Another Amazon thread...

Not to bash, but to ask a question.

I know there's a lot of Amazon experience here and I know they can be prone to some unusual transactions. I'm fairly new to the whole deal, and ordered something in November as a Christmas present. It looked like it wasn't going to arrive on time and I had the option to cancel and get my money back, so I did. This was December 12. I was promptly refunded my $300.

I just received a call from a logistics company, a message, that delivery is arranged for tomorrow between 10 and 6.  Should I expect Amazon to then debit my credit card? Should I call somebody and try and straighten this out, or should I just wait and see what's going to happen? I'd already decided to go another route in the spring.

In reply to Peabody :

From my experience this year, you're going to get the item and nobody is going to care. So just roll with it?

I concur with Javelin. A few years ago, I ordered several warehouse style shelves for our basement through Amazon. Company said they had supply issues, cancelled the order. Several weeks later a few hundred dollars worth of warehouse shelving was delivered to my house.

In reply to Peabody :

Wait to see what really arrives.  Could be the product that you canceled.  Could be something completely different.  Could be nothing at all and the email is just a scam to get you to confirm your credit card info or amazon account info.  

Do the least you have to and see what happens. 

I might also be shy to answer, "no one will be at my house during the day, tomorrow"  in case of robbery scam.  

I have had this happen several times.

First time was when I ordered some chinese bar stools.  The reviews were terrible but it looked like some whiners that were just complaining because they didn't have metric allen wrenches.  They showed up and were pretty bad, at least not worth what the price was.  I initiated a return and my money was refunded and got some bot message asking me to jump through hoops like provide pictures, leave a positive review, blah blah.  I wrote back several times and always got the same bot message.  I called Amazon and they looked over everything and said "keep the chairs, you've done everything you can."

Second time was ordering some injectors for the Branger.  They were sold through Amazon, but drop shipped from the company.  The company was closed for covid, but no one knew.  I called Amazon and they said they must be lost in transit so we'll ship out 6 more.  They did and I got them a couple weeks later when the company re-opened... along with the original 6 I had order months before.  I now had 12 injectors.  I called Amazon back and they said they can't do anything since it's not their product.  I called the company who remaned the injectors and they told me to keep them because Amazon paid for both sets.  So I traded the extra injectors for a bottle of whiskey at the Challenge.  A REALLY GOOD bottle of whiskey.

Just recently I ordered some holiday gifts from Amazon.  They arrived on schedule, but because of some glitch they weren't marked as delivered.  I got updates that said "running late" but I had the stuff in my hands.  They tried to re-send the products and I had to let them know that I already got them.

If you play along with Amazon's website and finally get to chat window in the returns help department, there is an option for them to call you to resolve the issue.  The second you click that button and enter you number, your phone rings and you can talk to someone.  They will look at the screen and give you an answer of what to do.

Amazon has warehouses that stock things that they sell, but the majority of what they sell is via third party companies that sell via Amazon kinda like Ebay.  Once the order digitally leaves their servers they kinda wash their hands of it.  The order goes to the third party.  All Amazon knows is that you paid them, they paid the third party, and the product didn't show up, so they refund you.

Now, here's the tricky part.  The freight company thinks you own it and they are transporting and storing YOUR product.  If you refuse delivery, they might charge you storage.  I would inform the freight company of the situation and see what they want to do, and also inform Amazon of the situation.  Chances are, Amazon will then sort things out with the freight company.  They may say, go ahead and take delivery and we'll come get it.  They may say just keep it.  Who knows.

Logistics companies are typically well-oiled clusterberkeleys.  They have a bulky item, it needs to get where it's going, and they operate on minimal profits per shipment.  They aren't in the storage or convenience business.  They are used to delivering to businesses that have predictable hours that they can receive freight.  In that way, they can plan on the last leg of the trip being a predictable schedule from somewhere between 6am-6pm M-F.  When delivering to a residential address, one customer saying "I'm out of town for a few days" usually makes them lose their E36 M3.  I'm not saying it's right, but if they just held onto freight until it was convenient for the customer, they'd be out of business.  Think of it like Lucille Ball working in that candy factory.  One delayed delivery can lead to massive problems.

I ordered a item before Christmas. They shipped me a different item. I returned different item and requested they ship the correct item. 4 days later two correct items arrived. I made a good faith effort to return one of them with zero luck. It's not worth my time to keep after it so I guess I have two porch benches now. 

I think it comes down to it's not their money and they don't want the hassle of dealing with the problem. 

Thanks for the responses. They're pretty much exactly what I expected. I contacted the logistics company, told them I'd be home all day so go ahead. If I told them the story I'm sure they wouldn't care. I'll get it, or maybe not, and we'll go from there.

I recently watched an episode on CBC about where Amazon returns go. They ordered, returned and tracked some items and it was pretty interesting.

You can see it here on CBC Marketplace.

I bought a counter top, convection, toaster oven to regenerate desiccant packs at work. 

The one I ordered had a "safety" feature that automatically shut it off after so many hours.  This wasn't a cheap toaster oven, it was like $120.  I reached out to Amazon customer service, told them the oven I ordered wasn't going to work, since I needed one that I could leave on indefinitely.  They apologized, refunded my money and told me to keep the oven.

They did the same with some M4 socket head bolts I ordered.  I only needed 3, but I could get like 100 cheaper from Amazon than just 3 from Fastenal or McMaster, so I ordered them.  I needed fully threaded, the picture on the listing showed a fully threaded bolt.  When they arrived however, they were only partially threaded.  Again, customer service refunded my money and told me to just keep the bolts.

So the courier showed about 4:30 this afternoon and promptly dropped the pkg off in front of my garage once he knew somebody was actually home.

We are now potentially richer by one fancy and large trampoline.

It shows in my account as being delivered December 2/20. Should I request a return and see if we can get our money back twice and still keep it?

At least you get things you actually ordered. 
 

Last year I had a mystery $120 foot massager show up with my shipping address on it at work. This made everyone question my need for a fancy foot massager. I actually assumed it was for someone else at work and didn't look at the label closely for a few days. Amazon didn't know where it came from or why and I didn't get charged for it.