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I recently purchased four faucet lines from amazon and they only shipped three of them, the fourth one went into a "shipping pending" status. This confused me because when I bought them there were 5 listed as being in stock.
I used the amazon "chat" feature and asked the representative about the fourth shipment. He or she used a few canned responses to try and deflect my search for knowledge. But their queue of complainers wasn't getting any shorter and I was willing to call in sick to work if I had to, to get to the bottom of the mystery.
Eventually they went off the script of prepared responses and stated that the 4th item had to be transferred from another warehouse. I said great, if you have the 4th item, please ship it in time for my installation. Then they went back to a prepared response and said that they had requested to upgrade to expedited shipping, however it wouldn't change the shipping date (5 days away). So then I checked the web site and pointed out they were still listing 1 item in stock. Ship it to me. SHIP THE DAMN FAUCET LINE TO ME NOW AND I WILL GO AWAY.
No-can-do, they said.
So it was clear to me that if amazon has this product in a warehouse somewhere, it is not in a warehouse that also has a shipping center. The rep said the item had to be transferred from another warehouse and had a shipping date and that they could request a faster shipping service, but not a sooner shipping date.
The representative did agree with me that listing 5 items in stock when they can actually only ship 3 of them in a reasonable time isn't acceptable, so they provided the customer service gestures of submitting a request for a faster delivery option (but not an effect on shipping date... and that was a REQUEST, not any indication it won't ship slow parcel pool). They also gave me a $5 credit and adding one month to my next Prime membership. If I understand their legalese, my next renewal of Prime will be 13 months at the 12 month price. They aren't extending my CURRENT Prime membership... only if I renew.
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Two orders in a row, they won't tell me WHEN it will ship until I email and scold them--then it ships the next day. I don't have Prime, and mostly order things that ship free.
Here's the response I got to the inquiry on my last order (I added some bold so you can see we aren't alone):
The in-stock avail is for inventory avail in an Fulfillment center is somewhere, but not necessarily from the Fulfillment center that’s shipping the items.
Once the items are all avail to ship from that Fulfillment center, they will be shipped out. The order should also update from unknown before it ships.
However we've already forwarded feedback to our shipping department--I know they'll want to hear about your experience. We're aware that our choice of delivery services reflects on our business as a whole, and we appreciate your feedback.
Since many of our customer were asking about this currently we're working on this to improve our services.
I understand that this kind of situation will make you frustrated but I assure that situation will be rectify soon.
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So two days ago on March 27 I ordered an in-stock "Major Appliance" on Amazon (a microwave) and after two full days of no delivery update I used the amazon "chat" feature to inquire about it. Their ultimate response: The item wasn't actually in stock and the estimated delivery date was the end of MAY. Yes... skipping the end of March, the entire month of April, most of May, and then if I was lucky I would get the microwave sometime next fiscal quarter.
How long were they expecting to keep me on the hook for this? I have no idea. But our LG microwave is broke (don't buy them, they are garbage) and I'm sick of heating things on the stove like it's 1965. Ship me the microwave. SHIP ME THE DAMN MICROWAVE NOW AND I WILL AWAY.
So there we were. I had ordered an in-stock item they didn't have. They couldn't pull one out of the ether within a reasonable amount of time to make me (or anybody) happy. How was a company that built it's reputation on customer satisfaction going to handle this dilemma, I asked them.
Offer #1: I cancel my order with Amazon and buy through one of their affiliates and they refund 50% of the price difference.
"No."
Offer #2: I cancel my order with Amazon and buy through one of their affiliates and they refund 100% of the price difference.
"No." Yeah right, like one of their affiliates are going to ship to Hawaii for free: NICE TRY!
Offer #3: I will have the microwave in 3 days, guaranteed.
"Done!"
I checked my order and the microwave is not being fulfilled by Amazon, but they are eating the price difference and the expedited shipping costs to Hawaii (which likely far exceed the cost of the microwave). I don't feel great that they might lose money on the transaction, however if they never had the item to begin with, they should have never offered it for sale with a fake delivery estimate.
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That was a sickeningly familiar story Terracore. I used to love Amazon, but the last 6 months their service has gotten so bad, I've changed my mind. It ticks me off just to think of the hours I've wasted trying to get them to do what they used to do, offer a product I need, sell it and deliver it .
It used to be so easy. The good old days....
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If something is late and you have Prime, call or chat with customer service and demand an extension of your Prime account and free overnight shipping for the delayed product. They've given it to me every time.
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Ordered something last night. It shipped this morning.
Maybe "spray painted t-shirts volume 2" get shipped faster.
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?! Volume 2 is out already ?!
So I know that everybody has been having problems falling asleep at night wondering if terracore got his microwave or not, so here's the latest:
Amazon made good on their word. They promised I would have the microwave by today but it actually got here yesterday. Unfortunately, it was obvious that the microwave had been partially submerged in water and there was 3 rolls of tape keeping the wet cardboard together. I asked the FedEx guy what happened and he said one of their containers got wet. So I refused the delivery.
Back to amazon chat I went. I'm not really sure if the intellect on the other end was human or not so I don't know if English was the issue or if algorithms weren't puking out recognizable results but it was a bizarre exchange. I'm not sure either one of us understood each other.
Of course their first offer of a full refund was declined. I'm not going away that easy. Rather than detail the whole exchange- what I WANTED was for them to ship me another microwave. SHIP ME A DAMN MICROWAVE. But they were unwilling to do that, saying they could refund and I reorder myself. Something about the way "stock" works. I don't know if they were talking about having microwaves "in stock" or if they were referring to how Amazon was doing on the stock market, but as a customer service gesture they refunded me the price of the microwave, plus an additional $100. Then I went back to their web site and saw the microwave for sale for Prime at the same price from another merchant.
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Ordered new running shoes on Amazon 8 days ago with free shipping to my door. Today (delivery day)....I find out they were returned to sender by our local post office 3 days ago without ever being delivered to our home. Turns out I gave them my physical address in HPP as the ship to address. They sent it to Honolulu UPS and then transferred it to USPS from there to my house. Keaau PO got it....looked at the address and returned it to sender. Funny thing is I ordered the same thing last year and they delivered right to my house. Has Amazon changed their contract shipper to Hawaii Island?
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they seem to use whatever service fits at the moment. I got shipments in the last couple weeks via UPS, FedEx, and USPO.
I use my physical address as first line, PO box number as the second line. That way, any way they ship it gets to me.
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