I'm frustrated with amazon and I need to vent. I ordered a "white noise machine" 3 days ago (Nov 30) and paid full price $49.95. Today it dropped in price to $32.47, a difference of $17.48. I tried online chat and the "call me now" option for amazon customer service to request a credit for the difference and both agents told me they wouldn't provide credits but I could return the original one and re-buy at the new price. It seems like an incredible waste because I know they'll just throw away the original one (or auction it off in a lot or whatever) and that's 2x wasted packaging and shipping. Ugh.

https://www.indystar.com/story/news/investigations/2019/11/25/amazon-indiana-governor-eric-holcomb-warehouse-accident-hq-2/4282653002/

Amazon is pretty bad

In your case it looks like amazon is bad and Indiana is bad.

But thanks for putting things in perspective, I guess. I should be happy amazon didn't impale me with a forklift

Haha sorry if that came off as one-upmanship, I just enjoy hating Amazon

That's indeed a shame. Meanwhile, either the Finnish Post or something else managed to lose a parcel (something I sold on eBay) that I sent to the UK, so I fully refunded the item to the person who bought it... who now accuses me of having sold the item elsewhere for a bigger price instead.

I mean, sure, I sent the guy a fake box that just happened to get lost in the mail OR I came up with a made-up tracking code that just happened to get lost in transit. Just because I could. Apparently.

After the chat they asked me to rate my experience, I rated it 1 star (lowest). Then it said "give us another chance!" and I allowed them to call me, at which point they again denied the adjustment. After I wrote this thread I got an email from the second person that denied it (via phone), it was basically boilerplate "amazon doesn't do price matching." At the bottom of the email was another opportunity for me to rate the interaction. I clicked it, rated 1 star again, and put comments as to why. At this point they said, "give us another chance!!" and let me email them. So I emailed them the story and just now I got an email saying that they'd apply the credit as a one time courtesy. So... yay? I guess.

Nikumubeki that sucks.

I am skeptical, Brian. When Amazon.com launched in 1995, it was with the mission "to be Earth's most customer-centric company"!

WTF? Returning and re-buying must surely be more expensive for them. I've never encountered a shop that wouldn't do that. I worked for a retailer for a few years and the sales people got told to give any customer the lower price after the prices were lowered or when we had a sale, even when the sale had been finished for a few days because it just wasn't worth the hassle and greatly increased customer satisfaction.

My wife also recently bought some new furnitures from a Danish chain. And they slashed the prices by about 30 % and she got a refund for the difference, although they could technically have had us return the furniture at our own cost which would have been at least 50 €. And she kept a close eye on the prices and was happy to report that prices had actually gone up after our return period had ended.

But what I love most is buying cheap **** from Chinese retailers on amazon. When you want to return something they usually refund you the money and tell you to keep the item because it's cheaper for them that way.

Yeah, this is a recent development. It seems like up until recently they'd do it if it was reasonable, but now they are making it a huge hassle (deny deny deny until/unless you escalate?). Note that I've been shopping on amazon since the year they opened (books!) and I've been a prime member since the program started and I've never asked for a price adjustment before. I think this is a symptom of them advertising things to me that I already bought (where the adverts take into consideration your product views but doesn't discard categories after you've made a purchase), so if it wasn't for that, I never would have known there was a price reduction.

I experienced something similar as of late, actually: I bought a laptop from Amazon... turned out to have a busted screen. Saw that Amazon offered the option to exchange it for any single item in my cart (so long as it wasn't a gift and qualified for the same shipping). But... nope! No matter what I tried, Amazon kept telling me that the laptop I wanted to exchange it for was "not eligible" for exchange, despite clearly falling into the criteria for such an exchange. My only option was to return the item for an exact replacement, or to send it back for a refund and buy the new laptop separately. So I just did that. But customer service was totally useless. They also tried to get me to **** around with the Windows 10 brightness settings in their attempt to "fix my screen". Hah!

omg don't even talk to me about screens. I bought a set of (2) 27" 144hz LG IPS gaming monitors from Costco the other day. The first/only one I opened has a "stuck red" pixel in a place that's very annoying. The LG pixel policy says they don't care and find it perfectly acceptable to have up to 6 or 8 or something before they consider it a warranty issue. Since I bought it on "black friday" sale for a good price, I actually went back to costco and picked up a 3rd one, in hopes that 2 of the 3 will be OK. I haven't had a chance to open and try the other two yet but I'm hoping for the best. At least I know costco will take the defective one(s) back without hassle.

Amazon: conspiracy to evade sales taxes, conspiracy to violate trademark, direct violation of employment standards and safety regulations
Google: conspiracy to violate copyright, conspiracy to violate child advertising laws, anticompetitive business practices, wage fixing, dumping, contempt of court
Facebook: conspiracy to violate political advertising laws
Uber: conspiracy to violate taxi laws
Apple: anticompetitive business practices, wage fixing
Oracle: racketeering
Intel: conspiracy to violate copyright, conspiracy to steal trade secrets, anticompetitive business practices, dumping, exclusive dealing, wage fixing
Microsoft: conspiracy to violate copyright, conspiracy to steal trade secrets, anticompetitive business practices, dumping, tying, exclusive dealing

Ironically, Facebook is probably one of the most law-abiding companies in tech.

It's more expensive for them in this one scenario, yes, but as a business model it makes perfect sense. By blanket stating this as the policy, they weed out the vast majority of customers who will care enough to take further action. They're counting on the average customer not having the patience to both:

A) Reach out to Amazon to inquire about the issue to begin with
B) Have the patience to package the item back up, print out a return shipping label, take it into a UPS store (or now Kohls??) and send it back, and then ultimately have to wait a couple of weeks for their refund to hit their credit card.

Does this work all the time? Of course not. Does this practice save them millions of dollars worth of returns each year? Probably - but it's important to remember that at the end of the day, Amazon is no longer just an electronic retailer. They're in the data business, and have been for quite some time. I'm not even just talking about the obvious parts of this with consumer information and AWS, but literally in every single product they sell on their platform. Amazon now makes up over 70% of shopping related searches in the US, and that's resulted in billions of dollars being spent on paid advertising across their own first party platform.

I say all of this not because it's anything revolutionary, but just to take Amazon for what it is. It's the pinnacle of consumerism and convenience - but if you want good service, you'll probably have to go into one of those sad mom and pop stores down the road that are run by the silent generation and baby boomers, struggling to just keep the lights on and food on the table. Then again, unless you're shopping for incredibly niche items, that's probably not where you'll want to spend your time either.

I'm almost positive that Amazon did match their lowest price at one time because it surprised me when they no longer did. However, I have to say that their current policy, which has been in effect for a very long time, really doesn't bother me. A time or two when I have ordered something and it hadn't shipped I was easily able to cancel the order and purchase the cheaper one. I don't recall if I've ordered a duplicate item to return on the more expensive receipt. I think so and Amazon makes returns easy. I usually do a fair amount of pricing before I purchase to include leaving items in my cart for months, or even years, to observe highs and lows. I think without the price match mechanism in place prices setting much lower than they would otherwise.

I have an Amazon Kindle. I'm bummed that it isn't compatible with Finnish library ebooks. I knew that before I got the device, though.

I betcha they'd violate a few more laws if they branched out their business beyond being a website... that, well, has users who look at ads (kinda makes you wonder how vulnerable they are to losing that business too).

You know, I've actually had mostly good experiences with Amazon (.co.uk, .de, .com, .co.jp) so far, because the only real Amazon annoyance I can currently remember was when I preordered the fancy collector's edition of DX:HR back in March 2011, but a few days or a week before its release in August 2011 they doubled its price or something because the collector's edition had become "fancier than originally planned", and I got the impression that I wasn't going to be able to retain the lower preorder price for some reason. So I cancelled the order and bought the normal digital version on release date from Steam instead.

(And then I got a used copy of the X360 version of the box a few months later, so the total price I paid for DX:HR might have been higher than what the updated price for the PC Collector's Edition actually was. Boh.)

And I guess I did like how my latest Amazon.co.jp order was shipped by DHL so I don't think it really went through customs or anything so I didn't have to pay any extra costs in that regard.

I received one too many scam/incomplete goods a few years ago. I still buy from Amazon but only things it'd be too inconvenient to buy elsewhere.

Amazon sells Milwaukee tools, and not only are they not an authorized distributor, from what I can tell, all of them are counterfeit. I don't understand how they can get away doing that to such a major brand for so long.

I mean, the real brands are definitely having a hit taken out of the bottom line and reputations by this.

Haha Obi don't be silly, they're not selling them, they're just a platform!

You can try reading the US appeals court opinion in Milo & Gabby LLC v. Amazon.com, Inc. for example. I'm not a lawyer so I can't comment about how lucid court opinions usually are, but as an outsider (both to the US and to the court) it seems patently obvious that Amazon gets away with rampant trademark and copyright infringement because nobody in any branch of the US government wants to stop it.

Edit: Amazon is not a "seller" under US or state laws because they don't take legal title to the goods they sell. This is apparently the case, despite the fact that Amazon knowingly mixes counterfeits to which they do not have legal title with authentic goods to which they do, in such a way that nobody can tell which is which. Combined with other laws that limit the liability of service providers for the actions of third parties, this forms the basis of most arguments that have found Amazon immune against everything from trademark infringement to product safety lawsuits.

You shouldn't buy anything from Amazon. And considering that Amazon has repeatedly argued in court that they are not a "seller", clearly they agree that you shouldn't buy anything from them.

Kinda surprised they haven't been pressured to do something about that. There's got to be a huge amount of money out there that's unhappy to have Amazon act as a conduit for counterfeit goods from China.

Regarding these Milwaukee tools specifically, at some point Milwaekee must be wholesaling them to somewhere that distributes them to a bunch of people/companies that list them on amazon. I can't know whether most of them are counterfeit just based on the listings, but the ones I checked all had positive reviews (just like they do when buying at home depot). I don't doubt that there are some counterfeits on amazon but how do you contend that they all are? They don't seem to be any cheaper than buying from Home Depot.

Everyone I know "in real life" loves amazon. If you get something bogus, broken, doesn't fit, whatever, they take it back, you don't have to pay to ship it back, and they generally don't give you a hassle. When I bought a Milwaukee Tool at homedepot.com for in-store pick-up, I received an email a while later that said it was ready to pick up and that I had to go to a bank of lockers, type in a code, and that by picking up the item I am consenting to have their locker-system take a photo of my face and store it forever. Seriously, WTF?

I went to the customer service desk and showed my email confirmation and told them that I wanted to just return the product because I wouldn't consent to having my face scanned into their computer and associated with my account. You probably remember when everyone's information already got stolen from Home Depot; I'd rather not have my face included along side my credit card and other personal information the next time that happens. The amazon experience is objectively better, assuming you get legit products. (big assumption I guess)

Big brand power tools like Milwaukee and Dewalt are exclusively sold on consignment by retailers under contract to maintain certain standards (such as having enough retail space to display a certain number of SKUs). There aren't really any "wholesalers" in that part of the market, per se. Retailers don't pay for the tools. The retailers stock and display the tools, but the tools themselves are owned by the power tool companies until sold.

If someone is selling name brand power tools and they aren't an authorized dealer, it means one of a few things. It could mean they're an authorized brick and mortar retailer selling tools in an unauthorized way. Or maybe the tools fell off the back of a truck. Or maybe they're used. Or maybe they're counterfeit. There's not an awful lot of above-board room for unauthorized dealing in that industry.

And if Milwaukee thinks it's a big enough problem (getting too many warranty claims for bogus product?) they should know what serial numbers were sold to/through which retailer, right?

There’s nothing legally stopping Amazon from reselling tools they buy at Home Depot. Not honoring warranties on tools from Amazon would hurt Milwaukee more than it would ever help. And as I mentioned above, there’s no recourse for Milwaukee about counterfeits - us courts have ruled consistently that Amazon is not liable for trademark infringement in their store.

All they can really do is what they’ve already done, stop shipments to amazon and force them to source their tools from somewhere else.

I get that, it just doesn't seem that difficult to go after the "big" sellers on amazon that are selling the tools (rather than amazon itself).

Today I got an envelope from amazon that was a little stand for my trangia stove. I thought it was empty, but it's just a lightweight stand so it wasn't. I was pretty miffed and amazoon for a second tho.

I bought two PS3 controllers in 2015 or so off Amazon. They were knockoffs, easy as hell to tell.. cheap packaging, even had the same fake serial number printed. Contacted Amazon support about it, got a refund, but the seller page stayed up for months after. I left a 1 star review explaining it was a counterfeit product and how I knew it was, but I know many other people got ripped off and not all of them fought customer service.

They were good fakes, too.. not easy to tell apart from the packaging and comparing the serial numbers.

easy as hell to tell... and not easy to tell; my brain hurts

Unless shipped directly from the seller, with inventory comingling amazon doesn't keep track of who exactly you bought it from. You mighta just left a 1 star review on a totally legitimate seller because Amazon drew you some other seller's counterfeit out of their giant hat.

I indeed wrote that very poorly. They were good copies. If I was physically handed one of the controllers with nothing to compare to, I would have a hard time declaring it a fake. It was contextual clues; the packaging tipped me off and it was comparing the serial numbers which made me definitively sure. If someone didn't know better and bought a single one I could see them being none the wiser.



It was shipped directly from the seller.

Tried to get something for my daughter a couple weeks back, Amazon managed to route the package to the wrong processing facility then lost the tracking number or something, so they auto-returned and refunded the item instead of sending another one from stock.

Luckily, the package was "only" 3 weeks late in transit and the buyer got it in the end - and I got my money.

The Most Polite Massassian On Par With None does it again!