04-07-2018, 08:47 PM | #1 |
Wizard
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Amazon behaving badly (again)
I love Amazon. They do so many things well, but not all of them. And some things they do really terribly. I'm going to post two links for discussion, one to The Passive Voice and one to the source of the PV story which it links to.
http://www.thepassivevoice.com/?p=87654 WSAZ Story At this stage I will simply observe that Amazon not only makes these decisions without any prior notice, which is understandable in certain circumstances, but then fail to give any meaningful information about why the decision was made. In a large number of cases it seems that account holders, or authors and sellers in other cases, are innocent of any wrongdoing, yet suffer not only inconvenience but in the case of sellers or authors real and sometimes substantial economic damage. An apology, even if given, is not sufficient in these situations. And the apology in this case seems to misrepresent events. It seems the account holders involved were simply accused of breaching unspecified terms of service. Amazon needs to get their act together. They are now so big in the US that cancelling people's accounts can have a very real effect. Anecdotally Prime has been a boon to much of the rural US. I still love Amazon, and IMHO they do far more good than otherwise. However, I do warn them, for the little it is worth, that they need to get their act together on this type of thing, not only for the sake of their own business but because they have become too big and are attracting too much attention to keep getting away with it. If they don't fix it, I expect that Government will step in and do so. And when they do, they traditionally overreach and fix many other perceived problems at the same time, many of which are often not problems and don't need fixing. Last edited by darryl; 04-07-2018 at 08:51 PM. |
04-07-2018, 09:59 PM | #2 |
Grand Sorcerer
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Here's another report about this development.
I don't know if there's anything additional in the report over your report, 'cause I'm no longer a Prime member, and didn't see any point in reading it--I dropped them before they could drop me. Last edited by GtrsRGr8; 04-07-2018 at 10:04 PM. |
04-08-2018, 09:09 AM | #3 |
Connoisseur
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I have seen cases where they closed accounts due to abuse (card fraud, excessive returns), but looks like this might be the first for alleged "review kickbacks". Their action remains puzzling however, as it is unclear what they have achieved other than customer backlash.
I am no legal expert, but according to their "terms and conditions" Amazon can pretty much close any account whatsoever at their discretion. Which makes it all the more important to not be overly dependent on any one of these service providers and enable competition where possible. |
04-08-2018, 09:30 AM | #4 |
Zealot
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the person say should use prepaid card instead
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04-08-2018, 09:30 AM | #5 |
Grand Sorcerer
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Sounds a bit like a tempest in a thimble to me. *shrug*
Buy intelligently, return very rarely--and only for real cause--(which ties directly to #1), and don't review. That's the winning formula for being able to buy from Amazon forever (which is by no means an inherent right, by the way). |
04-08-2018, 09:38 AM | #6 | |
Connoisseur
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Quote:
Last edited by gimble; 04-08-2018 at 09:49 AM. Reason: typos |
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04-08-2018, 10:21 AM | #7 | |
Cheese Whiz
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Quote:
I'm not anti-Amazon, BTW, I'm just not gonna worry about making sure I fit their 'good customer' profile! I will review to my heart's content, return a product intelligently and when necessary. I shop there because it's convenient. It's an 'arm's length transaction' for both me and Amazon, it's ok if one of us doesn't want to do business with the other. |
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04-08-2018, 11:00 AM | #8 |
monkey on the fringe
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Not counting exchanges for defective/damaged items, I've only returned one item in my 8 year history with Amazon; and I'll never do it again because of their misrepresentations. As a result, I now sit on potential purchases for several days before deciding if I want them or not. That cooling off period usually results in no purchase.
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04-08-2018, 12:24 PM | #9 | |
Grand Sorcerer
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Quote:
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04-08-2018, 12:38 PM | #10 | |
Grand Sorcerer
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Quote:
It's just the way I prefer to do business with Amazon and any online entity. They're not there for me to love or hate (or help, or hinder); they're there for me to use. And I intend to do so indefinitely. For my own entirely selfish needs. Last edited by DiapDealer; 04-08-2018 at 02:46 PM. |
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04-08-2018, 12:41 PM | #11 | |
Grand Sorcerer
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Quote:
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04-09-2018, 05:09 AM | #12 |
Grand Sorcerer
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My issues with Amazon over the years has been their policy of using the cheapest delivery method, causing them to miss the "guaranteed" delivery date and their customer service. In general, as long as you don't care when a package arrives, don't have to deal with their customer service and don't do something that triggers them playing hardball, Amazon works. Amazon is all about cost savings not quality or reliability.
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04-09-2018, 08:55 AM | #13 |
Wizard
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I had a problem cancelling a recent order from Amazon. I cancelled the order about an hr. after, usually well within the cancelling period. I got the we are trying our best to cancel this order message and they will contact me when the status changed. The next day the item was still processing 12 hrs. later and not shipped. I cancelled again. It was 13 hrs. since I first cancelled. Got the same message, the item shipped 20 hrs. after I cancelled the first time. It's coming today. I don't know why it wasn't cancelled only one hr. after ordering. It sat for almost 24hrs. in a warehouse and still shipped. Now I'll need to return it.
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04-09-2018, 09:06 AM | #14 |
monkey on the fringe
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04-09-2018, 09:33 AM | #15 |
Wizard
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I hope not. I ordered with prime with free returns, but who knows ? This is the first time a cancelled order was shipped to me. I know if I waited till the next day then it would have been too late to cancel on 2 day shipping, but this was only one hr. after. Maybe I should switch back to delayed shipping ? Just in case.
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