Prime Day 2023

[mlewis78]

I mentioned earlier that I'd bought a new 32" Samsung smart TV from B&H Photo (same price as the Amazon prime day price, $198). I thought it would work out better and I knew they used Fedex for delivery the next day.

The Fedex driver rang from downstairs and I let him in. I went downstairs within an hour (4 flights) and there were no boxes. I checked the tracking and Fedex had not updated it to delivered, but hours later they did.

My TV was stolen. I didn't even get to see it. The driver had left the box in the vestibule where it could be seen from the street and the box had a large photo of the TV with full description, same box as if I had picked it up at a store.

After some effort and two days, B&H confirmed a full refund. I told them that the delivery was very sloppy, as if the driver was trying to give it to a thief. Or worse, the the driver took a photo of where the box was and took it himself.

Since I cannot trust a delivery person, when I buy another I will have to pick up from the store which would require a taxi ride to get it home. The sale price is good through this Sunday, but it's very humid now and I am inclined not to bother.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by mlewis78

I mentioned earlier that I'd bought a new 32" Samsung smart TV from B&H Photo (same price as the Amazon prime day price, $198). I thought it would work out better and I knew they used Fedex for delivery the next day.

The Fedex driver rang from downstairs and I let him in. I went downstairs within an hour (4 flights) and there were no boxes. I checked the tracking and Fedex had not updated it to delivered, but hours later they did.

My TV was stolen. I didn't even get to see it. The driver had left the box in the vestibule where it could be seen from the street and the box had a large photo of the TV with full description, same box as if I had picked it up at a store.

After some effort and two days, B&H confirmed a full refund. I told them that the delivery was very sloppy, as if the driver was trying to give it to a thief. Or worse, the the driver took a photo of where the box was and took it himself.

Since I cannot trust a delivery person, when I buy another I will have to pick up from the store which would require a taxi ride to get it home. The sale price is good through this Sunday, but it's very humid now and I am inclined not to bother.

I had a similar problem with a delivery that was delivered by UPS. It was delivered to front entrance (public) of the apartment building. The driver did not ring to let us know about the delivery. He just left it and left. It was stolen.

UPS back then was using what they called home delivery which was to get people to deliver packages on their way home and obviously the driver we had was too lazy to right the buzzer and wait for one us to collect the package. So he left it left.

[Apache]

I own a jewelry store and have had USPS leave packages at my front door because they now deliver my mail after I am closed for the day.
Apache

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by mlewis78

I mentioned earlier that I'd bought a new 32" Samsung smart TV from B&H Photo (same price as the Amazon prime day price, $198). I thought it would work out better and I knew they used Fedex for delivery the next day.

The Fedex driver rang from downstairs and I let him in. I went downstairs within an hour (4 flights) and there were no boxes. I checked the tracking and Fedex had not updated it to delivered, but hours later they did.

My TV was stolen. I didn't even get to see it. The driver had left the box in the vestibule where it could be seen from the street and the box had a large photo of the TV with full description, same box as if I had picked it up at a store.

After some effort and two days, B&H confirmed a full refund. I told them that the delivery was very sloppy, as if the driver was trying to give it to a thief. Or worse, the the driver took a photo of where the box was and took it himself.

Since I cannot trust a delivery person, when I buy another I will have to pick up from the store which would require a taxi ride to get it home. The sale price is good through this Sunday, but it's very humid now and I am inclined not to bother.

Wow, that's awful. Would they be able to make it a signature-required delivery?

[nabsltd]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I know of nothing that's been taken away from me that I needed. Free shipping is still free; my delivery times have gotten steadily faster; and I watch Prime Video more and more. So yes. I can categorically deny that they're making Prime objectively "worse."

For me, I think it's that Amazon is generally not quite as good as it used to be, and Prime has suffered along with it, but the Prime features aren't specifically getting worse.

For example, although I experience about the same general shipping times now as before, the quality of the last mile has gone down dramatically...boxes left out in the rain when then could be put under a porch roof, boxes deformed by being crammed into a mailbox (not by USPS), etc. This isn't really a Prime thing, but people who do pay for Prime mostly for the improved shipping (like me) tend to notice this more.

The only other feature of Prime I really care about is Prime Video. Between that and the shipping benefits, the yearly subscription cost still pays for itself many times over.

So, even if Prime really is getting worse, it's still a good value.

[JSWolf]

The Fedex driver should have said that the box could not be brought to your front door so you'd know to go get it while the driver was still there.

[mrscoach]

If you ever find a package crammed in your mailbox that was NOT delivered by USPS, call local post office and let them know. That is a illegal. Only USPS mail is allowed in mail boxes, not even flyers or hand delivered invitations.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by mrscoach

If you ever find a package crammed in your mailbox that was NOT delivered by USPS, call local post office and let them know. That is a illegal. Only USPS mail is allowed in mail boxes, not even flyers or hand delivered invitations.

I was going to post the same thing and see that you beat me to it.
Apache

[sufue]

We have the same delivery problems as some others, made worse by the fact that our house's front door is literally right on the street, so there is no porch or lawn to leave packages. I've put instructions in Amazon for our address for the driver to open our side gate (not locked, just on a latch) and at least leave the packages out of sight. This used to happen most of the time, but more recently it's been maybe half the time. Either the delivery person isn't reading the instructions, or they just don't bother.

So then I switched to having my packages delivered to my work, which is a small company, and now I have the same problem as @Apache. If the packages come the last mile via USPS, the mail usually comes around the time we close, and if they miss us, sometimes they just leave the packages behind our bushes near the front door. And, although I've put our "open hours" in Amazon's instruction area for my work address, if they miss us, they leave the packages about half the time too. But since we're in an industrial area, at least no one is wandering around looking for packages in the evening/weekends, and the bushes are easy to put the packages behind (no gate latch to have to open!), so so far I haven't had any packages stolen there.

But now, I spend a lot of time adjusting when I buy things to try to have them delivered early or mid-week, so at least they won't sit over the weekend...

Sigh!

[sufue]

Oh, and since this was originally the Prime Day thread , I did need a couple of COB flashlights, and found some nice Nebo ones on sale on Prime Day. So that was my Prime Day purchases - two flashlights, and a couple of bottles of my normal shampoo/conditioner that I needed and was ready to buy anyway.

I did, however, still get "slow shipping" e-book credits, and not the XX% off with Prime credit card that some other folks have complained about. Whew!

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by sufue

Oh, and since this was originally the Prime Day thread , I did need a couple of COB flashlights, and found some nice Nebo ones on sale on Prime Day. So that was my Prime Day purchases - two flashlights, and a couple of bottles of my normal shampoo/conditioner that I needed and was ready to buy anyway.

I did, however, still get "slow shipping" e-book credits, and not the XX% off with Prime credit card that some other folks have complained about. Whew!

It kinda turned into the Amazon rant thread

Prime Day purchases using a Prime Visa got you 6% back in rewards instead of the usual 5%. But if you went with no-rush shipping, you got 7% back. OMG, the riches you'd receive by going that route. So for adding an additional 5 days shipping to my $19 order, Amazon was offering me $0.19 in compensation. Who could pass up a deal like that?

Call me stupid, but I said no. I want the Prime shipping I already paid for. But like I explained above, Amazon changed my Prime shipping to no-rush shipping without my permission. So I called them up and demanded they change it back, which they eventually did after arguing with them for 9 minutes.

Amazon shouldn't be playing games with their Prime Visa customers.

[Apache]

Mine is not a rant at Amazon per se, but a rant at the shipping companies.
Apache

[Apache]

Originally Posted by sufue

We have the same delivery problems as some others, made worse by the fact that our house's front door is literally right on the street, so there is no porch or lawn to leave packages. I've put instructions in Amazon for our address for the driver to open our side gate (not locked, just on a latch) and at least leave the packages out of sight. This used to happen most of the time, but more recently it's been maybe half the time. Either the delivery person isn't reading the instructions, or they just don't bother.

So then I switched to having my packages delivered to my work, which is a small company, and now I have the same problem as @Apache. If the packages come the last mile via USPS, the mail usually comes around the time we close, and if they miss us, sometimes they just leave the packages behind our bushes near the front door. And, although I've put our "open hours" in Amazon's instruction area for my work address, if they miss us, they leave the packages about half the time too. But since we're in an industrial area, at least no one is wandering around looking for packages in the evening/weekends, and the bushes are easy to put the packages behind (no gate latch to have to open!), so so far I haven't had any packages stolen there.

But now, I spend a lot of time adjusting when I buy things to try to have them delivered early or mid-week, so at least they won't sit over the weekend...

Sigh!

They don't even bother to hide my packages. They leave them right in front of the door. I have other businesses beside me and a heavily traveled road in front.
Apache

[haertig]

I am lucky. I live on a cul-de-sac with a sign that says dead end, and there is little traffic other than neighbors and people who are supposed to be there. You have to go up a few stairs to get to my front porch. Which is hidden beneath the roof overhead and trees and bushes out front. You have to go past three cameras approaching the house, and two more on the front porch. Not that the cameras would deter a determined thief, but you would have a hard time avoiding having your face recorded (different angles and different heights). You'd think I live in a bad neighborhood or I'm paranoid or something, but it's actually more benign than that - I've just bought a lot of cameras to play with over the years. Other engineers and computer geeks probably understand this abnormal behavior trait. I figured I might as well install them somewhere so they're not sitting in a drawer unused. I still have a couple more left in that drawer though.

Besides this, when the delivery is coming from Amazon, I have my Echo Dots (many, all over the house) alert me when a package has been delivered. This notification is sent from Amazon. I have one of the cameras set to notify me of motion - the camera that points at our front door from the street angle - because that one never gets a false alert due to seeing traffic on the street. You've got to be at our front door for it to see you.
And you're not going to see that camera either, since it's behind you as you approach the front door, hidden in the eves of the roof. You might see it on your way out though. Too late! Occasionally a bird will fly onto the front porch and set this motion detecting camera off, but that's rare.

Since I'm retired and I'm home much of the day, I usually have the package retrieved from my front porch before the delivery vehicle has even left. And when I sometimes get the Amazon notification that "your package has been delivered!" and I go to get it and find it missing, I check the camera recordings and usually find one that shows the Amazon person delivering my package to a neighbors house. The email that Amazon sends showing a delivery picture is sometimes delayed, but when it finally comes in I can see that the porch with my package on it is not my porch. Sometimes I can recognize which neighbor the porch belongs to, sometimes not. Once they delivered my package to somebody across town and I obviously did not recognize that porch.

In the end, anyone trying to steal my pencil being shipped from Amazon is going to have to put up a fight to get it!

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

It kinda turned into the Amazon rant thread

Prime Day purchases using a Prime Visa got you 6% back in rewards instead of the usual 5%. But if you went with no-rush shipping, you got 7% back. OMG, the riches you'd receive by going that route. So for adding an additional 5 days shipping to my $19 order, Amazon was offering me $0.19 in compensation. Who could pass up a deal like that?

Oh wow, for some reason I was thinking that the 7 percent mentioned was a separate rebate for no-rush shipping, on top of any credit card cash back. Which seemed like a pretty good deal, so I was puzzled by the complaints!