Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: Ben on February 27, 2021, 10:52:28 AM
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I just realized I'm being a petty gadfly with Amazon.
In the past, I have often used the "no rush" shipping just because I'm not always in a hurry for something. I just took the buck or two digital credit and figured I was helping out Amazon logistics a little bit and maybe helping to keep overall shipping prices down.
I'm not doing that anymore. I've been pissed about Bezos, Amazon, the Washington Post, etc., and their cancel culture and censorship, so decided I'm only using whatever the fastest free options are in my Prime account. Petty, but my little part towards making them pay a price. I figure the one and two day shipping, over a year, sticks it to them more than me canceling the Prime membership. Though the latter may still be a future option. I've already started doing more business directly with businesses that both sell on Amazon but also have their own websites. Often, the direct prices are cheaper than Amazon so make paying the shipping charge a wash.
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I guess that means I was being petty with Amazon before it was a thing... :rofl:
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I ordered some stuff from Amazon this week and had it sent to my parents' house in Texas. I've done that before with no problems, and my brother does it all the time. Yesterday (Friday) an item was supposedly delivered at 19:15 by an Amazon delivery driver, and it just says the package was "delivered to a secure location" WTF does that mean, did they give it to Dick Chaney? I looked all over the place and it's not here. I IM'd Amazon and they say I need to wait until Tuesday to file a claim.
It's not a particularly valuable item and I'm not in that big a hurry for it, but I'm pissed that they lied about the delivery and now they are stalling.
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Last time I ordered something from Amazon, when I went to track it I saw it was 3 stops away from me . . . then 2 . . . then 1 . . .
A little map graphic popped up and showed me where the Amazon truck was, so I opened my front door as the driver walked up. He was rather surprised when I told him I was tracking his progress - he didn't know Amazon was tracking his truck in real time with GPS.
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Since Amazon opened a distribution center in my county, a lot of my deliveries are made by Amazon rather than by the USPS. Amazon's drivers take a cell phone photo of where they leave the package, and the e-mail informing me of the delivery includes the photo.
Just after a recent snow storm, I was outside running the snow blower when the Amazon driver showed up. I idled down the machine and walked halfway up the driveway to meet him, thinking I could save him a few steps and a few seconds. Nope -- he wasn't allowed to just hand me my package. He had to physically place it somewhere and then take his photo. So we trudged down the driveway. The walk to the front door hadn't been touched yet, and the path to the side door was demarcated only by my footsteps from when I had come out. So the "secure location" he left the package in was a snow bank. :facepalm:
I guess I'm petty, too. When I look at shipping times, on most of my orders Prime would only get the order to me one or, at most, two days faster than the standard free shipping option. So I don't have Prime, and I always choose free shipping when it's available.
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Just after a recent snow storm, I was outside running the snow blower when the Amazon driver showed up. I idled down the machine and walked halfway up the driveway to meet him, thinking I could save him a few steps and a few seconds. Nope -- he wasn't allowed to just hand me my package. He had to physically place it somewhere and then take his photo.
I ran into similar a couple of weeks ago. I was doing some road patching at my entryway, 1/4mile from the house. I knew the driver was a few stops away, so figured I would wait there for him and save him the trip all the way down my drive. Nope, he had to take it to the house because of the GPS tracking. So he followed me down to the house. I parked by my shop and went to get the package, but nope he had to walk to the front door.
For the first instance, it's understandable. A 1/4 mile from my house, I could be anybody looking to steal a package, and it IS a good ways from my door. On the second, I was kinda thinking that he thought I was a package thief, because my shop is only like 200' from my front door, and I have plenty of times in the past grabbed a package from the driver there.
I have never had that issue with UPS, in fact I HAVE been handed a package from them all the way out at my entryway.
Another interesting Amazon delivery was seeing the driver a couple of stops away on the app. I was out in a pasture, and started walking back to the house. I saw the guy pull into my driveway, and I was distracted by something so didn't see him get out, but assumed with the truck sitting so long he had, and watched him drive off. When I got back to the house, no package. Checking the app, it had changed to, "driver needs to make a couple more stops first." I tracked that until around 8PM, when I saw his truck sitting in the Boise distribution center lot 60 miles away. I ended up getting the package two days later. Still have no idea what that was about. :laugh:
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I just realized I'm being a petty gadfly with Amazon.
In the past, I have often used the "no rush" shipping just because I'm not always in a hurry for something. I just took the buck or two digital credit and figured I was helping out Amazon logistics a little bit and maybe helping to keep overall shipping prices down.
What if I told you Amazon makes a profit off of you regardless of your shipping choice?
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I had something delivered today. I got the email earlier with a picture of it in my entryway. I appreciate that part as I could tell it was off to the side behind the hedge from the road and not easily visible. I was out of town when it was delivered.
If I am not in a hurry, I will take the longer delivery mainly just because they give the digital discount. If they didn't, I wouldn't do it. Also, the longer delivery usually comes a couple days early (the package today was supposed to be Tuesday originally).
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The best way to be "petty" with Amazon, etc., is to NOT give them your money !!