Amazon dot Com? NEVER AGAIN!

 Arrrr! Shiver me textbooks!

When the delivery man drove up today, I thought to myself, "Yay! The last of my textbooks has arrived, four days after I ordered it with two day priority shipping.".

I checked the envelope. Correct address, correct name, correct book title. I opened the package. Correct book title on the "In this shipment" form.
Then I looked at the book. Crocheting. Crocheting? My book is about food and wine pairings! Fashion classes are next door!

So, there must be a way to resolve this, since it probably happens from time to time. Amazon will do what's necessary to make everything good. They'll give me a return shipping label to return the wrong book and immediately ship the right book via two day shipping (or even overnight to prove they care). Right?

Wrong! Here's the deal:

1. They give a return number, and e-mail a bar coded document to print out for the return.

2. The book travels via regular (slow) UPS shipping.

3. The wrong book arrives in Kentucky.

4. It gets processed or something. Entries are made. Numbers travel through computers.

5. They find the right book. Or they find the wrong book again, and ship whatever it is via regular (slow) rate. Maybe I'll get something like U.S. Civil War Relic Counterfeiting for Europeans.

6. Four to six weeks later, if all goes well, I might possibly have the book that I ordered long ago with two day shipping. In other words, after I've flunked several tests because the book never arrived, I'll finally be able to study.

7. The supervisor confirmed that there is no way they would find the correct book and ship it with two day priority shipping so that their error would be corrected and I would have my book. The best they could do was a refund, which takes 36 hours to appear. Or ten days. Or whatever. Unless it doesn't.

Considering the futile nature of any resistance, I asked for a refund. Although billing instantly sucks money out of my account, refunds are different:
"Refunds typically complete within 10 business days and appear as a credit on your statement."
Pay special attention to the word, "typically". The book people order probably "typically" arrives as it should, too. But when it doesn't?

So, fellow students, unless you have seven weeks advance before your class and like dealing with companies who take no responsibility for their errors, I would council you to avoid Amazon.com like a salmonella, trichinosis and mold infested porkburger! If for some reason you find yourself in a similar situation, please don't come crying to me. And especially don't go crying to Amazon!

I think the Amazon in the picture is an accurate depiction of their current attitude towards fixing snafus. Do you think this person would help you? No? Me, neither!