History, Politics And Current Affairs

I ordered a nice microwave semi-pressure steamer in the January sale.
More than 'just a steamer', yet not a full-on device, is equivalent to eg 'Prestige' with 'one ring' set..
And, yes, small enough to suit 'just me' portions.
But, it should do greens al-dente and spuds 'fluffied', fit to casserole.
With said spuds not shrivelled by ride on a 'Spike Murphy'...

Email came with estimated delivery date.
Email came with revised date, two days later.
Then a third time, for after the weekend.
Now, after the weekend, I've received a 'refund' notice for 'Customer Return'.
Huh ?
How could I return it if never arrived ???
Seems to be 'Amazon' short-hand for 'WE SCREWED UP THE DELIVERY'.

Had similar happen when parcel in back of van had label deranged by handling, was not 'scannable'. Therefore, it did not exist...
Left in van after 'round', returned to depot, now their problem...
Sigh...

I'd better re-order before the price goes up !!

Possible elucidation dawns...

Tried to re-order, but product now unavailable.

Perhaps it never existed ??

I’ve had a fun time with FedEx

They delivered a couple of packages to the wrong address. Of course they emailed me the picture of the delivery at the ranch gate as proof of delivery. The picture however proved that they delivered to the wrong address. The gates aren’t the same.

I reported non-delivery. FedEx “investigated” and concluded that they delivered the package and sent me the same picture as “proof”

and the closed their “investigation”

They did this for two packages.

Looking at the picture we noticed a business referenced on the gate so I tracked down the business and called them. Yep, they had the packages. 20 miles away….

After picking them up I had an “interesting chat” with an unfortunate customer service representative.

FedUp with FedEx

My neighborhood (and much of my town) is a warren of narrow, twisty roads first laid out when horse and buggy were the appropriate form of transport. THe vast majority of delivery drivers are, shall we say, unfamiliar, with roads like ours. They will frequently become frustrated and dump a large number of packages where ever they happen to be sitting.

We have become fairly knowledgeable of what our neighbors front doors look like over a radius of almost a mile.

Best one was about 8 or so years ago. We ordered a bunch of batteries, (AA, AAA, C, D and 9 volt) and never got them. Called Amazon. They showed us a picture of a door. We showed them a picture of both of our doors. They acknowledged the failure to deliver and sent a new batch. About a month later, we ran into the person whose house it was. New transplant to the neighborhood, didn't have any idea the shenanigans the delivery drivers get up to. They had had a PILE of packaged, like upwards of 20, dumped on their front porch. They'd been spending the last month tracking down who the packages belonged to. We called Amazon, explained what happened and asked for a return label. They told us to keep the second order and not worry about it.

We've had similar things happen to what happened to you, Nik. Before Christmas we ordered a refurbished printer and it never showed. Same thing happened with the emails. Delivery on Day X, delivery on Day X+2, Delivery on Day X+5, REFUND!!!!! I strongly suspect they over sell stuff in the anticipation that there will be a certain number of cancelled orders and they just shuffle packages and addresses as needed. When there are not as many cancellations as the predictive software expects, they start issuing refunds.

Belush TD

Ah, bit like the way certain air-lines routinely over-sell seats: Cheaper to pay-off 'overs' than leave any seats empty...

FWIW, I've ordered a different brand. Two-of.

And, yes, I've found one of their two very nice predecessors that 'went missing' a year ago when I had to tear tallboy out of kitchen to accommodate new, wall-hung central heating 'boiler'...

The one that always gets me is people who send TVs and the like in immaculate packaging, but the thing inside is broken. In one case it was an exercise bike, with a great big dent in the frame. I can only imagine that a significant proportion of customers just shrug rather than chasing a refund/replacement. Baffles me.