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Comment by jmuguy | Hacker News Reader

I ordered a TV from Amazon. They use a third party service that schedules delivery with you. Two dudes came out with TV, unboxed and set it up (put on stand, plugged in power to verify its working).

A few days after delivery I noticed a red line running along the top of the screen. Contacted Amazon about replacement. There was some issue with doing a direct replacement so they had me purchase another TV and then refunded the cost.

Dude comes out and picks up busted TV, puts it in box. New dudes come out a few days later with new TV.

All of that is to say - it really wasn't a big deal to order it online. Shipping was still free. Also they took packaging material with them, so it was nice not having to deal with disposing of a gigantic box.

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I can't tell whether you're happy with Amazon's service. It sounds to me like you waited for delivery, got a bad TV, waited for delivery again... but at least you don't have to deal with the box?

No thanks.

He could have gone to Best Buy, drove the TV home himself if he had a car a 65-inch TV would fit in, dealt with the packaging and setup himself, and then found out it was defective.

It sounds to me like he got pretty good service and avoided a lot of hassle by doing it through Amazon.

Interesting. We ordered one from Amazon, I think a 50inch, and it was put on our front doorstep in the tv box. It was undamaged thankfully, but it looked like a normal Fedex(or w/e) driver, not a special delivery at all.

I can second that. I’ve ordered 3 TVs from Amazon over the past two years - all relatively cheap TCL Roku TVs ( < $350), a 32, 49, and 55. One was lost in transit and I ended up cancelling the order. Another didn’t arrive when they said it should so I ended up picking it up from UPS. I had to unbox it to get it in my car. I probably wouldn’t trust Amazon for a more expensive purchase.

Ordered a TV from Amazon the same way. The dudes said it was not their job to actually put it on the stand despite paying for and ordering white glove delivery. Had to do it myself with a friend later as it was too big to put up alone. This was about ten years ago. In retrospect, I should have known better who I was dealing with, but like most people here, I was ignorant of what Amazon was really like. This is minor compared to all their other shit.

Did you pay extra to have it unboxed and turned on? How much was the TV? I'm wondering at what level, or price they offer this service? The TV I purchased was not expensive, and the Amazon alternative was one of their "house brands" with Alexa integrated so I wonder if they'd provide the same level of service.

Did they schedule the delivery with you or did they just show up?

It was a 65 inch Samsung KS8000, I think about 1500 at the time. The delivery, unboxing, etc, was all free (prime). I scheduled the delivery on checkout, you picked the day and from several 2 hour windows.

> The delivery, unboxing, etc, was all free (prime)

"Free" in that it came with your Prime membership which you paid for ;)

your parent comment got more than 120$ of benefit in a single order; if you amortize the cost of that prime membership across a year and use it like this it certainly seems closer to free.

I was in similar situation not long time ago, and they wanted to charge me some money (around $100) for TV setup, even I am prime member.

That parent comment is now also locked-in and will justify Amazon's extortion to themselves by buying more things from them without bothering to check other stores.

They end up paying quite a bit beyond that $100/year fee.

Same experience for me. The first time, I bought TV from Amazon I was a bit nervous. But the experience was so great. No need to drive to store, find parking, fit huge box in my tiny car, park car in loading area, unload, move car.... so on.

Since then I have bought more TVs for myself and helped friends and family who were reluctant to order online. No bad experience so far.

I wonder what size TV you have to buy before that is how it works. I bought a 55 inch TV from them and it arrived shattered, shipped by UPS. The return was painless enough and the replacement was undamaged, but still, UPS and not a couple guys with the TV on a truck.

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