Amazon Prime sucks massive donkey balls

Associate
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4 Jul 2008
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Belfast, N.Ireland
If I try to buy one it says delivery 'estimated by 14th May', so I would guess the lower priced batch isn't actually in their possession yet, so if they're offering to price match this newer price but you're not going to have to wait over 2 weeks for delivery i'd just take them up on the offer.

Honestly it all ended well! They have agreed to refund me the difference when it gets delivered...Which is now Friday instead of Saturday and also they have given me a £10 credit on my account.
 
Caporegime
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Cornwall
Wow, just ordered something from Amazon and it's getting quite hard to understand whether you must have Prime to order or not.

During the order process, they repeated said "We're giving a free 30-day trial of Prime with this order! To get free delivery, select "Free delivery with Prime!"

I had to *twice* click a tiny "Order without Prime" link, and the standard "Free delivery" option.

*Then* I had to go to my account and make sure I hadn't unwittingly signed up to Prime for this order.

It's becoming an ordeal to order stuff on Amazon with how hard they're pushing Prime now.
 
Man of Honour
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Stoke on Trent
Wow, just ordered something from Amazon and it's getting quite hard to understand whether you must have Prime to order or not.

During the order process, they repeated said "We're giving a free 30-day trial of Prime with this order! To get free delivery, select "Free delivery with Prime!"

I had to *twice* click a tiny "Order without Prime" link, and the standard "Free delivery" option.

*Then* I had to go to my account and make sure I hadn't unwittingly signed up to Prime for this order.

It's becoming an ordeal to order stuff on Amazon with how hard they're pushing Prime now.

It is a pain but you can order anything you like without Prime but you may have to pay P&P.
Before I signed up I was surprised how much I could save on P&P so paying £6.50 a month is worth it for us because we order that much stuff.
The wife has just ordered 4 things so we compared without being subscribers and the postage came to around £12.
 
Caporegime
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Cornwall
It is a pain but you can order anything you like without Prime but you may have to pay P&P.
Before I signed up I was surprised how much I could save on P&P so paying £6.50 a month is worth it for us because we order that much stuff.
The wife has just ordered 4 things so we compared without being subscribers and the postage came to around £12.
In this case free P&P was available without Prime, but the ordering process makes that as confusing/uncertain as possible, so at several points I became very uncertain if I needed Prime or not for the free delivery. I'm sure this is intentional.

In any case I wasn't going to order with Prime or without free delivery, so I just ploughed on clicking the tiny "decline Prime" links wherever I saw them. Each time Amazon says "We're giving you a free Prime trial with this order!" - as if I didn't have any choice in the matter.

The wording is becoming very (intentionally) deceptive and they're pushing too hard I think to force Prime on people by making them think it's necessary to order.

Also the sneaky buggers select "Standard delivery - £5" if you decline the Prime trial, and you have to keep re-selecting "Free delivery" to have the usual >£20 free delivery without Prime.

Again, showing a delivery cost is I'm sure supposed to mislead people into thinking Prime is the only way to get free delivery. It's not on, really.
 
Soldato
Joined
9 Mar 2003
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14,058
It is a pain but you can order anything you like without Prime but you may have to pay P&P.
Before I signed up I was surprised how much I could save on P&P so paying £6.50 a month is worth it for us because we order that much stuff.
The wife has just ordered 4 things so we compared without being subscribers and the postage came to around £12.

Amazon is free delivery if you spend £20 though with loads of other <£20 items have free delivery on them anyway. £20 doesn't go far these days so meeting that threshold doesn't normally require me to wait to bundle a few things together into a single order.

If you absolutely need everything next day then sure you'll save money but in my experience nearly all of my free super saver deliveries turn up in under 3 days, most are 2 days and many are just next day anyway. I feel bad for people who subscribe in my area given how quickly I get the free deliveries.
 
Soldato
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14,058
That only happens if you add stuff dispatched by a 3rd party.

Any item which is in scope of prime is in scope of free delivery if the basket is over £20 (or £10 for books). As long as its dispatched by Amazon (can be marketplace as long as its in an Amazon warehouse) it counts towards the £20. What isn't eligible is anything dispatched by a 3rd party as they choose what to charge for delivery.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201910160

Also if you are a few pence short then there is always sites like the below, that said I have never actually used one.
https://www.supersaverdeliverytool.com/

Like I said, I feel sorry for those who subscribe for 'free delivery' in my area as super saver delivery mainly comes next day or the 2nd day. There is also the trap of "subscribed to Amazon, must use Amazon" when often things are cheaper elsewhere.
 
Soldato
Joined
15 Nov 2005
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London
I guess also depends on why you Prime. I have it mainly for the video - the next day delivery is just a nice bonus. I wouldn't get it just for that; just don't order enough.
 
Associate
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1 Feb 2017
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1,052
Can't fault amazon's policy with faulty goods. Brought a Xbox Elite controller back in November and it might have an issue with the left analog stick, sometimes up/down does not respond in Fifa(might just be Fifa). Quick online chat and they are refunding me for the controller.
 
Caporegime
Joined
17 Feb 2006
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29,263
Location
Cornwall
That only happens if you add stuff dispatched by a 3rd party.

Any item which is in scope of prime is in scope of free delivery if the basket is over £20 (or £10 for books). As long as its dispatched by Amazon (can be marketplace as long as its in an Amazon warehouse) it counts towards the £20. What isn't eligible is anything dispatched by a 3rd party as they choose what to charge for delivery.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201910160

Also if you are a few pence short then there is always sites like the below, that said I have never actually used one.
https://www.supersaverdeliverytool.com/

Like I said, I feel sorry for those who subscribe for 'free delivery' in my area as super saver delivery mainly comes next day or the 2nd day. There is also the trap of "subscribed to Amazon, must use Amazon" when often things are cheaper elsewhere.
iirc "add-on items" don't count towards the £20 figure either.
 
Associate
Joined
23 Jun 2004
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Macclesfield
So I just had a cancelled order (by Amazon). Waiting at the door with the delivery man rooting around in his van, he said the parcel was not there and was on another van. Err right. I'd followed his progress on the map widget so that didn't make sense. Then I get an update on My Orders which said only 'Item could not be delivered - refund in progress'. Item was still showing as 'In Stock' on their listing so it wasn't the last one. Say what? So I opened a chat and got the response that the package was 'damaged' and returned to supplier (so why did I spend all day watching for the delivery time?). No option offered to replace the item, like send another undamaged one. Just a 5-7 day wait for my refund. No compensation offered.
 
Associate
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So I just had a cancelled order (by Amazon). Waiting at the door with the delivery man rooting around in his van, he said the parcel was not there and was on another van. Err right. I'd followed his progress on the map widget so that didn't make sense. Then I get an update on My Orders which said only 'Item could not be delivered - refund in progress'. Item was still showing as 'In Stock' on their listing so it wasn't the last one. Say what? So I opened a chat and got the response that the package was 'damaged' and returned to supplier (so why did I spend all day watching for the delivery time?). No option offered to replace the item, like send another undamaged one. Just a 5-7 day wait for my refund. No compensation offered.
I think if you keep l contacting support, they might throw a £5 off coupon. But honestly it's not even worth the hassle.
 
Soldato
Joined
1 Jun 2013
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9,315
So I just had a cancelled order (by Amazon). Waiting at the door with the delivery man rooting around in his van, he said the parcel was not there and was on another van. Err right. I'd followed his progress on the map widget so that didn't make sense. Then I get an update on My Orders which said only 'Item could not be delivered - refund in progress'. Item was still showing as 'In Stock' on their listing so it wasn't the last one. Say what? So I opened a chat and got the response that the package was 'damaged' and returned to supplier (so why did I spend all day watching for the delivery time?). No option offered to replace the item, like send another undamaged one. Just a 5-7 day wait for my refund. No compensation offered.

I've seen something similar. The wife ordered these big bags of volcanic stuff you put in garden pots and flower beds to help keep the water in. Instead of boxing them up, they were just shipped in their plastic bags. IIRC, one or two of them arrived a bit patched up with tape, and the others (even reordered) kept getting cancelled for being "damaged". As far as we could tell, because the bags were shipped naked instead of in boxes, at some point during the shipping process they were handled badly and split or exploded under impact. As they were basically fluffy dust, they couldn't be repacked, but the interesting thing was that even though we tried to reorder a couple of time, Amazon kept making the same mistake of shipping them just in their bags and having to cancel.

There must have been some seriously upset vans drivers and warehouses trying to clean that stuff up.
 
Soldato
Joined
13 Sep 2008
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5,445
Ordered a Logitech G403 mouse on Friday with free (non prime) delivery and had it delivered yesterday. Impressive I thought....
Opened it to find the mouse had fingerprints on the side buttons and scuffs on the base tabs...
Not so impressive. Utter jokers! Thankfully returning it seems easy.
Ordered replacement mouse from PC world for £4 less AND I didn't feel like I had to jump through a hundred hoops not to take a subscription service I didn't want.
Seriously amazon have become one of the most scummy companies out there...
 
Associate
Joined
5 Apr 2020
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308
I've noticed that Amazon defaults to the paid delivery option when you have £20.00 or more in your basket despite being eligible for free postage. You have to remember to change it to free postage, it's so annoying. Over they catch loads of people out who don't check.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
29 Mar 2003
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56,791
Location
Stoke on Trent
I wish Amazon had a better search engine.
eBay is so easy to find stuff with keywords but do the same in Amazon and anything still comes up.
Sometimes you're lucky to find the same thing you found 5 minutes ago just because you added or subtracted a word.
 
Associate
Joined
17 Sep 2009
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1,062
Here's a weird one. I placed an order yesterday and apparently it was being delivered by Royal Mail.

So I checked the tracking this morning and apparently it was out for delivery today. Great right ?

We always get our Royal Mail parcels in the afternoon. Always. Without fail. Not today though. This thing had been sent by Special Delivery _ Guaranteed!

Postie put a card through the door at 10.30am saying it requires a signature, so I now have to go collect it from the local office tomorrow. No problem. But a bit annoying nonetheless.

Been on Amazon for 20 years and I've never , ever, had anything sent by RM Special Delivery ...

Weird times. (PS it wasn't anything special - just a plastic aeroplane kit worth £40)
 
Associate
Joined
5 Apr 2020
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308
Here's a weird one. I placed an order yesterday and apparently it was being delivered by Royal Mail.

So I checked the tracking this morning and apparently it was out for delivery today. Great right ?

We always get our Royal Mail parcels in the afternoon. Always. Without fail. Not today though. This thing had been sent by Special Delivery _ Guaranteed!

Postie put a card through the door at 10.30am saying it requires a signature, so I now have to go collect it from the local office tomorrow. No problem. But a bit annoying nonetheless.

Been on Amazon for 20 years and I've never , ever, had anything sent by RM Special Delivery ...

Weird times. (PS it wasn't anything special - just a plastic aeroplane kit worth £40)
I had to make a formal complaint to Royal Mail because the postie wouldn't knock or ring the doorbell, posting a slip to save them time!

It happened at least 10 times.

It's a 10 mile trip each time to the sorting office for us.

I call them Royal Fail now.
 
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