First negative experience with Amazon

Has this happened to you?

Does Amazon make 'excuses' rather than tell you an item is sold out or a sale price will no longer be honored?

Last weekend they had their Kindles for half price. Wanted to buy one for myself and one for my Mother. Thinking about the different apps and features, I thought it would be best to buy each through our own accounts.

I did just that. Ordered both the same day, but on separate accounts. My order went thru no problem. My Mother's order kicked back "invalid payment". She used the account no more than 2 weeks earlier to buy some clothes and had no issue. The card on file is a known good card. No matter what we did, her order kept kicking back. I even tried using my card that I bought my Kindle with, same thing.

I had a 'chat session' with Amazon, they assured me that they had the kindle still in stock, and they would honor the price even though the sale ended like three days ago. I just needed to enter a valid card. This is where I used my own card, and it still kicked back.

We tried ordering something different, using her card, and the order went thru just fine.

At this point I've given up.

I've been using Amazon for years and have never had something like this happen. No, it's not the end of the world, just kinda annoyed.

Never that but did finally get scammed off there. I bought a floatie key chain for my lake cabin, key chain that floats if your keys end up in the drink. I thought I was getting a mini foam buoy, what showed up was a hard plastic mini buoy that likely doesnt even float. Can't imagine carrying it around all week while up there on vacation...

I have never had this kind of problem thankfully. It’s too bad they didn’t immediately take care of it for you over the chat session without you having to do anything additional. That’s what they should do. Good customer service means everything. Or was it virtual chat which is useless?

By his name and how well he typed, I'm guessing it was someone from India.

No offer to place order for us, just apologized and insisted the problem was with our cards, even the one I used two days earlier.

So you're bitching about something you haven't tried yet !!!!

It floated with bubbles and then sank, it was a pure scam. And who TF wants to carry that in their pocket lol

The only time I've ever had success with an Amazon problem is to call them. It took an act of God to find a number but this is it:

1-888-280-4331

I haven't had any issues with amazon, yet. Good luck with your kindle, after much frustration I bought a I pad. Life is much better now.

Same as ebay. They try and wear you out first hoping you'll give up THEN they give you have the almighty honor to get a phone number to actually speak to someone but IIRC you have to type in a one time code so that the number is good for one use only.

I'm not a deeply religious person but Jeff Bezos IS the devil.

I have heard from so many other small business owners and former employees about their unethical tactics that I would never buy (or sell) on there.

My 20 something kids all think its great - till THEIR job is Amazoned.

I've never had that problem before. By far the most problems I've had with amazon is items arriving damaged because of their bad packaging and one or two things I had to send back because the description was wrong and iit's never been a problem. Sometimes they charge you for the replacement item but the refund comes when tracking shows the returned item was dropped off at the post office.

The biggest scam is when you buy something on a big sale, it shows up damaged and they make you do a return instead of an exchange and you can't get the sale price any more.

The whole operation is a scam. If they haven't gotten you yet, be assured it is coming.

I know a few people that have been employees of the operation. The way they treat their people is crazy. Unhappy employees do bad things, and there are a lot of unhappy employees there.

John, watch your credit cards (and your mom's), you may see a lot of extra charges show up soon. The extra charges may show up with the next statement, or they may show up in a couple of months.

I no longer buy anything from that company. I think people buy from them because they seem to be easy, but they do not have the best prices, and often the customer service isn't much better then the price. Gene

Wow, I have had nothing but AAA service from them and have bought a reasonable # of items on a regular basis

Agree^ I buy stuff from Amazon all the time....little to no issue. I would buy there LONG before I'll walk into Walmart.

I just pulled up my Amazon account, it shows I've been a member there since 2002. The fact I've had only one issue that wasn't my fault in all that time seems pretty good to me. If anything, this should be a positive post, not a negative one.

I agree they are not necessarily the cheapest on everything, but you still can't beat the convenience. Just not having to deal with traffic, screaming brats, and bad employees, makes it even more worthwhile to me. And now that they have pickup 'hubs' at various locations close to me, I don't have to worry about my stuff getting snatched off my doorstep before I get home.

My most expensive mistake was about 5 yrs ago. I wanted to buy a Chromebook and they had them on clearance. The one I was looking at had two distinct models, the difference being what apps you could download (basically android vs apple). I had an android phone at the time and didn't have an issue, so I went with the android app one. Found out too late that it pretty much wouldn't download ANY additional apps. Even just 'basic' things like YouTube or even Facebook (for example) it wouldn't do it. Being on clearance, I couldn't return it or even exchange it. Between the cost of the book and the cover for it I bought, I ended up with a $200 paperweight.

I'll watch my cards, but I don't suspect a problem.

I agree. Only isse i have had was they said a letter opener I ordered was delivered but i never saw it. It was cheap so I bought another. I love Prime - I can buy 60lb cases of aquarium salt and have them delivered for free, aquarium supply sites generally just can't do that - and I get them within a day or two. The fast delivery is perfect when a client's pump dies as we can't afford to keep a huge inventory in our houses. Their return policy in my area gives immediate refunds too, just drop the item off at a Whole Foods no questions asked.

Sounds like just a weird wrinkle in ordering, I bet it will be fine

Only problem I have had is where Amazon is acting as an agency handling for a small company who is the actual seller.

I bought a humidifier this way from Amazon.

The humidifier was defective and when I tried to return it, the small seller had a clever trick:
He issued an RMA and said “print this shipping label”

But the shipping label was impossible to print!

I tried Windows, Mac, Linux - nothing would print it.

After many messages through the Amazon system I finally telephoned them and the Amazon employees really tried to help.
But I could not get an address or a printable label.

After much frustration I finally tore the humidifier apart, hotwired in a different electrical switch from my junk box and used the humidifier for 4 years until the heater element went bad.

Sounds like a story I read about a piano warranty that covered everything on the piano, against anything, forever. Hitch was that you had to return the piano to the factory for ANY warranty work.

I have been an Amazon prime member for 20 years...
Typically I order 8 or 10 times a month. Over the years the service has been excellent, and I have had a couple of returns but the process was painless.
Now I find that frequently their pricing is not that competitive so it pays to know what the options are and target price.
But the convenience of ordering, choice, timely delivery and order tracking have been incredible...

Just my $0.02...

No problems here. I do check pricing as many times Amazon is higher. I guess people think Amazon has the best prices on everything. NOT! Also many times you can get free shipping and just as good of service elsewhere along with a better price. I think Amazon is great for the person who doesn`t have time to do the research or is too lazy.

THANK YOU!! I called this number and got an English speaking person that was very, VERY helpful. They stayed on the line until they were sure the order was actually processed, (almost 25 minutes).

An IPad might've been nice, but it's really overkill for what my Mom needs. The Kindle should do everything she needs just fine.

Moments like this are why I'm still at Moparts.

Have a great weekend everyone.

I've found very few things that amazon can't beat on price but even on there you have to search well because some sellers sell the same item for 1/2 the price of another. Sometimes it comes down to the free shipping that makes the difference.

I forgot I did have one problem that I bought a sandblasting hood once. It came in an envelope with the face shield cracked all over and unusable. The seller wanted me to send it back for refund at my cost but the shipping back was almost as much as what the hood cost. Amazon did absolutely nothing to resolve my problem and even with pictures my review was removed twice. I guess the seller wasn't happy about it. Complete scam.

Example. Was looking for spark plugs for my truck. NGK LZFR5CI-11 Laser Iridium Spark Plug 92145 Laser Iridium. I checked Amazon first around $172. Not even close ended up going to Rock Auto. Got them for $122 shipped. Got them in four days.

I ordered a serpentine belt tensioner, had the correct part number, picture matched on the site, bought it and got some other tensioner in the correct box with the correct part number on it. I didn't open it up until I needed it two months later, that's when I found out it was the wrong one. I haven't gotten back to them yet on it, but I think I better soon...

Never been on Amazon and don't plan to. Their business ethics rate right there with Best Buy.

Hearing now reading this series, they do the same thing as Walmart, where they're listing things for other sellers on the company website, is enough to re-confirm my decision to keep away.

Tried that once on the Walmart web site. Ordered a higher end water softener, from someone else, posted on the Walmart site. Listing addressed everything I was looking for, specs just was I was looking for, dimensions were perfect, good price, 'guaranteed shipment in 24 hrs' was mentioned several times in the listing. They even listed their phone number to call for questions, after sale support, etc. Timing was important for this deal so I went for it.

My credit card was charged the next day.

Then, nothing. No activity on the order. Repeated emails from me got no response. I started calling on day 3. Phone never answered, no answering machine.

Day 5 I called Walmart. The poor person who took my call tried to tell me I needed to address the issue with the seller or my credit card company. I came on a little strong at that point. Got connected with someone else who tried to reach the seller as well. No answer. Walmart rep finally assured me they would get my card credited. The person acknowledged they were having some problems with some of their website sellers. I did get the credit 2 days later.

From then on, I won't order anything that isn't clearly being sold by Walmart.

Yup. That's one thing to watch for on amazon- A lot of that sort of stuff is either sold by amazon, sold by someone else and shipped from amazon or sold and shipped from someone else. If it's shipped by amazon returns are easy even if it was sold by someone else. If it's shipped by someone else that's when you can run into problems. That's what I found anyway.