It used to be you could count on their Guaranteed Delivery dates minus UPS, USPS, or FedEx mix-ups but that too is no longer the case. On the item page you might see you can count on delivery by a certain date only to learn AFTER placing the order that the dates are not as initially stated.Used to be their customer service bent over backwards to work with their customers. Now you basically get "oh so sorry for the inconvenience, BUT...."
Used to be if an item turned up lost in the mail or damaged, they would get a replacement right out to their customers. That too is no longer the case.
Scams...........it happened to me this year where I ordered food storage containers only to receive a broken pencil. Reached out to Amazon Customer Service and they did provide a return slip only for the return to be rejected and the broken pencil sent back to me. I'm sure not all Marketplace vendors are untrustworthy but how do you know until you've been burnt who you can trust and who you can't. You can't even go by company reviews.
Knockoffs..........again from experience ending up with what I thought was the real deal only to learn it wasn't.
Reviews cannot be trusted either. I've learned that there are companies who have found multiple ways of generating fake reviews in their favor.
Used to be you could count on your items being packed well but now you're lucky to get a crumpled up piece of packing paper or a couple pillow packs stuck in the box. And it's unreal the wastefulness of the company and their marketplace vendors sending out small sized items (often a single item at that) in huge boxes where contents bounce around during shipping.
As for paying the Prime membership.........I seriously wonder if it's worth it now that I fear placing orders through them. I initially went with Prime because of the free shipping as it was worth it for a long time. BUT, all other places do offer free shipping with minimum dollar orders that are easy to reach. All the other benefits of Prime, I really don't use enough to warrant the high price, so why should I continue. It keeps going up and yet their service continues to go downhill. Something I'm going to have to really consider.
My latest attempt has been totally screwed up. From one order, it was split up into several packages. Three items were packaged together and shipped out only for an email sent to me the day it was to be delivered that the package was being returned to Amazon without a definitive reason. Said I'd get a refund within 2-4 days after they receive the return but when will that be??? Another item was packaged by itself and managed to make it to me...a day late, mind you...yippeee! And I'm still waiting on several other items that were supposed to be delivered on the 11th and I get a message they are running late. Said I could cancel the order if not received by a certain date but they left the date off. I go to cancel those items and I get an email saying cancellation failed and that they were in the middle of being processed and sent out. Seriously???!!!!
I'm honestly afraid to shop Amazon anymore .........which is really sad. I guess they've become too big and just can't handle things like they used to. They don't appear to screen or care who sells through them because in the end, they get their commission. As for customer satisfaction as it used to be..........the company is so big now that it doesn't appear to be of importance. So sad to see quality and reliability become so diluted as it has with its growth.
The good news...............for places like Best Buy, Walmart, and the likes.......they are starting to regain customers from what I'm reading. I'm definitely not alone in my disappointment and feelings..... more and more people are experiencing the same and worse. At least with these other places, you can actually walk into a store or physically talk to someone in customer service or return without a lot of hassle (until their policies and service change.)
2 comments:
Shoppers who shop solely based on price generate these problems. Unfortunately, that's most of us :-) We love Prime, but mostly because we use their TV service constantly. To me the shipping stuff is a bonus, not a reason to have it.
I think one of the unacknowledged problems with Amazon is that they do nothing to regulate their third party suppliers. Some of the problems you've mentioned come from this as well as inconsistent, sometimes ridiculous pricing. I do wish Amazon would come to understand that allowing outside companies to provide product/pricing/service from outside Amazon control is nuts and at least not good for their reputation.
I couldn't agree more about Amazon and how they're no longer reliable. I used to put items in my cart as a sort of reminder of what I needed, but noticed they start jacking up my selected items. I recently read Amazon raises the cost of items based on your "browsing history", not just by what's in your cart. IMO, they have gotten so big that one hand doesn't know what the other hand is doing. Why on earth would 7 items be split up into 3 separate boxes, and 3 different delivery dates? They are now creating so much more trash with too many boxes ending up in landfills. Amazon need to open up recycling centers, where people can drop off all the useless, unnecessary cardboard being generated. Instead, communities are now bearing the brunt of all this excessive waste. Because of their unreliable service, their shady pricing policies and the extra trash being generated, I have stopped ordering from Amazon. Progress isn't always a good thing for people or for our planet.
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