1128

This is a blog post by a guy who, through his own actions, his parents’ work in bringing him up, the support of an absolutely wonderful fiancée, a higher power, or just clean living, is fairly accustomed to getting what he wants. If it sounds whiny, that’s why.

This morning I ordered a new camera from Amazon.com. It’s an expensive camera, the kind of camera I’d plan to keep for five or more years, and I wanted it quickly so I could take it on a special trip this weekend. They only had two left in stock after I bought mine — whew! I then called Chase, the bank who issued the Amazon.com VISA to me, to warn their fraud people that a large charge would be appearing, and not to decline it. “It’s okay, it’s me!” A very friendly woman took this information and told me there would be no problem. By noon I noticed that the camera was sold out. Glad I bought it when I did!

Just before lunch, I see that there has been a problem charging my credit card. I call Chase immediately and have a very tedious exchange with a very nerdy woman in order to get the charge (and my card) cleared. I would have liked to have known why they had frozen the card despite my instructions, but I wanted to re-instate the order on Amazon as quickly as possible to ensure that it should ship tomorrow as planned.

I have Amazon re-charge my card and see, to my horror, that the ship date is not October 20, but November 15! It seems that, because I used Amazon.com’s own branded VISA card, and because they could not follow my instructions, the charge was declined and my order was moved to the back of the queue. Now some Flickr-using hayseed has my camera headed their way, I’m sure. I call Amazon (yes, you can do that) and wait on hold. A very courteous and sympathetic gentleman checks and informs me that there is nothing that can be done. He feels awful for me, but can do nothing to help me. The best they can do is ship it to me when they get some more in.

I didn’t write Amazon’s order fulfillment software, but I refuse to believe that there was actually no way they could have put me back into my place in the queue. They simply didn’t want to. My last name ain’t Bezos, but I have spent thousands of dollars at Amazon.com over the past five, six years. I guess a person assumes that being a ridiculously loyal customer would carry a little weight.

There’s no recourse here. I’m not going to stop buying all of my music at Amazon.com, or other gadgets and such. I’m not going to cancel my VISA; the rewards make too much sense to do that. The most I can do is write a blog entry and have a few readers frown for a second at my misfortune and go on with their lives (as they should — I am venting selfishly). I will, however, think twice before ordering a popular big ticket item. If Chase’s fraud system is so trigger-happy, why should I believe that this won’t happen again sometime? I can’t rely on Amazon.com to buy items like this without a hassle, and that destroys so much of the benefit of buying from them — ordinarily it’s so painless!

Stepping back from it, it’s amazing how demanding (and spoiled!) I’ve become as a consumer. Amazon Prime gives me “free” 2-day shipping, and next day for the cost of a Value Meal. I can order something at 10 a.m. and have it the very next day! I was practically furious after I got off the phone with Amazon, but I’ve cooled off a bit now. I just won’t have a nice new camera to document the trip and vistas with this year, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Acceptance.

How did people ever wait “4-6 weeks” — more if you wrote a check! — to receive their orders?

Posted: Wednesday, October 19th, 2005 at 4:05 pm; Category: 1128; Comments feed: RSS 2.0.
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