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I'm genuinely surprised that people have such vastly different experiences with Amazon. I made 231 orders with them last year(lockdown....) And haven't had a problem with a single one. Couple times I wanted to return something they just refunded me without asking to send the item back. Everything arrives next day, always(here in UK anyway), and the customer support is stellar compared to literally anywhere else. Anyone who has ever had to contact Currys customer support should know what I'm talking about.

Like, I see all of these comments on HN all the time but I have the exact opposite experience - they just have no competition over here. I'm at a point where even if something is slightly more expensive on Amazon I'd rather buy from them as I know their CS Support won't try to screw me over.

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It really is location dependent, since most of the problems are caused by the shipper. Amazon will use multiple shippers, and in some areas will use what ends up being people driving around in their personal cars to deliver packages. If you have unreliable shippers in your area, it’s hard to deal with Amazon when things go wrong. In one place I lived, Amazon would use the US Postal Service, UPS, and Fedex. I had no control over which. The local FedEx team was horrible, they never figured out how to deliver packages to my building. So they would pretend to deliver, say customer wasn’t home and no secure place to leave the package for 2-3 days, then stick a notice on the outside of the building somewhere that I could use to drive to the FedEx warehouse in the next town over to pick it up. Maybe it’s different now, but there was just no way to do anything about this.

Another location and I’d get these local people delivering packages in their personal cars and that was really hit or miss. Seems like anytime they were busy they just report that they tried to deliver but no one was home. They could steal whatever they wanted, it’s a matter of trust. How does Amazon know who is lying? Maybe I’m scamming them, maybe the shippers, maybe someone else is stealing packages off my doorstep.

There was just no way to choose a shipper or report problems with one. Don’t have any problems where I am now, so I don’t know if they’ve fixed that. They should be able to tell, statistically, if packages have more problems with one shipper over the other, but smart shippers who want to steal could probably game the system.

I don't get FedEx much but had a terrible experience with them on a few orders. One package left way out by my mailbox on a busy road. Another tossed to the side of my long driveway (????). Then things were fine again. Assume there was some driver who was, shall we say, not good at their job.

Periodically I do have shipper issues (including USPS on occasion). I have a long gravel/dirt driveway and some shippers obviously don't like to come down it. (I also have a neighbor with a large dog that likes to bark and that sometimes scares off drivers too. Oh yeah, that was FedEx too. Saw their truck and they claimed online not to have been able to deliver due to local regulations.)

FedEx is bimodal: they have "real" FedEx like Tom Hanks in that movie, and then they have contract drivers who bid for delivery routes on a short term basis and are not FedEx employees.

I don't get why Amazon doesn't allow the customer to chose between multiple available shipping carriers. They do for returns, which is fantastic and one of the reasons I love buying on Amazon, because I can always chose to pick the carrier that has the office 1 minute walk away from my home that is never busy, instead of being forced to drive to some remote store and stand in line.

If Amazon gave these choices to customers for shipping, it would apply pressure to shipping carriers to improve their service, as people would experiment and pick the best ones and stop picking bad ones. Eventually a bad carrier is forced to improve to not lose revenue. And Amazon would get way happier customers, who can pick what is best in their region, and they would have a massive advantage over smaller shops.

> I don't get why Amazon doesn't allow the customer to chose between multiple available shipping carriers. They do for returns...

I assume because the volume of returns is much lower than the volume of sales, plus Amazon isn't responsible for coordinating the return.

In essence, my suspicion is that at Amazon's scale they literally can't afford to let customers pick their own shipper. That's one variable too many to manage for their massive logistics problem, and the expense of building out the support for that would never be recouped.

> In essence, my suspicion is that at Amazon's scale they literally can't afford to let customers pick their own shipper. That's one variable too many to manage for their massive logistics problem, and the expense of building out the support for that would never be recouped.

I don't get it. All the alternative carriers are obviously in their system already, since deliveries obviously get routed via all of them, and (presumably) some algorithm selects which one that is in each case. All it takes is to put one more selection field on the order (and I guess in the customer profile, for a personal default value) and then use that if provided and the algorithm only if not provided. What's so hugely complicated about that?

Again, without any real knowledge, this is all speculation on my part, but: I’m assuming multiple shipments for different customers are combined at different points en route, so Amazon is optimizing for cost by choosing the shipper that makes the most sense (for them) for all of those customers.

Maybe it’s in fact trivial, but at Amazon’s scale I find it hard to imagine that any changes to their shipping algorithms are that easy, at least compared to the increased revenue that goes along with it, which in this case presumably is zero.

If you’re willing to put up with all of Amazon’s other crap in exchange for convenience, you’re unlikely to drop them because they won’t allow you to pick the shipper, at least until someone else starts taking business away from them.

I suspect the wield this lack of choice as a weapon against the carriers. They go to each carrier and say, "that a healthy looking Amazon contract you've got there. Shame if we suddenly stopped sending packages your way", then squeeze them for price. Harder to do that if Amazon let their customer pick the carrier.

I've certainly been part of something very similar, where a company has multiple suppliers providing the same service. Near contract renewal time we would move our volume on their competitors to remind them that they needed us more than we needed them. It was a very effective way to get them to keep lowering their prices as the years went on.

There is also probably also a logistics piece as well. Amazon will be shipping products to carriers last mile hubs or similar themselves, rather than having a carrier handle the entire distance. Which makes it cheaper for Amazon. So carrier will also be picked based on which hub is nearest to one of Amazons warehouses, how full the Amazon truck going there is, which warehouse has the product etc

I was in urgent need of a spare part a couple of years ago and paid Amazon UK a lot extra to get it the next day. It was a heavy and bulky thing so I got really surprised when I got a simple envelope in the mail the next day. It contained a simple SD-card adapter worth less than a dollar.

When calling Amazon about it they said I needed to ship the adapter back before they would send me the part I ordered. I told them it was totally unreasonable for me to have to wait many more days to get the thing I paid for when they obviously made the mistake and adapter wasn't worth anything compared to what I ordered. They could easily see that the weight of what they shipped was less than 1/1000th of what I ordered too but they refused to handle my case before they got their adapter back and they ended up hanging up on me.

Migrated my company off AWS after that and haven't used Amazon since. I value other things higher than saving an occasional dollar here or there.

I wonder if there are regions (or countries) which are worse? Amazon in Germany is also great, so far.

I’m like you - I’ve ordered so many things from Amazon this last year or so (new circumstances plus pandemic lockdown) and literally not one problem of the sort described. I can think of two items out of hundreds which weren’t on time (one, Amazons’s logistics made it a whole day late, and one was the seller’s issue). And the (very rare) returns were dealt with without a hitch.

For other reasons, I actually want to not be so reliant on Amazon, but their combination of Prime delivery, reliability, and customer service is unbeatable for many/most non-specialist items.

Amazon in Germany can also go very wrong. This is why I stopped ordering there:

I ordered a bunch of small electronics stuff, about 100€. In the order process Amazon selected an expired credit card (which I'm sure I had replaced in the settings already). They then split the order in parts and for each order part demanded an additional late pay fee, because the card was expired. This is despite me calling them to stop the order or to correct the payment method, before the package had arrived.

They couldn't help, I was promised a call back, never arrived. The chat support deleted the expired credit card from their system, only to cut the connection as soon as I asked for a solution for the fees and to know why the wrong card was selected. Later, that expired credit card turned up in my settings again.

In the electronics stuff that arrived, a converter I bought was evidently fake. It was also a converter, but it had different markings than the one on the product photo (including a missing CE symbol). I sent that back. A short while later, Amazon accused me of not having sent it back and wanted me to pay again! I still had the proof of having sent a package, which made them shut up.

Never again.

Why would an order go through with an expired credit card? Is this something like cash-on-delivery or card-on-delivery?

Valid question. I was switching bank accounts at that time, so it's possible the card was not expired but linked to an account that did not exist anymore. Might also have been the account itself and not the card that was listed (Lastschriftverfahren, where they take money directly from the account). I'm fuzzy about the details, not really because it was particularly long ago (~2 years), but because it was confusing back then.

Edit: Had a look at my writeup in my blog [0], Lastschrift it was. Amazon picked a bank account that did not exist anymore to pay for the order. When that bounced came the fees - and while one fee for that would have been normal if I had given the wrong bank account (which I'm pretty sure I only did, if I did, because their system did not save when I changed the bank account before), to take multiple fees for one order was in no way okay.

[0]: https://www.onli-blogging.de/1832/Meine-richtig-schlechte-Su... (in german)

This has happened to me. In some circumstances banks will still honour a charge even though the card is expired.

You'll have to ask the banks why. In my case it wasn't a problem, but technically it shouldn't happen and it's strange that it did.

That actually could have been a problem. If the bank had accepted the charge, the fee for that would have been high, as far as I read when closing the account. This way - by Amazon just getting a bounce - my annoyment was just about the unreasonableness of the fee (to pay 3x3€ instead of 1x3€ just because Amazon decided to split the order), if the bank would have charged me instead it could have become a money problem.

That added to my concern with Amazon just using the wrong bank account, and that old account occuring again and again in my profile. Even if I wanted to order something at Amazon it would be too risky now.

Amazon doesn't charge your card until it's about to ship your order. Thus an order with an invalid card will go through but won't ship.

Fulfilled by Amazon.de screwed up my last micro-order. I ordered an 8-pack of something and got a 5-pack.

Trivial for small items, but doesn't bode well for high value orders.

It's a confidence issue. Amazon has become a logistics giant but is steadily losing customer confidence.

A combination of fake reviews, fake items, high-friction or just plain missing consumer support on high-value items, and a hopelessly confused mess of a shop front all add up to a mediocre and untrustworthy experience.

It's enough that they screw up 0.01 - 0.1% of orders. They are big enough, those people will be loud and not those without issues.

On HN I put comment below because I had some issue - if I had not, such comment would have too little value to post.

I did receive many things without issues and have also received books that looked way worse than if you gave them to a toddler. It's bizarre - they started with books and books are items that are trivial to pack securely.

3 out of 5 books I ordered there were what a regular bookstore would have called a "Mängelexemplar": folded in pages, accidentally cut corners, missing pages

Those are books damaged in printing that the printer is supposed to destroy, some enterprising employee grabs them from the scrap to be recycled and Amazon stands ready. Publishers and authors lose the entire amount. I have seen books like this at weekend swap meets (flea markets) near major printing ecyclers where the recycler employee does the diversion when they see good books(to their eyes) in the scrap.

I cannot remember when I have last received a pristine book from Amazon in Germany. There is always at least one minor damage that I wouldn't get from a store book.

It happens in the UK too.

https://old.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/comments/nm1mm1/i_got...

Amazon in the UK ships 228m a year in 2018 [0], that's going to have increased by now.

If the chance of a problem worthy of complaining on reddit or a blog was a million to one that world be 4 problems a week.

[0] https://tamebay.com/2018/09/amazon-established-as-3rd-larges...

Chiming in here as well; I always trust Amazon to refund me if something is missing or broken without any hassle. A lot of other retailers always gives you a hard time even though they are at fault. They have a huge problem with counterfeit but again always easy to get your money back.

I never had a problem with counterfeit goods until I received a fake board game - took me a while to realise it was fake (horrible quality) - when I did they refunded and I got another one that was real - fine.

Since then though I won’t use Amazon for anything remotely safety related, think child car seat - nope, some equipment for rewiring house, nope.

This also makes me think about higher end purchases, whereas before I was like 100% Amazon, they have lost the trust I had for them and doubt they will get that back.

My main issue is that by the time I realised it was fake the game had been stopped and seller removed so they probably knew the game they sent me was fake (because of other complaints) but they made zero attempt to put it right. It seems if customers report fakes, customers who potentially also received fakes are not alerted and that is a real problem for me.

This is the most bad thing I’ll say about amazon is that the counterfeits are becoming an issue. I saw one person who, perhaps wisely, said they won’t buy anything to eat or drink on amazon because one bad counterfeit could be catastrophic. Your point about safety equipment is a similarly good point.

> It seems if customers report fakes, customers who potentially also received fakes are not alerted and that is a real problem for me.

Amazon doesn't even bother to collect that data. If you want to make a return because you received a counterfeit, you need to lie about the reason for your return, because "I received/believe I received a counterfeit product" isn't a choice they let you choose from when filing a return.

But isn't there textfield for you, where you can specify your specific reason?

I mean, I am not sure, if anybody ever reads those, but you I would not have to lie this way.

Product Not As Described. (It was described as the actual product, not as a counterfeit.)

That doesn't distinguish between "I ordered a book and got a plant mister" and "I ordered a book and got a stapled photocopy with greasy fingerprints."

At best, this sounds like a euphemism to me, and at worst, it seems like Amazon doesn't want to log such information. If Amazon cared to keep track of counterfeit returns, they'd make it an explicit option.

Honestly, it feels like Amazon is intentionally not keeping explicit records of the counterfeits they sell because of their potential liability and the fact that such records would make Amazon look bad in depositions.

Same with roughly the same package volume annually over 8+ years. Literally the only thing lost was due to a historic weather event and Amazon still took care of it.

Maybe with commodity household goods it’s different than with higher value items or with electronics.

Electronics is certainly more of an issue - Nobody is shipping empty boxes of toilet paper.

The main issues you get are when returns are put back into stock but haven’t been sufficiently checked.

I used to work for an online retailer who sold things like games consoles and the amount of return scams we got was absolutely shocking. If you sold a games console with a free game (usually a code inside the console) people would take the game code out, or copy it, and then return the console and have the game. Other times they would take an iPad out, put a brick in the box and then shrink wrap it. Or buy counterfeit AirPod pro’s and swap them for the real ones and return the fakes.

The problem is compounded because people want to buy “new” items with shrink wrap around them, so it’s harder to check returns aren’t scams when the scammers have shrink-wrap machines.

Off topic but I have seen interesting labels that break destructively.

If you could turn that into a ribbon, then any box could be wrapped in such a way any tampering is evident.

If you could also print a QR code on top, then you have a per shipment tamper proof

I suspect it exists but i am sure there is a long way between that and cost effective useage

Isn't it a basic consumer right to take items out of the packaging, try them, and then return them?

Absolutely.

The issue here is people returning it in a state where it is still sealed - as if an item is sealed it will go back into stock straight away and the retailer can’t open it up to check that it is in there.

If it’s opened you can still return it, but once that happens usually electronics have to be sent back to the manufacturer to refurbish/reset.

It’s not about stopping people returning items, it’s about making sure the correct returns channel is used and detecting fraud (which happens when people return the item pretending it’s unopened so it goes back into stock unchecked, but the item has been replaced with a brick).

Right, I didn't get that. But how often is an item returned without the box being opened by the customer?

Also, how does Amazon prove that the brick they received came from the customer and not some employee?

I can’t answer the first question, other than to say “often enough to have a process to handle it”.

As for the second one, with bin/lot tracking you can identify if the item had previously been returned. Employee theft doesn’t usually involve putting bricks in it within a DC - it’s usually easier and less risk to take the whole box (and maybe get rid of the packaging in the toilet, at a warehouse I used to work at someone was found to be stealing iPods because a lot of packaging was found behind a toilet ceiling tile). If the item hadn’t previously been returned, this would usually infer that the customer was lying about receiving it with a brick in it (although obviously there is the possibility that it came in that state from the supplier).

The usual assumption is that the supplier didn’t send it in with a brick, because otherwise customer fraud is too easy - but occasionally that assumption is wrong, which is probably what happened in this case.

They probably checked there was no return in the history, made the assumption it wouldn’t have come empty from Canon, and figured it was the customer that lied.

You are right - there are definitely things that can be done (what you are describing used to be done on Xbox games for example).

The main thing is making sure that these things are ubiquitous, that there isn’t a workaround and that systems are in place to do the specific checks which are different for each item at every return point.

In the example with the Xbox games, not all games had the seal, or the same game SKU might sometimes have the seal and sometimes have a standard case. Then there was the workaround where people could lever the case open at the top and still take the game out.

The danger of seals is sometimes they can provide a false sense of security, but they probably do help when implemented well.

The problem is not lack of tech, it’s that consumers are easier to attract to a platform than vendors so the rules tend to favor the vendors.

> Off topic but I have seen interesting labels that break destructively.

I don't know if it has been invented yet, however here's the idea: a RFID tag that normally returns a valid code, but any removal attempt would not simply destroy it, but rather change the code (for example through bit changes by peeling conductive parts of it) into one that would return a tamper warning at next readings. That would also make possible to track when the box was opened (therefore potentially also finding by whom) since all boxes must be scanned at every step. The tag however should be put in a place where the user would not stick a cutter blade; it should peel off for example as the result of pulling a string to open the box, removing a piece of cardboard, etc.

Same here, i have been ordering with Amazon (Uk & occationally Us) for 21 years and can count on 1 hand the number the number of times i've had delivery issues.

ALL other delivery outfits are horrible in comparison, and i actually dred using any other service.

The UK has many horrible delivery services. DPD and Amazon are two that are acceptable. I dread trying to receive a delivery from any other service. Incredibly there are more than a few that are actually worse than Royal Mail.

UPS is 100% solid for me too. Been shipping with them within the UK and I know they can be trusted. DPD provides much better delivery tracking though, not only they provide an accurate 1 hour slot, they also take a picture of the parcel being delivered so there's no doubt where it went.

Also depends on your reputation as a buyer on Amazon I think. If you order lots of high value items and one goes missing they treat you differently than if you made one high value purchase.

I’ve run a huge pile of apple kit through them in the last two years and when a Mac mini disappeared from my doorstep they refunded without question.

The Mac mini did make a reappearance a week later as it was dumped in someone’s porch down the road and they brought it back round. Spoke to customer services and they sent me a return label to send it back.

> Also depends on your reputation as a buyer on Amazon I think

Probably. There’ll be some people who can rely on their reputation with their CC company too to do a chargeback.

yea I’ve spent an absurd amount on Amazon and now they don’t bat an eye on returns. I reported that my expensive ultra wide monitor hadn’t arrived, they sent another and then the first arrived. I had to contact support and tell them I got two because they had already refunded me. They won’t risk losing their whales.

I have to agree with damaged books. It seems Amazon is using lower quality packaging material today than they did a few years ago.

What’s changed is that they don’t care about packaging books anymore. Previously they would ship books inside of an airgap in a box, or at least inside of a tight box that would prevent damage. Now they will just throw it into a Mylar envelope that offers no protection against bending.

Agreed. Bubble envelopes can work okay if they are the correct size, but I often get normal-sized books shipped to me in XXXL size Amazon envelopes. These mailer envelopes are big enough for the book to rotate freely in amy direction inside of the packaging. So it’s inevitable that it arrives with creased or torn pages and jacket. I even had one where the cover separated from the pages. Horrible.

My preferred approach now is to use niche-retailers for things I care about arriving intact on the assumption that if your entire business is about that product category then you should be knowledgeable about how to ship those items safely. Barnes & Noble for books, B&H for camera, BestBuy for consumer electronics and video games, etc.

Yeah, Amazon loves those bubble bags and even just the mylar ones. They aren't careful enough about what sort of items go in them. Many items are fine that way but more than once I've gotten completely destroyed packaging around an intact item. Fine if I was simply going to use the item anyway, not so good if I was ordering it for someone else. I've also had a couple of cases where I was surprised it survived.

I suspect they are playing the odds, accepting that they will have to refund a few items that got smashed from inadequate protection.

I mostly get what I order, but I don't order much in the way of electronics or things where scams are common, though I did have to be careful when ordering a simple micro SD card as there were many incredibly cheap, off-brand products that were likely to be scams.

I have also seen a few deliveries with pictures that went to what was clearly the wrong address, had a box of chocolates arrive totally melted where the ice pack exploded and left me with a wet, melted box of chocolates, and during early Covid, I did end up getting scam toilet paper rolls shipped in from China. Oh, it was actually toilet paper, but the rolls were incredibly tiny and nothing at all like the pictures.

So... definitely hit or miss and it depends a lot on what you order.

Well, some common sense is needed. Anything at too-good-to-be-true prices are nearly always a scam, for example.

I buy about everything from Amazon, since the beginning, and have had nearly zero issues. A screw-up now and then is forgivable.

Yeah, but I can hardly blame non-technical people who don't know the prices of things and who haven't heard about the cheats that off-brand memory cards can pull. I mean, many of them advertise to the computer that they are the listed size. But... when you fill them up, it becomes clear that's a lie.

I wish Amazon could randomly test and delist some of those products or whatever. Or maybe do some random testing before listing them for sale, it's not some obscure scam after all.

Of course Amazon needs to do better. But the point remains - to-good-to-be-true prices should always arouse suspicions, as they are a tell for scams.

Oh, I definitely look for those as well, but I'm just saying this is often difficult because people don't know what brands are trustworthy or what a "too good to be true" price is in the first place.

When searching for USB sticks, and there are two clusters of prices, one of which is 20% of the other, you don't have to know much to be skeptical.

I’m in the same boat as you. I’ve had a couple of misorders, but they were 3rd party sellers.

And I love the ability to take items back to our local Amazon depot without having to box the item. Just give it back to them and they handle all the shipping.

People keep mentioning the price, the real problem is never buy camera equipment on Amazon. Use Adorama or B&H. I've bought tons of stuff on Amazon over the years, and have only had issues with camera equipment. After the last issue I had a few years ago, I realized it's just a waste of time to deal with camera equipment on Amazon.

Why camera equipment? IDK. Even before Amazon was a thing, buying camera equipment online was always a bit shady. I assume those same people just move to Amazon.

I should add that I've never had a problem sending back or replacing the item even when it was over 1k.

For cameras in the UK I usually buy from WEX instead, who have excellent customer service and specifically sell camera equipment. I quite like Scan for computer components too. But for general “stuff” or tech, Amazon are so much better than places like Currys, it’s not even funny any more.

I have had issues with Amazon in the past, but if you do have a poor support experience you just need to persevere until you get someone more flexible. Which is somehow still better than most of our other stores here in the UK.

The same for me. I had one damaged product, a pack of pork rinds that opened up because it was too tightly packed next to 5L of olive oil. Because of my experience with their customer service (and delivery service which is second only to DHL for me), other merchants need to be substantially cheaper.

Yup, my track record with them is excellent, also.

I have received one wrong item (refunded, told to keep) and one item I didn't order. The only hassle I've ever had was a damaged item they were trying to talk me into accepting a discount rather than returning (a very heavy item, I'm sure shipping was an issue.)

There very definitely is an issue with counterfeits and their comingled inventory system needs to be nuked from orbit. I have once seen a product where it was pretty apparent *every* offering was garbage or counterfeit. I even reported one of the counterfeits to Amazon as the image revealed it was one of the garbage things, not the name brand it purported to be.

I think it vastly depends on what you are ordering.

We passed a ton of orders for valuable goods that were processed by small companies who used amazon as an alternative storefront to boost their sales. Communication was finnicky but everything went fine.

Then we also order a ton of cheap, little convenient stuff that we could have ordered on aliexpress but went to amazon for faster delivery. It was a lot more hit or miss, with pure junk coming in from tjmes to times.

We never hit the level of scam described in the article, but we'd also pay a lot more attention on where it’s coming from before forking 7k.

Hedonic adaptation. I love amazon. I probably place 200+ orders a year, and I have plenty of issues. But that doesn’t make it vastly superior to the alternative.

For example, I bought a projector on BestBuy. They had the dimensions wrong and it wouldn’t fit where I needed it. With amazon, that would be a simple return. With BestBuy, a simple return and a 15% restocking fee. Good luck reaching someone at BestBuy to explain why that fee should be waived. With amazon, it would be a simple chat.

Amazon is infinitely better than most other retailers. People just forget how good we have it.

The commingled inventory problem is seriously a United States thing, from what I have heard. It is a frustrating situation here in the US where lots of spoilable goods are available on Amazon but if you purchase them, they are spoiled. Deodorant, cereal, protein bars, tape, everyone has stories.

A Japanese friend said he could Amazon order a particular variety of candy and it would arrive next-day in good condition and I felt jealous. In America there really is no such service for ordering food or spoilable items online.

Yeah, I’m in the U.K. and I don’t think I’ve ever had a real issue with Amazon. Deliveries are on time 99% of the time and returns are simple (they even covered a £60 Post Office return of a heavy product I decided to return, because their only option required a printer and this was mid-pandemic so I had no way to access one).

Based off this thread I might think twice before ordering expensive stuff from them though - however I usually find other places are better value for expensive electronics etc. anyway

In the US, I tend to favor one or the other of the big US NYC "camera stores" for electronics. (Or a local Best Buy.) The prices are usually the same and I feel they're probably a bit safer if there's some sort of problem.

I don't know if I'm lucky and some other people are just unlucky. But I also sometimes suspect that some people buy things at prices that are "too good to be true" or that always go for the lowest price. (I admittedly also tend to go elsewhere for certain types of items. For example, I always buy my Apple stuff directly from Apple.)

Someone here half joked about the LTV calculation determining how easily they accept returns. Amazon would be incredibly incompetent not to have an A-list who get priority treatment. If they don’t put people like you who make 200+ orders on it, that would be odd.

If you order that much then Amazon has little reason to loose you as a customer, so of course they will not bother you.

Maybe people just like to complain about anything that doesn't meet their impossible standards.

You must have a very secure delivery location, and I'm willing to bet that you probably live in a more affluent community, if what you're saying is even true. That and/or you're having stuff delivered to Amazon locations.

Not to mention not everything is shipped from seller / manufacturer to you via Amazon.

Uhm.....I don't see how living in an affluent community has anything to do with that - few years ago I lived in the dodgiest part of town and never had any issues with Amazon either. I'm guessing you have that view because Amazon in US leaves parcels on your doorstep? Literally never heard of that happening in the UK. If you're not in it goes back to the depot, maybe they'll leave it with your neighbour if you're lucky. So....if you count my own front door as a "secure delivery location" then...yeah? Where else would it be delivered? I guess you could have it delivered to a locker, but if it goes back to the depot I just have it redelivered on Saturday or Sunday when I'm definitely at home.

I would find that horrible. In normal times, I'm most definitely often not at home on Saturday and Sunday. As it happens, I live in a relatively rural area but I absolutely expect deliveries to be left at my front door without me signing for them except for the very odd high value item. If I had to deal with drop-off/pickup arrangements for every order, I'd use Amazon a whole lot less.

You can request that in Amazon delivery settings if you have a safe location at home, but it's not the default. By default parcels go back to depot.

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