Amazon Premium Delivery sucks!

[janey]

There are some things in this world that just make me irrationally angry and I wish I knew how to deal with that anger, but I do not. One such thing is Amazon Premium Delivery.

You know the story: ordered on Monday, paid for Premium Delivery for the promised delivery date of Thursday, nothing delivered on Thursday.

Strangely, Amazon sent me an email, late last night, confirming that the item had been dispatched and that it *would* be delivered, today, with DHL Express. The tracking number they included in the email returns no results on the DHL Express tracking page and, when I try to track it through Amazon, they then say it was shipped with DPD… also yesterday, with a different tracking number. DPD’s tracking site says they haven’t even collected the item, yet, only entered the data into their system.

I guess it will arrive some time, next week, and I’ll never see a cent of my “Premium” returned.

[dave]

Small parcel delivery is Awesome, I have cctv footage of various Amazon delivery guys throwing parcels over my fence.

DHL failed to deliver my Christmas present to my work, apparently according to them it was signed for by Mr Hargreaves. I don’t employ a Hargreaves or anyone with a similar name but they refuse to accept this.
After days of back and forth, I tell them to please tell me the date and time of the delivery and I will check the work cctv, if your driver is in there I will apologies…. as soon as I say this they give me a refund.

[fi]

Always check if it’s ‘fulfilled by Amazon’ if not then you’re just dealing with a normal online seller. And don’t get angry, Amazon does provide an amazing service usually but at what cost to their employees. Maybe you could go and buy it in a shop. Or just stop moaning.

[sar]

If you don’t explicitly tell Amazon that the premium delivery deadline was not met, they won’t refund you. (I was going to add “of course”, since that seems obvious to me – especially given the widely-reported unreliability of many couriers’ delivery confirmation processes. But perhaps some people actually do believe that Amazon has some magic, 100% reliable way of tracking every parcel to its intended destination so that they can issue refunds automatically without any customer intervention.)

[Gary]

@fi @sarah do you both work for amazon or something you are shilling like mad as though amazon can do no wrong? Weirdos.

[janey]

I called Amazon, this morning, and they told me that the package was out for delivery (with DHL Express, not DPD) and would be delivered, today. It was not delivered.

Later, I received an email from Amazon saying that DHL reported that they tried to deliver the package and failed. This was clearly rubbish because I was in the office for the whole time, since the earlier call — we even ordered lunch, today, instead of going out.

I called Amazon for an explanation — and to ask why the tracking number was still not working — and they put me on hold to call DHL Express who reported, again, that they had tried to deliver and failed. They also said there was nothing that they could do — they couldn’t let me go collect it from the depot, try to deliver again, today, or re-route the item to my home address and try to deliver tomorrow.

I asked why I never received a card reporting that the delivery attempt had been made: no explanation.

I asked why the tracking number never worked: no explanation.

I asked Amazon if there was anything they would do about this, because I was clearly “inconvenienced”. Nope. Nothing. Not even gonna try to make it right.

So, basically, everyone acknowledges that this was their problem and nobody is prepared to even try to fix it. Not at all.

For the record, I am not a Prime member. I PAID EXTRA for Premium Delivery. It doesn’t appear to matter, however, since they didn’t even make a token gesture to make the situation right, apart from refunding me for the Premium Delivery surcharge and saying that I could return the item if I didn’t need it any more, next week, when it might, possibly, arrive.

[karen]

Amazon are generally shit, whether you look at it from a taxpaying citizens POV, an employees POV, or from their treatment of customers.

I therefore largely use their website as a search engine to see what is out there, and will then try to source books or other new items from a local store (with the one exception of used music CDs, where unfortunately there is no realistic alternative).

[janey]

@karen Although I generally agree with your idea, good luck trying to buy this PC hardware from a local store. The part I was after was rather niche and very specific and not available from the other two online suppliers that I normally use: CyberPort.de and CaseKing.de. Amazon were the only option and had it IN STOCK, eligible for Prime shipping and “guaranteed” to arrive on Thursday.

I know, DHL Express are a sub-contractor. But Amazon chose to use them and I didn’t get to choose the carrier so I’m still of the opinion that this is entirely Amazon’s problem to fix. Otherwise, you end up with the situation where everyone blames everyone else and only the customer ends up with a problem — exactly what I have with the VW group and my car.

Perhaps this is the way the world is going: sucks to be the customer. You will be steered into “informed” decisions based on empty promises and, when those fall through, the complete dearth of competition will mean that not a thing will be done about it. Even doing your homework doesn’t help anymore because all the research in the world counts for naught if all the information is false, anyway.

[Gary]

Even doing your homework doesn’t help anymore because all the research in the world counts for naught if all the information is false, anyway.

@janey Yes, Amazon runs the biggest affiliate scheme in the world. The internet now just seems littered with fake/disingenuous reviews bigging up amazon products to get you to buy from amazon through affiliate links now.

[karen]

@janey Sure, sometimes Amazon is the best or even the only option to buy from.

The Dead Kennedys had it right many years ago: Give Us Convenience or Give Us Death.

We as customers put up with sacrificing our privacy, depriving ourselves of a selection of vendors, thereby shifting the economic balance of power to the remaining vendors, all in the name of convenience. Talk about shooting ourselves in the foot!

Amazon recently started a foray into the off-line, organic food business. A perversion on par with the Glencore/DRC story.