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Like most people, I've ordered a lot of packages (hundreds?) on Amazon and almost never had a problem. In the rare case of a problem, Amazon would instantly ref

• bjornjajayaja 5y ago
  Best thing to do is buy straight from manufacturer if possible require insurance on the shipment—that way the post has to deliver it or they are paying you!
  • Sebb767 5y ago
    In fact, it seems pretty insane to me that they ship items worth thousands of dollars, but skip the few dollars on insured shipment. It not only protects against missing/"missing" packages, but also against transport damage (at least in Germany).
    • ghaff 5y ago
      Someone makes money on insurance. So, for a large company, self-insuring basically lets them save on what would otherwise be someone else's profit.
      • LorenPechtel 5y ago
        And a place like Amazon that sends out lots of orders will get a good idea of where the risks are high and where they are low. They know that of the hundreds of packages they have shipped us none have gone missing, it would be a waste of money to insure things they are sending us. They even screwed up and shipped a cancelled order, I was on the other side of the world when I saw the e-mail and by the time they were satisfied I really was me their attempt to intercept the package failed. $500 worth of stuff sat on our front porch for 10 days and was still there when we got back. (We live in a low-crime area and our front porch makes it basically impossible to see a package from the street unless it's large. A porch pirate would have to come to within 10' of the door to see most things, they'll go elsewhere where they don't have to be so obvious.)
        • ghaff 5y ago
          I don't know how this works in general but I assume that there are some heuristics as to whether shippers require delivery signatures or not. Because of where I live and how isolated my house is the only real dangers are misdelivery and damage. One of the early-on Prime benefits for me was fairly deterministic delivery. At a time when I ordered lot of physical books, CDs, and DVDs, the minimum amount for free shipping wasn't a big deal. But random order arrivals when I was traveling much of the time were.
  • deleted 5y ago
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  • gpm 5y ago
    At least where I live it's the shippers (i.e. the manufacturers in your example) problem if the package doesn't arrive, not mine. If they want to purchase insurance on their package, that's their choice. On the flip side if they want to "self insure" by not doing so, and assuming that on average they would pay more for insurance than insurance would pay them, that's also their choice. Either way I'm certainly not going to purchase insurance myself, paying extra money to mitigate their risk.
• Freestyler_3 5y ago
  They lost my 15$ package and even though they promised refund and a gift card, they never came through. Now I don't use amazon anymore than I really have to.
  • jacquesm 5y ago
    I don't understand that. The 'than I really have to' bit, is Amazon now so entrenched that you can't get around them anymore?
    • ghaff 5y ago
      If I were to decide that I wasn't going to use Amazon starting tomorrow, I'd be spending a whole lot more time checking a bunch of online stores, paying for shipping, driving around, etc. So, yes, they are for a lot of things. While I certainly ordered from them pre-pandemic, the pandemic has brought home to me how many things I can just order rather than put on a shopping list and drive around to stores to find and purchase.
      • rvba 5y ago
        It is sad to read that people want a monopoly for a minor convenience. Same with steam (that takes a big money cut and their buggy launcher is awful)
        • ghaff 5y ago
          People don't "want a monopoly." But they do want to order things in a way that is by no means a "minor convenience." Just going back to when Amazon was getting started, finding a book that wasn't in stock at your local store was a massive hassle and could take months. Today, not spending an hour running errands is not really a minor convenience. Again, I'm good with there being more competition--and, in fact, I order things from multiple places--but Amazon is often the easiest choice.
          • ectopod 5y ago
• ghaff 5y ago
  I assume it must be location-dependent. The only problem I've had over the past year or two was with a headset that didn't work properly. I returned it via a UPS will pick up the box and slap on a shipping label option. They never did. But there was eventually a tracking number in the system anyway. UPS basically shrugged and said that the computer says it was picked up. But the refund went through anyway. I assume Amazon decided that UPS had picked it up and lost it.
  • ageitgey 5y ago
    I'm guessing it's more price-dependent. I'm sure Amazon would refund a headset and not really care if they got it back or not. But try getting a refund on a $5,000 studio microphone and you will probably have an entirely different experience. Somewhere around $1,000-ish seems to be the magic threshold where their rules change and you get lost in the management void.
    • formerly_proven 5y ago
      I'm actually surprised people buy expensive audio/video/photo equipment on Amazon, since usually their prices aren't good on those, and their packaging is very bad. That's okay for random consumer garbage, but I wouldn't order anything high-end from them.
      • lotsofpulp 5y ago
        I presume the “their” and “them” in this comment refer to third party sellers, which could be anyone. I would rather order from the brand directly, or Home Depot or Best Buy or any other established business that does not try to pawn me off as a customer to someone else.
        • formerly_proven 5y ago
          Especially for audio/video/photo stuff there's a bunch of dealers just for that, which tend to be quite good (in terms of prices, packaging, customer services), and also specialized distributors ("sells small numbers to professionals"), that's why I'm surprised people go for Amazon. Some examples: Random camera: Amazon: 2000 €, any photo dealer: 1800 € Random high-end lens: Amazon: 2500 €, photo dealer: 2000 € Random microphone: Amazon: 275 €, A/V distributor: 220 € Studio microphone: Amazon: <not authorized to sell>, A/V distributor: 600 € And that's before considering that Amazon is probably going to ship more slowly (even on prime) than most other "pro" dealers, and that Amazon is probably going to throw a box in a more or less empty parcel, while someone at a proper dealer will actually bother to package the stuff correctly.
• yreg 5y ago
  Didn't you dispute it at PayPal/your CC company/your bank? Or were you afraid of getting banned from Amazon?
  • ageitgey 5y ago
    In the end, it probably took 3-4 weeks to get my money back for a $5k 1-day delivery package that wasn't ever delivered. I would have gone the bank route next, but since Amazon did eventually give me my money back, it wasn't needed. I'm sure the shipper was who lost/stole the package. But my point is that you can't take your great support experience with Amazon buying $50 sheets and expect that you get the same experience when they lose something expensive. For expensive or specialist items, you can often get the item faster and cheaper going to a different retailer despite how all your experience buying cheap stuff on Amazon tells you otherwise.
    • kevinmchugh 5y ago
      As I've moved more of my shopping away from Amazon I've noticed that lots and lots of online retailers are now competitive on the logistics side. Fast shipping is now table stakes.
      • s_fischer 5y ago
        I'll go one further and say that some are actually quicker than Amazon. I've recently bought two different items from bestbuy.com that I would have normally bought from Amazon when prime shipping actually took two days. In both cases bestbuy's free shipping could get the items to my house 1 day quicker than amazon so I went with them.
        • toomuchtodo 5y ago
          Best Buy, in some cases, fulfills using Geek Squad folks delivering locally. Was very cool to order two SSDs in the morning and have them show up a few hours later.
        • tharkun__ 5y ago
• jstummbillig 5y ago
  > My recommendation is to skip Amazon for anything expensive or at high risk of shipper theft/fraud. Based on this, as you say, "rare" experience? That seems unwise when aiming for the best average outcome. Also what would be a better alternative (provided you still want to shop and pay online)? I suspect that, while the rate of problematic experience might be slightly lower with smaller dealers, the average lost value for the customer is not (since there is no Amazon middleman that has any financial interest in keeping the customer around for future shopping, and hence their money is probably just lost when something goes wrong that the dealer is unable or unwilling to resolve)
• nigerian1981 5y ago
  I’ve found my credit card company, American Express to be great for getting refunds in cases like this and always use my credit card for larger purchases.
  • chrisseaton 5y ago
    A problem with this is that it’s a nuclear option. Companies you use it against may decline to trade with you again. That may be a problem or not.
    • JCharante 5y ago
      This is one problem I face with centralization. If all stores handle purchases on their own, it's fine if your local camera shop refuses you as a customer because you also probably don't want to deal with them again, but if you are forced to use your CC company to dispute against steam, amazon, google, you are risking being banned from their service. You are risking access to your photos, documents, and emails. To using online features for other products you already own.
      • ericmay 5y ago
        I agree, but we are far from centralized. Very far. -edit- If you think we're centralized and you're "downvoting to disagree" at least have some decency to explain how we're centralized. There is nothing that Amazon sells that I can't buy an alternative product at a dozen other retailers for comparable prices, for example.
        • harimau777 5y ago
          I think that it varies. Due to network effects, there often aren't good alternatives for social media like Facebook or collaborative cloud tools like Google docs. For games, it's not unusual for indy games to only release on Steam. Even when there is a physical release, that option is becoming increasingly difficult (e.g. many computers no longer have a built in disc drive, many stores no longer carry PC games, etc.). This is less common than the previous two examples, but it may be difficult to find niche products outside of Etsy. For example, I haven't been able to find another place to purchase this specialized martial arts equipment: https://www.etsy.com/listing/175827423/ https://www.etsy.com/listing/175827423/
• deleted 5y ago
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• ptero 5y ago
  For expensive stuff I almost never go with Amazon now: too many counterfeit / fly by night sellers. For "prosumer" items a store that serves professionals is likely to watch their suppliers very carefully and have customer-friendly policies when things hit a snag. For cameras and optics (and flash sticks) B&H is my go-to place. My 2c.
  • simonsarris 5y ago
    Same. After getting clearly-open-box (used? counterfeit? returned?) Makita batteries on Amazon I only buy tools from Home Depot, only buy camera equipment from B&H, etc. No more pricey tools or electronics from Amazon, or food for that matter (years ago, bought box of protein bars, came expired!)
    • BostonEnginerd 5y ago
      The rule in our house is to not order anything that goes in or on our bodies from Amazon.
    • wyager 5y ago
      I bought an $800 winch from Amazon, shipped and sold by Amazon, in “new” condition. When it arrived, not only was it clearly used, but it had been damaged by improper use and would have been extremely dangerous if I tried to use it. If I hadn’t known what to look for, I probably would have used it and been at risk of serious injury. Amazon is clearly marking returns as “new” if their clueless returns staff thinks they can pass it off.
      • jschwartzi 5y ago
        I wouldn't buy anything I need to trust on Amazon.
      • procombo 5y ago
        Yeah, me too. I imagine it's a process that is difficult to scale without error. I like buying Amazon Warehouse deals when the item makes sense to me. With larger items I think their quality control is higher, and the saving tend be bigger. The box may arrive super beat-up, but item is just fine. My motivation is probably less about overall savings, but more about me feeling like I'm doing Amazon a favor. Weird, isn't it? I'm conditioned. As a tangent: I've also purchased used that ended up being a return of a similar looking, but much less expensive item. So I just re-return it. In this case I assume it was fraud on the original return. With my patterns I doubt Amazon thinks -I- returned them the wrong item. Without customer context their job figuring stuff like that out would be much more difficult.
• throwaway45209 5y ago
  How about bhphotovideo?
  • protomyth 5y ago
    We've had good experiences with them. They even have Educational pricing and PO acceptance. They are our number two behind cdwg.
  • Finnucane 5y ago
    I’ve been buying from B&H for many years, and had a wrong item shipped to me once. They made an exchange without any big hassle. The only issue I have now is they’ve switched away from UPS as default shipping—-UPS ground NY to Boston is basically next day, FedEx Ground service is two days. I liked going to the store in NY when I lived there.
  • beezle 5y ago
    I have bought various electronics and camera accessories from B&H with no issues (related to B&H). However, I buy all my new camera bodies and lenses direct from the manufacturer. I have found the price to be identical (or nearly so) to B&H, shipping to often be free and from time to time, without a local tax. If Nikon, Sigma, etc are selling as 'new' what are returns/refurbs then there is no hope in the system at all. edit: grammar
• nebulous1 5y ago
  I dislike buying from Amazon and I don't doubt you had a frustrating experience here. That said, how would you have expected this to go? I assume everybody is in agreement that this wasn't going to be sorted out the next day. I think you might be overestimating how smoothly this would go when dealing with another company, although obviously there would be exceptions to that.
  • ashtonkem 5y ago
    Honestly, I would expect it to be sorted quickly and by one person. If I’m paying thousands of dollars for a high end product, especially with a company I’ve (presumably) spent tens of thousands of dollars with, I expect to be taken care of when something goes wrong.
• mytailorisrich 5y ago
  I don't know if all shipping companies do this but my experience with Amazon in the UK is that they track and keep records of the whereabouts of their delivery vans. Once I had an order "delivered" without trace and Amazon asked my to check with neighbours first as, according to their records, the van has stopped at my house. On another occasion I knew that the van never came despite order again listed as "delivered" and they refunded instantly. (not expensive items, though)
  • dboreham 5y ago
    Based on some personal experience with "lost" packages, and discussions with delivery drivers, this is also the case in the US. This makes it even more egregious when the carriers quibble because surely they know the package was stolen in transit.
• fortran77 5y ago
  Amazon is simply not prepared to deal with this. Because of their "shady seller" and "comingled inventory" problem, they can't tell easily if a buyer or seller is trying to scam them. Electronics I buy from either Best Buy or B&H Photo. For non-electronic "Name Brand" items where counterfeit is likely, I'll go to Target.com, etc.
• oort-cloud9 5y ago
  They did refund you. And you should not complain because it takes them time to verify things It could be the shoppers fault or the vendor's fault. This kind of verification is not a simple affair, and you are not the only one of their customers. Next time buy expensive items from BH and open the box in the presence of the mailman. Also BH has PayBoo credit card that pays the sales tax. I just bought from them Canon R5 and 2 RF lenses, and the huge tax was taken care of by PayBoo.
• an_opabinia 5y ago
  I'm afraid of being downvoted, but the algorithm for an Amazon return looks something like: Your LTV = Forecasting total revenue from your transactions so far Revenue = The sum of your past transactions Refund? = LTV - Revenue - Refund Cost > 0 This is a much simpler, much more logical model. It appears everywhere, like with credit card disputes or when you get service discounts to not leave. Because when you don't get the refund for a $7,000 item, the assumption is you will "die" - quit using the service, stop buying, whatever - and your LTV - revenue is now zero. What is frustrating to people is: it doesn't matter what happened to the package. You feel like you're this good person pursuing this great justice, but the simple facts are it doesn't matter what actually occurred. This is coming from someone who had two $3,500 computer deliveries stolen, probably because they had RTX 3080 written on them, but like, Amazon didn't care, it just refunded me. I didn't have to provide evidence or explain anything. Because my LTV was really high. Same with getting stuff refunded on my credit card. They simply did not care, and it was thousands of dollars of stuff where, obviously I was in the wrong, you can't just refund like airfare and such, but I asked for it and I got it because LTV. Is this just? Like how else could it work? They investigate everything, spending more money than the cost of the refund? They would just not provide refunds, as was the case historically in e-commerce! And it's not Amazon, it's everyone. Indeed, the real innovation here isn't the strategy, it's that LTV forecasting has gotten really accurate. Otherwise I feel like these threads devolve into, people who don't know anything complain about stuff they keep using, and nobody critically looks into what's really going on. There's an emotional desire, ironically, for this slow, legalistic, argumentative, plaintiff versus defense world. You know, when it suits you. The algorithmic approach, as soon as you open that Pandora's box, well of course it optimizes all that crap away - the LTV model of "justice" here is, in my opinion, a lot lot better. It's just so inscrutable to a lay person, such a baffling reorganization of at least two decades of conditioning, I can see how the reaction is, "Oh my god, who is this blowhard, downvote." All I'm trying to do is share the facts of how remedies really work when you interact with giant, growing, successful companies.
  • ncfausti 5y ago
    Thanks for this, very informative. So LTV is forecasted "lifetime value". So, if I'm 30, they'll estimate ~50 years of revenue going forward from me and use this as LTV?
• SN76477 5y ago
  Why not charge it back with your bank?
• dnautics 5y ago
  It took me months to get a fraudulent refurb phone refunded. I've also had several purchases where I didn't want to fight just slide. So I stopped using Amazon.
• darksaints 5y ago
  I too have had a similar experience, but it was for a series of bad deliveries by the same Amazon Logistics delivery driver. Almost every delivery was fucked up in some way or another: delivered late but marked as delivered, delivered on time but not marked as delivered until it was stolen, delivered to inaccessible locations, delivered to other residents drop boxes, etc. I called amazon every time it happened. I told them the various things that their driver did, explicitly asking them to replace that specific driver. And after a while it was like they flagged my account as fraudulent (customer service began issuing canned responses with no follow up). Eventually, after a few egregious cases, my property management company sued Amazon. Overnight, packages started being delivered correctly, and I haven't had to call CS since...but I now refuse to buy anything of value from Amazon anymore due to a combination of fraudulent marketplace items and the lingering fear that if something goes wrong I won't be able to get any compensation for it because my account has been flagged. Funnily enough, Ali Express is now the more reputable company in my eyes.
• wpietri 5y ago
  Perfectly believable. The thing I really loved about Amazon is that they had their act together. But that has declined drastically over the decades; now whenever I actually have to deal with them it seems like there's a ton of internal chaos. In June 2018, I ordered a soccer magazine, "Futbol Total", for my soccer-mad nephew. It said it would arrive in 4-16 weeks, which seemed weird. I waited it out, and no magazine. I contacted them and they said they were on it and it would arrive soon. At 5 months in I just canceled the order, only to get an email saying, "Unfortunately, we weren’t able to cancel the items you requested and these items will soon be shipped." I spent a bunch of time in chat and on the phone getting the runaround, complete with new ticket numbers, promises of personally following up, and even a $20 credit. But they were firm on saying, "Please be assured, we will ship this item very soon." Occasionally I'd try again, insisting that they either cancel the order or actually ship it. Each time I was told it would be shipped. Long after I'd given up, in late October 2020, they finally canceled it, saying, "We regret to inform you that, due to a technical error, we will not be able to fulfill your order." For all of Amazon's vaunted customer focus, my impression was of a lot of unhappy, fearful customer service staff passing the buck so they could avoid bad metrics.
  • rantwasp 5y ago
    so, at what point is legitimate to involve the Credit Card company? you don’t even need to actually do it, tell cs you will do it unless it gets here in x days. issue a chargeback and move on.
    • sbarre 5y ago
      As others have also said, doing a chargeback risks Amazon closing your account permanently. So if you're prepared to take that risk and never buy from Amazon again, sure.. go for it.. But given the centralization of vendors this can have bigger downsides than upside.
      • rantwasp 5y ago
        at what point do you call it a bad experience and just walk away?
• jk7tarYZAQNpTQa 5y ago
  Amazon is great for stuff that is neither valuable, critical, subject to counterfeit, or perishable. But if health or a large amount of money is at stake, avoid it like the plague. It's not worth the risk.
• Syzygies 5y ago
  I buy expensive electronics from B&H Photo Video, when possible. In the 1980's, B&H was the queen of the "grey market". Now, I trust them to deliver authentic goods with legitimate warranties, and I'm profoundly suspicious of unnecessary transactions with Amazon.
• cm2187 5y ago
  I apply the same policy myself after a similar incident. I ordered a bunch of hard drives, when delivering them to my porter, the (dedicated) amazon delivery guy got an error on his tracking machine and took the parcel back. But then it was marked as delivered, and amazon refused to bulge, despite me receiving multiple emails the days after that delivery attempt, notifying me that the parcel would be delivered the next day (which I interpret as someone scanning the parcel they claimed has been delivered at their warehouse). A few weeks later they finally agreed to reimburse me. Between this experience and my lack of trust in their supply chain, I now never buy anything expensive on amazon.
• diogenescynic 5y ago
  I haven't had any issues with orders still in progress, but Amazon has replaced/allowed me to return a $1200 tv that was 6 months old after it randomly stopped working/broke after moving apartments. They sent someone out and picked it up--which I seriously doubt BestBuy or NewEgg would have been willing to do. I had a similar issue to what you describe ordering a vintage item on Etsy and the tracking info provided was fake and delivered to a different address. That was a huge hassle to prove and get refunded for.
• gamblor956 5y ago
  This is basically the reason that I've continued to purchase electronics in-store despite generally being (slightly) cheaper to buy on Amazon: when I buy it from Best Buy/REI/etc., I can pick the box with the factory seal, and if necessary even open it up in store (after paying for it) to confirm that said item is in the box.
• pinkfairy10 5y ago
  That is why you buy things with a credit card. I would have disputed the charged right away. Did you try this?
• floatingatoll 5y ago
  A tiny corollary/anecdote: Every time the person who used to live here forgets and ships a book to my address, I call Amazon, they say “oh sorry”, and they instruct me to recycle/dispose of it and won’t accept a return of the still-unopened envelope. I’m not sure how this ties into LTV on the refunds side, but it feels like a sort of hidden incentive that’s not well known.
• sporedro 5y ago
  Strange I would assume that $5k to them is still nearly nothing. I've never ordered anything over $1k from Amazon and never had an issue with refunds due to issues but I guess they have a cutoff somewhere. I'll keep that in mind if I ever need to order something expensive like that.