely hard to enter the field.

Re: Amazon Has an Honesty Issue

#99

Post by araes »

eastbound wrote: post #95
barake wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Are we in the game where an event happens randomly, and we’re trying to guess whether any of our actions, if not worshipping Bezos directly, might have an effect on delivery times?

There's a lot of existence that really feels like we just live in a hash code now. And its all malevolent for some reason. It feels like there's "supposed" to be something you did wrong, yet it's all malevolent hash randomness. Maybe all the focus on cryto money?

That, or we're being experimented on. "What will the mice do if we poke them this way? The ants really hate it when we shake them this way."

Re: Amazon Has an Honesty Issue

#100

Post by cjaybo »

blagie wrote: post #58
rutierut wrote: post #15

I cannot think of a _single_ low-margin global corporation that can get away with it that hasn’t made the trade-off where they accept some of their customers will be treated horribly in order to save _a lot_ of money. I’ve currently got a DHL package in limbo that’s worth about the same and the main function of their customer service department seems to be to indicate that trying to consume customer service resources…

I don't think this saves Amazon money. They have a huge problem with internal, for lack of a better word, corruptions. * Packing people who don't care if high-value items are broken * Delivery people who fake deliveries and steal * Co-mingling of fake items with sellers ... and so on. Because the delivery person wasn't investigated, they'll steal again and again, and that will spread to others in Amazon culture. Good…

You posted the same theory above, except there you included the important disclaimer that you have no inside information — is this just a hunch that you have? Because it seems like a Hanlon’s razor type of situation to me. Without some sort of evidence of the fraud you speak of, it seems far more likely to be them simply struggling with challenges of scale. Every business deals with bad employees but the majority of people with jobs tend to want to keep their job. It’s hard for me to imagine that fraud is the dominating cause here.
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