4 ms·

Okay, it sounds like the details might be interesting to hear on this one...

atdrummond 5y ago
There are two apartment complexes in my small town with similar names (both contain the word Castle). That said, they have entirely different post codes (UK system) and my unit number doesn’t exist at the other complex. I had ordered new M1 macs and monitors for some new workers, plus an order of some snacks I cannot get on the island. If I had to guess, likely 10-12 total boxes. Amazon swears up and down it was delivered. I provide multiple CCTV feeds of the delivery date, testimony of the two posties that the independent delivery agent (NOT Isle of Man Post, who does a superb job) left it at the other location despite being told by residents and their postie that it was for my complex. The door it was left near is who I suspect took the packages but I’ve no way of proving it as I cannot get CCTV for that location. After months and months, Amazon ends up closing the matter and saying I need to pay for all new items if I want them shipped. I cancel prime and go ahead with having my credit card dispute the transaction. Amazon closes my account and tries to fight my dispute, despite my massive documentary evidence (that they were aware of) showing without a shadow of a doubt they made a mistake. Funnily enough, I eventually caught one of the boxes (sans goods) in a recycle bin near my place (small town) and the shipping label, despite what was on my Amazon account, was indeed for the other complex (but my unit number and postal code). So it can’t even be blamed on an overworked delivery driver - it was all a cock-up on Amazon’s end.
- exikyut 5y ago
  ...Hah. *Files away* Did you grab a photo of the shipping label on the box that turned up? Mental drain notwithstanding, I theoretically wonder if you'd get a different response if you randomly cold-reopened the case with the new evidence. Sounds like the credit card dispute went through, in any case. Reading this, I also thought briefly that it would be really cool to make a site for people to publicly file open-and-shut substantiated claims as a sort of "name and shame"... but of course enforcing submission quality would be impossible (firehose), and the majority of the "neat" cases would end up being fraud. Sigh. :( TIL about the idea of having CCTV pointed at my front door and letterbox though. I've seen plenty of Ring clips at this point of "ha ha the delivery person yeeted the package in the general direction of the front door" but I never really thought that it makes it possible to be able to incontrovertibly go "...what delivery?". Definitely adding that to the todo list...
  - atdrummond 5y ago
    I did but they close any new account I open where I try to get any closure on it. TBH it wasn’t even about the money - but what if that happened to someone who couldn’t afford to be without their ordered items or to rebuy them? It was just bizarre and for no obvious reason.
    - exikyut 5y ago
      It sadly sounds to me like Amazon have closed the internal case as suspected fraud. From that standpoint, I can (very cynically) see the reviewing agent looking at potential photos of the shipping label on the box and thinking "oh the person finally figured out what format we use and printed a label" or "oh they found a random box they're claiming as theirs" or something like that - ie, innocent until proven guilty because of the fraud flag, and the agent needs to meet their quota and their 30 second read of the situation is never going to warrant escalation, much less reversal. (Assuming Amazon industrial-scale micromanagement, I'm guessing there are penalties for escalations that don't prove to have been worth it - and this probably looks like one of those.) I'm completely with you in terms of the cost being potentially ruinously significant. Yep, this is definitely a broken situation. At the end of the day, I think the canonical solution with situations like this is to go viral on social media, as awkward as that is. Network effects and virality are unpredictable and it sometimes takes a while for things to take off, but if you've still got some mental energy left and motivation to seek closure, the data you've collected presents what appears to be a very open-and-shut case which will help to elicit a "wat, what gives" type response, and the relative cognitive simplicity/neatness of the case would very likely encourage knee-jerk sharing. I guess it would just be a question of figuring out how to summarize everything and where to put it - here? FB? Twitter? etc.
      - atdrummond 5y ago
        I wish I hadn’t deleted my Twitter account and the related tweets so I could share with you the interaction I had on that platform regarding this situation. I was swarmed by those @amazon67284926728-type accounts that purportedly are workers (https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56581266.amp https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56581266.amp) who accused me of trying to grift off the company. Drove me off Twitter because the (obviously baseless) accusations were too voluminous to deal with whilst dealing with major health issues and running a business.

There are two apartment complexes in my small town with similar names (both contain the word Castle). That said, they have entirely different post codes (UK system) and my unit number doesn’t exist at the other complex. I had ordered new M1 macs and monitors for some new workers, plus an order of some snacks I cannot get on the island. If I had to guess, likely 10-12 total boxes. Amazon swears up and down it was delivered. I provide multiple CCTV feeds of the delivery date, testimony of the two posties that the independent delivery agent (NOT Isle of Man Post, who does a superb job) left it at the other location despite being told by residents and their postie that it was for my complex. The door it was left near is who I suspect took the packages but I’ve no way of proving it as I cannot get CCTV for that location. After months and months, Amazon ends up closing the matter and saying I need to pay for all new items if I want them shipped. I cancel prime and go ahead with having my credit card dispute the transaction. Amazon closes my account and tries to fight my dispute, despite my massive documentary evidence (that they were aware of) showing without a shadow of a doubt they made a mistake. Funnily enough, I eventually caught one of the boxes (sans goods) in a recycle bin near my place (small town) and the shipping label, despite what was on my Amazon account, was indeed for the other complex (but my unit number and postal code). So it can’t even be blamed on an overworked delivery driver - it was all a cock-up on Amazon’s end.

exikyut 5y ago
...Hah. *Files away* Did you grab a photo of the shipping label on the box that turned up? Mental drain notwithstanding, I theoretically wonder if you'd get a different response if you randomly cold-reopened the case with the new evidence. Sounds like the credit card dispute went through, in any case. Reading this, I also thought briefly that it would be really cool to make a site for people to publicly file open-and-shut substantiated claims as a sort of "name and shame"... but of course enforcing submission quality would be impossible (firehose), and the majority of the "neat" cases would end up being fraud. Sigh. :( TIL about the idea of having CCTV pointed at my front door and letterbox though. I've seen plenty of Ring clips at this point of "ha ha the delivery person yeeted the package in the general direction of the front door" but I never really thought that it makes it possible to be able to incontrovertibly go "...what delivery?". Definitely adding that to the todo list...
- atdrummond 5y ago
  I did but they close any new account I open where I try to get any closure on it. TBH it wasn’t even about the money - but what if that happened to someone who couldn’t afford to be without their ordered items or to rebuy them? It was just bizarre and for no obvious reason.
  - exikyut 5y ago
    It sadly sounds to me like Amazon have closed the internal case as suspected fraud. From that standpoint, I can (very cynically) see the reviewing agent looking at potential photos of the shipping label on the box and thinking "oh the person finally figured out what format we use and printed a label" or "oh they found a random box they're claiming as theirs" or something like that - ie, innocent until proven guilty because of the fraud flag, and the agent needs to meet their quota and their 30 second read of the situation is never going to warrant escalation, much less reversal. (Assuming Amazon industrial-scale micromanagement, I'm guessing there are penalties for escalations that don't prove to have been worth it - and this probably looks like one of those.) I'm completely with you in terms of the cost being potentially ruinously significant. Yep, this is definitely a broken situation. At the end of the day, I think the canonical solution with situations like this is to go viral on social media, as awkward as that is. Network effects and virality are unpredictable and it sometimes takes a while for things to take off, but if you've still got some mental energy left and motivation to seek closure, the data you've collected presents what appears to be a very open-and-shut case which will help to elicit a "wat, what gives" type response, and the relative cognitive simplicity/neatness of the case would very likely encourage knee-jerk sharing. I guess it would just be a question of figuring out how to summarize everything and where to put it - here? FB? Twitter? etc.
    - atdrummond 5y ago
      I wish I hadn’t deleted my Twitter account and the related tweets so I could share with you the interaction I had on that platform regarding this situation. I was swarmed by those @amazon67284926728-type accounts that purportedly are workers (https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56581266.amp https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56581266.amp) who accused me of trying to grift off the company. Drove me off Twitter because the (obviously baseless) accusations were too voluminous to deal with whilst dealing with major health issues and running a business.