Amazon Prime sucks massive donkey balls

Soldato
Joined
3 Jun 2012
Posts
10,824
My observations:
- I buy a lot of trash on impulse (about half my orders is stuff I don't really need).
- Most stuff can be bought IRL for similar price.
- Returns policy is supposedly good, but I always find returns awkward. A choice between sitting around waiting for an unspecified collection, or going somewhere inconvenient to drop off, isn't a policy when there are Amazon delivery drivers passing my house every hour who could easily collect.
- The amount of times they send the wrong product, or the product is cheap trash with surely fake reviews, causing me to need to make a return is getting irritating. Sometimes I don't even bother making a return, just accepting trash products, why? ... (idk)
- I do watch quite a bit of prime video, but maybe that's a bad thing.
- Amazon music got very naggy about subscribing for unlimited music, so I abandoned it for Spotify, which is much better, I won't be going back.
- I used to watch quite a bit of Twitch, but there's no need to subscribe to prime for that, and the Twitch experience is better if you don't log in anyway.

So I'm going to cancel my prime:
- My current annual subscription runs out next month.
- I was going to cancel it now so it doesn't auto-renew, but the cancel process takes away all your benefits immediately (paying for benefits you don't get seems illegal imo).
- There's a couple of tv seasons I want to catch the end of, so I've set a calendar reminder to cancel nearer the time.

I'm sorry? What?

HOW LAZY do you have to be to find it inconvenient to drop off a parcel at a locker? which can be open 24/7?
Or pop to a local corner shop which takes hermes? and hand it over whilst grabbing some shopping?

Seriously? You're going to complain about the sheer fact you cba to walk to a shop or visit a locker?

You want the drivers who are already stacked to come by on the off chance you're home to collect a return?
Are you mad?

Wow.. never read such privileged drivel.

( :rolleyes::p )
 
Soldato
Joined
24 Jun 2021
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3,620
Location
UK
The drivers collection would be planned into their route, so I'd know when they were coming, just like I do for deliveries, so it would be easy to be around for it. Vastly better than "sometime in the next 48 hours" the best the Amazon customer service person could give me.

Maybe the drop off locations are better where you live. Maybe you're more able than I am. Don't judge.
 
Soldato
Joined
24 Jun 2021
Posts
3,620
Location
UK
lol... how on Earth did you get to that? If I'd got that instead when I clicked End Membership it would have been easy.

btw I did a bit of googling earlier and a few years back they changed the way cancellation works and it caused a 17% reduction in cancellations. As far as I know that's when it changed to the process I experienced.
 
Soldato
Joined
10 Jan 2012
Posts
3,686
Location
UK
For whatever reason they gave me 6 months of Student Prime the other day (it usually asks for a student email address but it didn't). The cancelation process for the renewal is straight forward, had like 30+ prime trials (1 month long) until they added checks for your address/cards. Its in an obvious place and is in plain English, yes you have to jump through some screens but you can't expect them to make it super easy. Never had an issue with the customer service either for the most part.

Returns are also super easy, lots of options available. I usually use the hermes no label required option, scan at the shop, prints out a label, stick it on, get receipt.
 
Last edited:
Associate
Joined
23 Jun 2004
Posts
2,459
Location
Macclesfield
For whatever reason they gave me 6 months of Student Prime the other day (it usually asks for a student email address but it didn't). The cancelation process for the renewal is straight forward, had like 30+ prime trials (1 month long) until they added checks for your address/cards. Its in an obvious place and is in plain English, yes you have to jump through some screens but you can't expect them to make it super easy. Never had an issue with the customer service either for the most part.

Returns are also super easy, lots of options available. I usually use the hermes no label required option, scan at the shop, prints out a label, stick it on, get receipt.

Returns are not always easy. Notably, a pair of trowsers I bought but didn't wear straight away, but when I did they basically fell apart. Yes, Chinese c**p. When I try to return to AYG UK (note the 'UK') they expected me to return them to China at my own expense to get the refund. Instead they got a 1-star review with photos of their rubbish product in response to which they have now offered to send me another free pair. Lol, I don't think so.
 
Soldato
Joined
10 Jan 2012
Posts
3,686
Location
UK
Exactly what I expect tbh. :)
What would be the benefit to them to make the option even easier to find (its easy enough to get to the End Prime Benefit page. Your Prime Membership->Manage Membership dropdown, click on Manage and go through the pages to the page posted above as a screenshot.
Returns are not always easy. Notably, a pair of trowsers I bought but didn't wear straight away, but when I did they basically fell apart. Yes, Chinese c**p. When I try to return to AYG UK (note the 'UK') they expected me to return them to China at my own expense to get the refund. Instead they got a 1-star review with photos of their rubbish product in response to which they have now offered to send me another free pair. Lol, I don't think so.
Well third party sellers not fulfilled by Amazon are a different matter :p I tend to stay away from anything that doesn't have Amazon take responsibility.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
13 Oct 2006
Posts
91,052
My observations:
- I buy a lot of trash on impulse (about half my orders is stuff I don't really need).
- Most stuff can be bought IRL for similar price.
- Returns policy is supposedly good, but I always find returns awkward. A choice between sitting around waiting for an unspecified collection, or going somewhere inconvenient to drop off, isn't a policy when there are Amazon delivery drivers passing my house every hour who could easily collect.
- The amount of times they send the wrong product, or the product is cheap trash with surely fake reviews, causing me to need to make a return is getting irritating. Sometimes I don't even bother making a return, just accepting trash products, why? ... (idk)
- I do watch quite a bit of prime video, but maybe that's a bad thing.
- Amazon music got very naggy about subscribing for unlimited music, so I abandoned it for Spotify, which is much better, I won't be going back.
- I used to watch quite a bit of Twitch, but there's no need to subscribe to prime for that, and the Twitch experience is better if you don't log in anyway.

So I'm going to cancel my prime:
- My current annual subscription runs out next month.
- I was going to cancel it now so it doesn't auto-renew, but the cancel process takes away all your benefits immediately (paying for benefits you don't get seems illegal imo).
- There's a couple of tv seasons I want to catch the end of, so I've set a calendar reminder to cancel nearer the time.

To be honest a lot of that reads like a you problem rather than an Amazon problem so to speak - maybe a failure to recognise Amazon for what it is - it tends to cater to its audience who in many cases lap up cheap trash and lead by fake reviews and those customers seem to have no intention of changing. (One of my colleagues for instance buys endless amounts of gloves, cutlery and other food related items, etc. for their use at work which are all cheap tat and don't last long at all and spend way more in the long run than just spending a bit more on a quality item in the first place but they have no intention of ever changing).

Though I won't lie Amazon can be quite naggy at times and methods sometimes are a bit underhand - though nothing like as bad as the likes of Netflix in my opinion.

I've rarely had the wrong product sent - I can only think of one instance in the ~10 years I've used them.

I filter through stuff to find what I want, at the price I want and by doing so rarely have to make use of returns, rarely get a trash cheap item or substitute, etc. By sticking stuff on price watch I've often been able to get what I want at a good discount - I recently managed to get a Zowie mouse for instance at 22% lower price than it sells for elsewhere on a good day, when they had a 2-3 day sale.
 
Soldato
Joined
3 Aug 2012
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2,511
Location
Second Star to the Right
What would be the benefit to them to make the option even easier to find (its easy enough to get to the End Prime Benefit page. Your Prime Membership->Manage Membership dropdown, click on Manage and go through the pages to the page posted above as a screenshot.

I imagine it's more the fact that you have to say cancel about three times. Annoys me every time I do it. If I click cancel, I don't expect to have to confirm it on multiple pages before they actually cancel my membership. It's really irritating and makes me less likely to subscribe again in the future.
 
Soldato
Joined
10 Jan 2012
Posts
3,686
Location
UK
I imagine it's more the fact that you have to say cancel about three times. Annoys me every time I do it. If I click cancel, I don't expect to have to confirm it on multiple pages before they actually cancel my membership. It's really irritating and makes me less likely to subscribe again in the future.
Are you sure you want to cancel?
Okay are you sure sure? you get lots of benefits
Okaaaaayyy you super sure? you will not have access to our tv shows!!!!
 
Soldato
Joined
1 Mar 2010
Posts
21,890
I'm sorry? What?
reading his crib list I think it idefined the demographic who buy prime - they are unable to discriminate junk/fake reviews etc. , so make more purchases and require more returns which justifies prime for them - it's seems self-fulfilling.
or .. just make sure you buy the right thing once, amazon supplied(credible 3rd parties often have an independant web site) wait until you have £20's worth, then buy.

if amazon could implement a credible search system, with quoted keywords, as said ^, and get rid of inefficient infinite scrolling mechanism(I usually disable ssl-images) it would improve the experience

have returned maybe 3 things in past 10 odd years
misrepresented bosch oil filter made of just cardboard, smart light with flaky bluetooth, adidas trainers made of cream cheese.
 
Soldato
Joined
20 Dec 2004
Posts
15,834
The one thing I do give credit to Amazon for....

If you do forget about your subscription, and the payment goes out which you didn't want, you can just cancel the subscription immediately and get the payment refunded.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
20 Sep 2006
Posts
33,991
Prime deliveries in my area at least are no where near as good as they used to be. They have switched from using their own drivers, to a combination of DPD, Royal Mail and their own drivers now. Most stuff turns up within 3 days now rather than usually guaranteed to be the next day. I've now started questioning whether it's worth keeping Prime or not.
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Feb 2007
Posts
12,722
Location
London
How comes whisky for example labelled with Prime Delivery has fastest delivery Saturday?, isn’t the point of prime that you get it next day.

I sometimes buy a bottle of whisky on Amazon, just find it strange why some stuff is next day and other items with a prime option 3 days from now for delivery. It’s the same for all bottles of whisky.
 
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