Amazon.com Consumer Reviews - Page 3

SUITE 1200, WASHINGTON -- I have been selling on Amazon on and off for a few years recently I decided to focus more on selling on the site. After getting income of about $1500 for about two months I decided that I could use a pro account. After making several inquires to amazon's customer service, (and it took a few inquires) I was told that the only way to do this would be to close down my current account and start again. I was unhappy about doing this but I reluctantly agreed.

So I closed my current account and opened up a pro-account. The site said that funds would be held on new account for two weeks as a security measure. I was not happy with this but it seemed reasonable. Right before the two weeks were up I had accumulated about $1400 in my account. The day before the funds were to be released, I received the following message.

As part of our ongoing commitment to improving the customer experience on Amazon.com, we are conducting a review of your seller account. During this review period your funds will be reserved in your Amazon Payments account for up to 30 days.

I immediately stopped selling on Amazon despite them telling me that it was OK. I called customer service and they told me that I had been "selected" and that this was "routine". At that point I started doing research on Amazon and I was surprised to learn how often they do this and get away with this. I provided them with all the tracking information like they requested (everything was delivered and there were no complaints). I also receive a total of 17 positive feedbacks with no negative feedback.

They requested information about where I source my merchandise from and other business information. Information which I feel is an invasion of my privacy. Why should I have to reveal to Amazon detailed information about how I sourced my merchandise. No other online company has requested this. Not eBay; not overstock and not others. My merchant account company has also not requested such information. It is clear to me that they are requesting it to gain useful selling information for their own use.

I did not try to contact them again about the fairness of holding my funds because I read that a number of people that have tried to do that have had their accounts permanently terminated, rudely told that any further emails would not be returned and fund that were already held for a long time would remain in "custody" for several more months.

After I received the notice mentioned above I sent them in all the information that they requested in spite of my objections. Immediately afterwards, I emailed them asking if the information that I sent was sufficient. I only received a form letter that did not answer my question. I repeated this and I got the same response.

About a week ago (3 ½ weeks after they sent the initial email), I received another email that the information that I provided them was insufficient and that my funds would be held for an additional 15 days. They did not explain what was insufficient, but I knew from experience that it would not help to ask. I again sent them more detailed information and I am now waiting. It has been more than thirty days since I shipped my last orders and I have no complaints against me. If they do not want me to sell on Amazon because they think that I am not trustworthy (actually I think that the opposite is true), so they should not let me sell, but why should they hold my money?

The Merchant program that Amazon.com offers is absolutely deplorable and shockingly unprofessional. It has turned out to be a nightmare for our small business. We wonder how they have been able to get away with their mistreatment of merchants for so long. There is no support or protection for merchants at all and you are left defenseless against Amazon, as well as scam artists who make a living off of purchasing items and claiming they "never received" them to get refunded.

Amazon has a very lax and customer-friendly refund policy. I am all for customers who legitimately did not receive something they purchased or are unhappy getting refunded, being that I have been a consumer myself numerous times myself. Amazon, however, refunds customer even in situations when the merchant can substantiate that the claim is untrue. We recently had a situation where a customer was refunded for an item that they initially claimed they never received, and tracking confirmed that the item was "delivered", and the customer recanted their story.

We urged them to inform Amazon that they received their package so the claim could be dismissed. We also forwarded the A to Z Guarantee department and the Seller Guarantee department (because it was affecting our sales statistics) a copy of an email from the customer stating that the item was received and asked what we should do. We did this repeatedly five times. There was no response. We then tried to get the situation resolved by contacting the only help by phone that they have available, the tech support department. We were told by them that they couldn't assist us with any areas other than technical issues.

We attempted to get a number from them to contact the Seller Performance and A to Z Guarantee department. The customer service rep's response was that they could only be contacted through email and they did not even have a number to contact them. So essentially, we had to wait for someone that was not responding to us and that we had no contact number for, to contact us at their convenience about money that was rightfully owed to us. Finally, we were contacted by the Seller Guarantee department SEVEN DAYS LATER, stating that the claim was dismissed and we would be credited for the refund!!

The next day later, we finally received a response from Seller Performance as well, which was not what we expected. The email said that our account was suspended, all of our listings removed, and any disbursements to us withheld. It did not mention how or when we would get paid the money they owed us and instead referred us to another department, the Payments department, which also has no contact number. The email also was very vague as to why our account had been suspended.

This mysteriously followed an email sent to us two days before from the Merchant Approval department after being notified that our account was under review. The email did not state the reason why we were under review and actually said that the review was a common practice. They also said they needed tracking information for all items we had already shipped so they could confirm that they had been mailed out and encouraged us to submit "a plan for improving your selling performance" if review was due to poor performance.

We gladly complied and gave them tracking information. We were unaware why we were under review but submitted a plan for performance improvement just to be safe. In the letter that included the outline for seller improvement, we stated that we strongly believed we had been targeted because of the A to Z claim filed against us that was reversed and that we tried to contact them numerous times so that they could prevent the claim from affecting our seller performance. The response from them was suspension of our account.

They also implied that a factor in suspending our account was order cancellation (we cancelled three orders and notified customers in advance). We pointed out to them that we had not cancelled one order since four days before they sent us the first and only notification that order cancellations could affect seller performance. Otherwise we had no negative feedback, late shipments, or other warnings from Amazon.

The outcome of all of this is that we only sold on Amazon for a month and had the worst selling experience with them out of all selling platforms. We are out of around $400 and are considering legal action so we can recover the money owed to us by Amazon. We will share our story will as many merchants as we can to make sure that they are educated about the dangers of selling on Amazon. We will also never encourage anyone to sell nor buy on Amazon again!!

UNKNOWN, WASHINGTON -- I ordered a portable generator from amazon.com recently. The order was placed with no problem and I received a confirmation. Then I got called out of town on business and was to be away during the window that Amazon estimated for delivery. I called CS. After the CS agent put me on hold multiple times (apparently to find out what to do), I was told that Amazon would not work with me on the shipping/delivery date. Even though the item was fulfilled by Amazon and I was only asking that they delay the shipment by a few days to allow me to be home for delivery.

My only option at that point was to cancel the order which the CS agent did. She told me that Amazon had only pre-authorized the $1000 for the generator so they would simply release that and the funds, which she said had never been taken out of my account, would be taken off "hold." I checked the account every day for several days. No funds appeared. I called the bank. They stated that Amazon had not pre-authorized but had charged me for the generator. I called Amazon CS again. This CS agent didn't seem to know what to do either so his solution was to submit a refund investigation ticket with some department or other.

Meanwhile, still no funds in my account. Almost a week later I received an email from the mysterious refund department stating that they had no record of a current pre-auth on my account nor did they have any processing records that I had ever been charged for the generator. I called the bank again. The bank insisted that I had been charged and the money had been taken out for the generator by Amazon.

I emailed CS. They wanted me to fax my bank records and a number of other items. I don't have a fax or access to one. I called CS again. The person I reached this time stated that I had actually been charged, that because it was a pinless debit card, the other CS agents probably hadn't had a clue. He further told me that they would refund me, BUT that they wouldn't refund the card, they would process a check and I could expect to receive my money in 2 weeks. This will be about 6 weeks after I cancelled my order. I didn't have much choice so I agreed to this.

I subsequently received an email that they were going to process a check for me and that it was being sent to my shipping address which is not an address at which I can receive mail. Instead of sending it to my billing address which they also had, they sent it to a non-deliverable address. The check will now go into the pit that is the un-deliverable mail process at the USPS and eventually, weeks later, turn BACK up at Amazon or, get lost in that pit and have to be cancelled and reissued.

I emailed CS again about whether it was too late to send the check to the correct address and they have not responded. By the time I get money back for an order that was never actually placed, it will be months down the road. I can't see how this is even legal and certainly a horrendous way to treat a customer (especially one who was making a fairly substantial purchase).

Beware before placing any orders with Amazon.com. Prices might seem nice and low but heaven help you if you have any issues and need to deal with CS. They are inflexible, have no knowledge of their own internal procedures and their processes/policies are not remotely consumer friendly.

There are many, many reviews about Amazon Payments throughout the web. If you happen to come across this one before signing up with Amazon Simple Payments, please pay attention. I have been an Amazon Simple Payments customer as a merchant for nearly 2 years now. Of course you never know what to expect when signing on as a merchant with any financial institution.

For the most part, as can be expected you will not always agree with the merchant provider in just about any aspect of the agreement. Amazon Simple Pay may act the same as any merchant provider as anyone would expect from any type of this service. I am here to speak from several years of experience with this service provider. I will spare the details of how I ended up using Amazon Simple Pay and will get directly to the point of why I am writing this article.

Amazon Simple Pay is very easy to use. Anyone can sign up by simply providing some simple details of themselves and their business and begin using the service immediately. However you will very soon discover that once you begin bringing in sales, Amazon takes on a split personality.

While maintaining a "professional" front, you will soon discover that you may have made a "not so smart" decision. Amazon is extremely "customer friendly", as opposed to merchant friendly. I am not exactly sure why this is because the merchant is where Amazon makes their money with this particular service. I will give a few examples to stay within the maximum characters that I can use in this article. I have very many transactions on a monthly basis, so I am guessing that Amazon may or may not use this as a tool to their ways. For example, I will receive an order for say $100.

A month later the customer may file a "dispute" stating that they were not satisfied with their order. Amazon will immediately refund the customer the entire amount of the customers order, including shipping/handling (to the customer). I (the merchant) will be out the entire cost of the product, etc. You are entitled to appeal the dispute but Amazon does not respond in any of these situations. You are simply out the entire cost of the product(s) and shipping/handling.

I have personally lost thousands of dollars due to these practices. The merchant will NOT Win a dispute with a customer, even supplying shipping tracking numbers, etc. If there happens to be a chargeback by a customer, Amazon will send you an email giving you instruction on how to battle the chargeback, including their fees for battling the chargeback o your behalf. I have personally provided tracking information, email details, etc to Amazon and have never heard a word back from Amazon as to the outcome of the battle. However my account will conveniently be charged a$10 fee for doing so.

When receiving a chargeback, Amazon will immediately deduct the chargeback amount from your account. Then after a certain amount of time Amazon will then again deduct the chargeback from your account once more. You can inquire about the double chargeback as often as you wish but you will not receive a response. In short, for every chargeback you receive, such a a $100 chargeback, Amazon will deduct $200 from your account. This cannot be appealed.

They will also generously deduct the $10 battle fee as well. Amazon claims that there is a 6 month "probation" period once you sign up, meaning that they will hold every sale from every customer for a total of 14 days after the sale was imitated. However this is not the case. Amazon will hold your customers funds for anywhere from 14 to 21 days after the initial sale...with no explanations or response. This makes it almost impossible to ship goods within a reasonable time frame.

There are many, many reviews about Amazon Payments throughout the web. If you happen to come across this one before signing up with Amazon Simple Payments, please pay attention. I have been an Amazon Simple Payments customer as a merchant for nearly 2 years now. Of course you never know what to expect when signing on as a merchant with any financial institution. For the most part, as can be expected you will not always agree with the merchant provider in just about any aspect of the agreement.

Amazon Simple Pay may act the same as any merchant provider as anyone would expect from any type of this service. I am here to speak from several years of experience with this service provider. I will spare the details of how I ended up using Amazon Simple Pay and will get directly to the point of why I am writing this article. Amazon Simple Pay is very easy to use. Anyone can sign up by simply providing some simple details of themselves and their business and begin using the service immediately. However you will very soon discover that once you begin bringing in sales, Amazon takes on a split personality.

While maintaining a "professional" front, you will soon discover that you may have made a "not so smart" decision. Amazon is extremely "customer friendly", as opposed to merchant friendly. I am not exactly sure why this is because the merchant is where Amazon makes their money with this particular service. I will give a few examples to stay within the maximum characters that I can use in this article. I have very many transactions on a monthly basis, so I am guessing that Amazon may or may not use this as a tool to their ways. For example, I will receive an order for say $100.

A month later the customer may file a "dispute" stating that they were not satisfied with their order. Amazon will immediately refund the customer the entire amount of the customers order, including shipping/handling (to the customer). I (the merchant) will be out the entire cost of the product, etc. You are entitled to appeal the dispute but Amazon does not respond in any of these situations. You are simply out the entire cost of the product(s) and shipping/handling. I have personally lost thousands of dollars due to these practices.

The merchant will NOT Win a dispute with a customer, even supplying shipping tracking numbers, etc. If there happens to be a chargeback by a customer, Amazon will send you an email giving you instruction on how to battle the chargeback, including their fees for battling the chargeback o your behalf. I have personally provided tracking information, email details, etc to Amazon and have never heard a word back from Amazon as to the outcome of the battle.

However my account will conveniently be charged a$10 fee for doing so. When receiving a chargeback, Amazon will immediately deduct the chargeback amount from your account. Then after a certain amount of time Amazon will then again deduct the chargeback from your account once more. You can inquire about the double chargeback as often as you wish but you will not receive a response. In short, for every chargeback you receive, such a a $100 chargeback, Amazon will deduct $200 from your account. This cannot be appealed.

They will also generously deduct the $10 battle fee as well. Amazon claims that there is a 6 month "probation" period once you sign up, meaning that they will hold every sale from every customer for a total of 14 days after the sale was imitated. However this is not the case. Amazon will hold your customers funds for anywhere from 14 to 21 days after the initial sale...with no explanations or response. This makes it almost impossible to ship goods within a reasonable time frame.

After the 6 month "probation" period has ended, Amazon will not release all of your funds to you. They will still hold a certain amount of your funds indefinitely. In my case they seized over $1000 and are still holding it to this day. I could continue but in summary, Amazon is not a law abiding merchant provider. They do not hold their selves to their own standards and will breach their own contract with no remorse or explanation. They do not abide by their own written rules and your rights will be violated and laws will be broken.

However this being said, you may complain to everyone in sight but realistically Amazon Payments is not regulated by anyone. It will take an extremely large class action lawsuit to bring down a company like Amazon. I wish you the best of luck when using this company. The do not obey the law and they will steal from you without remorse or fright of consequence. Best of luck if you decide to go with Amazon Payments!

I bought an item from a third party using an Amazon gift card. A week later I received an email from Amazon stating, "We're writing to inform you that your order ** from Precise Sales has been canceled because the item(s) you purchased were out of stock."

So, I got back on Amazon - saw that the money was back in my account - and I ordered the same item again from another third party. When another week went by and I didn't receive the item, I contacted the seller through Amazon email (there is no other option) and asked them to send me an email letting me know if the item had shipped or when I might expect it to ship. I received no response from the third party.

But, then I got an email from Amazon (I'm thinking this is some sort of automatic email they send out when they know the seller hasn't fulfilled the order). It said, "I've checked your order and found that you purchased from DeliaRodStock, one of our registered third-party sellers on Amazon Marketplace. Amazon Merchant listings are created by sellers other than Amazon.com. When you buy an item from Amazon Merchant, the individual seller will process and ship your order.

We charge your credit card for this purchase when the merchant is ready to ship the item. Until then you will see this amount has been blocked by us, but the transaction is not completed (i. e., we have not yet processed this charge). However in this case, I have checked your order and found that the merchant is not ready to ship this item as the item is currently not available with the merchant. Therefore, this order will be automatically cancelled and you will not be charged for this order."

Of course, since I used a gift card instead of a credit card - that last statement didn't apply and the money is gone off my gift card. In that email it also stated, "If you'd like the seller to cancel the order sooner, you can send them an e-mail by going to the URL below and clicking the "Problem with this order?" button".

So, I took that route and asked the seller to cancel the order. And waited and waited. No email from the seller and no cancellation. My next step was to contact Amazon. This is where I really got angry. As this is when Amazon goes into its spiel that this is a third party sell and they are not really responsible. I told him that I was definitely holding them responsible as 'to me' the person I am buying from is Amazon.

He said the best he could do would be to call me back three days from now and if, by then, the third party seller had not responded to me that they could then 'take action'. I asked him how long after they 'took action' could I expect to see a cancelled order and the money back on my gift card. He said, well maybe another two weeks.

When the first 'third party seller' cancelled the order - I didn't even get the opportunity to get on and rate them for this action. And, as a buyer, its just this sort of action I'm looking for when I review the seller before I make the purchase.

When I sell an item on Amazon - I am told that it is my responsibility as a 'seller' to ship the item out in two days. And I faithfully do this. Yet, I guess these 'third party sellers' have different rules than just a 'seller'. You have to allow them three days to respond to your email. You have to allow them three days to respond to your request to cancel the order. It 'appears' that Amazon reviews this orders on a weekly basis - that's seven days. OK, that's my story of how I tried to order a coffee maker on Amazon. From two sellers. And I have no coffee maker. And I'm out $160. And I see no real end in site. And most of all I AM TOTALLY IRRITATED.

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON -- With the slow but steady demise of BillMonk, my friends and I turned to other means of debt tracking and bill sharing for our nights out. Ultimately we turned to Amazon Payments and their 'TextPayMe' service. While many of them may rant about how cool this is, I'm not going to.

Here is how it supposedly works. You give them your credit or debit card number, or alternatively your bank routing number and bank account. They supposedly from then on will magically deduct the texted amount from your bank and automatically drop it into your friend's Amazon Payments account. No need to split bills anymore, no need to settle up later. It's all done with a quick, flashy text from your cellphone to Amazon's number. You just text them the short "Pay $$ 'Account Name Here'" and tada! No muss, no fuss. Nuh uh.

Here are the massive hiccups involved in this service, and the inducement of what is at least a 5-7 business day headache... it not much much longer, because one then must undo the damage done.

1. Unless you weave through the complicated and ill-laid out Amazon Payments website to find the box to check, the TextPayMe is going to call you and demand your Amazon Pin. No big deal. The phone call takes a minute or two. You're done, right? Nope.
2. You've authorized the payment, it should be done, right? No. Something happens, and I have not yet been given a straight forward answer as to why. You get a text back either confirming that the money was transferred, or the OTHER message. "Your credit card was declined."

Okay, well... you know there's plenty of money in your account. Why was it declined? Meanwhile your friend wants his money and you look a bit like a deadbeat. You apologize and say you'll try again. Cue the annoying slew of 'call your banks' from your friends. Yes, that's exactly what I want to do - sift through a phone tree of computer automation.

What Amazon's very vague text that literally says, 'your credit card was declined' actually means is its been 'temporarily declined.' That is the exact wording given to me by the person on the other side of the 'Contact Us' link. But they don't tell you that in the text. It's just declined. In the rest of the world, that means it's over. Try again. So what does it really mean?

This charge has been put into a review, which they claim takes 24 hours. I assume business hours. Unless you go onto their site and figure this out yourself by clicking on the right thing, you would never know. But why was it put into review? I wish I could tell you this. They have a box you can click SOMEWHERE that says, 'call me above a certain payment amount.' I had this unchecked. But they still called.

More confusion before we go on. They bounced certain charges, but let others go through. Back to the meat of it. Tired of dealing with them pulling directly from my credit card because they didn't seem to like it, I decided to dump my 'going out' budget into Amazon Payments so they could directly pull from there. The TextPayMe system is supposed to pull from your balance with Amazon Payments first, and if you don't have enough there, it pulls from your credit card or account. Reasonable. But then we enter the 1990s.

Depositing AND withdrawing money into your Amazon Payments account takes 5-7 business days. That is 5-7 business days that it disappears from one place, reappears in another but isn't actually usable until then. Didn't we dispose of this (I believe by law) way, way back? This is not a money transfer where physical tender is being moved from place to place, this is electronic information. This is two computers talking to one another and saying, "Got it?", "Yep, got it.", "Give me.", "OK." Done.

So your budget for going out is in limbo, your Amazon Payments balance is still nonexistent, they are still reviewing your 'temporarily declined' payment and your friend wants his money. So what do you do? Try again? No that would be silly. But I did it anyway. Result? The exact same. The card was declined, the payment shunted to a reviewed status and I now have two payments and a balance transfer hanging in limbo. It's like the sword of Damocles. When and where will the payments strike, further depleting your weakened saving account.

I had finally had enough. I contacted Amazon and they told me all of this 'temporarily declined' nonsense and they assured me that my poor limbo'ed budget would eventually arrive. And oh, they reviewed the first declined charge and its going through. But the other charge is still pending. When its deemed successful, it will be charged too... whenever that is. Twenty hours has passed, I'd like to note. Fantastic! Except I asked them to cancel them both so I could just pay my friend in cash! Now he must pay ME back for the duplicate charge.

So here I sit. Officially complaining about a product for the first time in my life. Let's add one last insult to injury. When I finally get my balance that has been floating unusably through cyberspace until then, I still either have to use this service to get it back, or else wait ANOTHER 5-7 days for them to transfer it back into my account. 10-14 BUSINESS days that I have not had my budgeted funds available, and have had to dip into other budgets to fulfill demands made. That is 2-3 weeks to those who are counting... business days after all.

A double payment that was supposed to come from my Amazon Payments account has been pulled out of my savings account, and I won't be getting that back until it is all settled. I did kind of want to go buy some groceries this week, but here's a fun fact - the money you have in your AP account can only be used with Amazon, and even then only on certain products.

I don't think an ATM (or a kind, apologetic smile and a request to split the check) has EVER looked so good right now. I ask you: who would do this to themselves? How is this convenient to have a reserve of difficult to access, difficult to replenish, difficult to use money that is not doing anything useful but sitting there possibly a good thing? Even in an ordinary savings account, its use or movement is near-instant, and in the meantime it's making tenth of cents in interest.

I recently received an Amazon Kindle as a gift. I thought I'd give everyone a quick review of it so far. I've had the Kindle for a bit over two weeks now and it is one of my new favorite gadgets. For those of you that don't know what it is, the Kindle is an electronic book that has a built in wireless service that allows you to purchase and download content wirelessly from Amazon anywhere you can get a cell signal.

First of all, let me say when the Kindle first came out (with a price of over $400 dollars), I thought it was a huge waste of money, but after using one that a guy next to me on a plane had, I found I really enjoyed it. The screen is very easy to read and not at all hard on the eyes, which was a concern of mine since I read a computer screen all day long. In fact, I think reading it is easier on the eyes than printed books, now that I have it I'd prefer to read all my books this way.

The battery life is great, I took it out of the box and it was charged. I read the thing daily for 1 to 3 hours and played with downloading free editions, etc quite a bit (the wireless beacon can be turned off when not in used to save battery life) and the original charge lasted well over a week. Since the full charge I gave it the other day the battery meter hasn't moved at all-and I've been not only reading with it, I've stored some MP3's on its internal memory and play them while I read. The internal memory will only hold about 2 albums, since the device is not really designed to be an MP3 player; it is just an added feature to play with really.

It also has a built in basic web browser, I haven't played with it much but it really only works well with text sites. It has a quick link to Wikipedia in case you want to look up something while you are out with it. The content available is decent so far, but I am hoping to see more soon. There is a good selection of new best sellers and you can also get many newspapers and magazine delivered wirelessly. New best sellers cost between $6.99 and $9.99. You can get magazines for around a buck a month or just buy individual issues for $0.50. You can also read many blogs, etc for around a buck a month but I haven't subscribed to any yet so I don't know if the content is worth it or not.

Overall, I think the device is a great addition to any hard core reader's library. I wouldn't suggest the average reader buy this thing unless they are really into gadgets anyway. But with the cost of the unit still around $330 it is a pretty steep price to pay unless you read a lot (the cost includes lifetime wireless service of the unit). Personally, I read between 50 to 100 books a year and buy maybe 15 new hardcover non-fiction books year, so by purchasing them on the Kindle I can save anywhere between $5 to $15 a book, so it should more than pay for itself for me but maybe not so much for other readers.

The biggest draw backs so far have been not being able to get certain new books yet because not all publishers distribute through the Kindle yet and also my concerns about what will happen to the content later down the road since it is a proprietary Amazon format (I dislike any form of DRM).

One other nice feature is you can connect it directly to your CPU and load PDF files on it to read (or PDF books that I can check out from my library) or email yourself documents that you want to take on the road to read (although they do charge you $0.10 per document to email, so I haven't tried this feature out yet).

The design of the unit is done very well too. It is not much larger than a paperback book but less than a half inch thick. It fits well in one hand with easy access to the next page buttons regardless of which hand you hold it in. So, while there is something sad about not holding an actual book in my hands (I have a large collection of my favorite books that I would never give up the print editions), the Kindle definitely is good way to read lots of content on the go, easily.

First, I'm SO glad to have found this website since I feel like I'm about to explode! I don't know why it's taken me so long, but this was the last straw! I have tried several times in the past to order used books through Amazon's vendors. EVERY SINGLE TIME, the day after the order is placed, I get an email from Amazon telling me my credit card was denied and the order will be cancelled.

Being someone who lives paycheck-to-two-paychecks-later, I NEVER try to charge anything without calling to see what my balance is, thus ensuring that I have the necessary credit available. The first time this happened, I just ignored it and one of the 3 books I ordered showed up in a week, the other two vendors sent emails saying the order was cancelled and I just gave up.

The next two times it happened I followed their instructions to go back to their website and "change payment" which resulted in an express mail order being postponed for 23 days - since this was a Christmas present, I cancelled the order. The other one arrived about 9 days later than promised. This time, I ordered a self-help book for a friend who is going through a bad break-up and breast cancer treatment and wanted something to read and work on to help her focus on moving forward.

First I ordered from Amazon itself, paid more for the shipping than I did for the book in order to get it in 2 business days. Again, the card didn't go through message. I decided to try a vendor and found a new book at any_book for half of what I was going to pay at Amazon. Again, paid twice the cost of the book for express shipping, stated plainly on the form that it would be delivered in 1-2 days. 3 days later I get an email that they thought it was in stock but they couldn't find it in their warehouse and it would be shipped within 21 days.

I wrote them back that that was unacceptable and I wanted to cancel the order. 2 hours later, I get a reply email telling me to go to some link they provided to get their response. HA! Their response said the book had been shipped and would arrive in 3-5 days. I replied that I would expect a full refund for the shipping cost since I was not receiving express shipping. Again, had to go to their website to get their response which was "express shipping delivers in 3-5 days." AAARRGH!

By this time my friend thinks I'm lying about getting her this book and she's sinking deeper into depression. If the book ever arrives, I will send it back and dispute the charge. It's 3 degrees here in Chicago with -40 windchill, I don't have a car and the nearest bookstore that has this book in stock is two trains, 1/2 mile walk and about 45 minutes away but I'm going there tomorrow (after reserving a copy on the phone) to get the damn thing. I will NEVER use Amazon again and look forward to explaining the saga to my credit card company which has always been great about service issues like this.

LAWRENCE, KANSAS -- To sum up a long rant: Amazon.com is sending out delayed and defective merchandise, and then blaming the defects on the customers, and refusing to accept the returns. You can read on if you really want the gory details, but the basic message is: stay clear of Amazon, if you are not completely certain you're going to love what they send you -- they won't take it back, and if it is messed up in any way they will blame you for it.

I had been a loyal customer of Amazon.com for several years, when I decided to order a necklace to give to my girlfriend for our 1-year anniversary. A few days before it was to be delivered, they contacted me and said it was delayed, and would not be delivered until the following month. I said okay, figuring I would give it to her for Christmas instead, and actually ordered 2 matching jewelry items off of the site as well.

After I gave the necklace to her, she felt the stone was too big for her frame. I called customer service, and they told me that I could go ahead and return it, since they had been responsible for the delay, and I'd hear from them in a few days. 2 weeks went by, and I finally called, to be informed that the return had been denied because the chain had been soldered. They sent it back (to the wrong address!!! -- I was just lucky my old roommate still lived there).

I tried to explain the situation, but the regular CSRs said that once the Jewelry Dept. made up their minds, there was nothing they could do. They recommended talking to Executive Customer Service. So I did, but they refused to speak with me via phone, and basically just reiterated what the Jewelry Department had said, plus blaming me for not returning it on time (which was a total crock, since they were the ones responsible for the initial delay).

I asked to speak with someone else, but the rep told me he was the only one who would get my messages, and that he would not respond to anything further that I wrote him. And while I may have been a little annoyed about the whole rigmarole, I was polite and dignified the entire time (no cursing or screaming, I just wanted the issue resolved).

Let me be clear: we didn't solder the necklace, we kept it in the original packaging until I shipped it back to them. I can't tell you how distressing it is to try to do the right thing, and have a company that sent you damaged goods turn around and blame you for the conditions of those goods! Heck, I even told them I'd be fine taking Amazon.com credit so they wouldn't feel like I was trying to scam money out of them or whatever.

And so all I can do is sit here with a necklace that was apparently damaged (I went over it with a magnifying glass when we got it back, and yeah, I guess it might have been soldered before they sent it to us, but I'm not a jeweler, and I guess even if I had noticed the flaw right away, they still would have blamed me for it. So yeah - buyer beware, if you order jewelry from Amazon.com, and it arrives altered or broken -- forget about getting your money back, they are going to blame you for it.

MANHATTAN, KANSAS -- As a poor college student, I refuse to buy books from the local bookstore when I can help it (another rant for another time)! Being young and tech savvy I buy as many books as I can from Amazon.com. I've always had a good experience and customer service (even when I call) with them (twice now).

Problems started last semester when I ordered a used book doing a search by the title. I found a good deal as always and purchased it. When it arrived I was shocked to find the study guide. I KNOW that's not what I ordered or was listed in the description/cart. Of course I review my order online and it says I ordered the study guide. I couldn't explain how I'd make that mistake, but figured I was just an idiot.

I needed the book ASAP so I dished out an extra $60 some and bought the book locally. I should mention I had the book sent expedited (I could write another rant about UPS here). Considering I'd have to pay to send it back and all the headache, I just ate the cost and accepted it as my mistake.

Fast forward a semester, I go to order textbooks again. This time to avoid all mix-ups I walked down to the evil local bookstore to compare prices and write down the EXACT ISBN numbers. I then did my searches and ordered books. For the book in question I ordered a used paperback that included the CD. In the description it said nothing about a study guide. The bold title for the search I did, and what also showed up in my cart, read "The Basic Practice of Statistics (Paper) & Cd-Rom (Paperback) by David S. Moore". By now I'm sure you've figured out that I got the study guide (completely different title and ISBN).

Furthermore, when I check my order online it shows "The Basic Practice of Statistics, Third Edition (Study Guide) (Paperback) by Michael A. Fligner, William I. Notz, David S. Moore". Uh no! My point is that on two occasions now I have done a search and placed an order on Amazon's marketplace only to have the order changed to something else unannounced.

I want to make this very clear, this is NOT a case of the private sellers mislabeling their items. I unfortunately have no screen captures or way of verifying my claim whatsoever. The only thing I can offer is that I'm a poor college student who would never purchase an utterly worthless study guide for any textbook.

I contacted Amazon and requested to talk to a manager. The woman I spoke to was very helpful despite the strong accent. They even agreed to refund the original book that I still have lying around (luckily it came from Amazon directly and I can ship it back for free). The current book I have to ship back (though I refuse to pay shipping... that might get interesting) to the seller. This is an outrageous request I know, but they refused to refund the difference between the two books I've been forced to buy at the local bookstore (some $150). That $150 could and SHOULD have been savings in my pocket!

The manager at first tried to place blame on me or mislabeled books by the seller. I still don't think she understands or cares that the glitch is on their part. She blindly assured me that if I reorder the same book it won't happen again... Gee thanks!

I think I will try in vain to write to the big heads and get my $150 back. I do understand that it's a case of bad circumstances/timing and really a personal problem, but nonetheless it was brought on by Amazon. If nothing else a letter may make someone understand that they have a glitch on their website. Please comment on this and let me know if you've had a similar experience (not just on textbooks) through Amazon's marketplace!