Amazon Customer Service

[Stephen Smith Sr]

Sorry in advance for the length of this post, but it's a good one.

I've been looking for a 10" cabinet saw for quite some time. I came across the Amazon Warehouse Deals website which has open box and returns for sale at pretty great discounted prices. After finally pulling the trigger on the JET 10" Xacta with the 50" extension and downdraft table (at a $774 discount that only has minor scratches to the accessories) I had to wait another 3+ weeks for delivery. When the delivery day finally came I get a call from my son-in-law saying there appears to be a mistake. He said there's only one box. I said that's ok, the electronic invoice said it's shipping 1 package and weighs about 640lbs. Then he said "I'm holding the package"!

Ok, that's a problem.

Long story short, I refused delivery and called Amazon customer service. That's where things got fun. The lady I spoke with was having an issue understanding the real problem that only a single box (I'm assuming it was the fence) was delivered and it wasn't the most expensive part, and I'm missing the saw! There was a bad phone connection as well as a language barrier which made this so much fun. She kept telling me she would issue a credit and for me to reorder it. She couldn't grasp that this was an open box and there wasn't another one on the website to reorder.

She finally transferred my call to a shipping dispute representative. After I finally explained the entire story to "Sara", she said don't worry we'll figure this out. She said she'd contact the shipper for them to do a dock sweep and would get back with me in 24-48 hrs. Well 48 hrs comes and goes and nothing! I send Sara an email and asked what the plan was if the saw didn't get found.

She finally replies and says the saw was nowhere to be found and she was issuing a credit to my account! What a let down. Basically a month down the drain.

But, the rest of the email is crazy. She then said I've also issued an additional credit of $774 to purchase a new one! Guess what? I was not expecting that at all. In my opinion, Sara (Amazon) went above and beyond with that one. Now that is customer service.

New saw is getting delivered next week! Nice!

[Nick Decker]

Agreed, that's a "good one!"

[Marshall Harrison]

Agreed, that's a "good one!"

Only if the new saw actually shows up at his house.

[Nick Decker]

Only if the new saw actually shows up at his house.

If it's a $774 credit to his account, sounds like he could spend it how ever he wants.

[John K Jordan]

But, the rest of the email is crazy. She then said I've also issued an additional credit of $774 to purchase a new one! Guess what? I was not expecting that at all. In my opinion, Sara (Amazon) went above and beyond with that one. Now that is customer service.

New saw is getting delivered next week! Nice!

Incredible! I've had them go way beyond what I expected and even hoped for but your story is the tops!

JKJ

[Frederick Skelly]

Great story. Super-amazing customer service. I don't think even Lee Valley would do that, but good on Amazon!

Do us all a favor. Come back to this thread after the new one arrives and say "yes, they really did what they said they would - just to close it out.

Enjoy that great new saw!
Fred

[Nick Decker]

Stephen, I'm gonna guess that you are a regular and good customer of Amazon. Let's not forget that while they're talking to you they're looking at at a screen containing your buying history, probably even have assigned you a specific category/code that tells them, "Don't piss this guy off! Do whatever it takes!" etc. etc.

I'll confess to being one of their prolific customers and, while never involving that much free money, they've surprised me quite a few times.

[Dave Lehnert]

At the beginning of the year I placed an order for a few things with Amazon.
One of the items was a CD that was not yet released. They held my entire order and would not ship till the release date of the CD that was 6 weeks out. Not the way they operated in the past but whatever.
Fast forward to the release date. I contacted Amazon about my order. Said it would be another two weeks because I picked super saver shipping. Again, not the way they did in the past.
Long story short. I complained that was the exact reason I order from Walmart.com now and they ship free with no membership.
My order was at my door in two hours if I remember correct. Impressive for sure.

[Frederick Skelly]

Bummer Dave. Thanks for the tip about Walmart. My concern with them is their customer service in the store, has never impressed me. How is ir online?

[Matt Day]

Much lesser value here, but I ordered some pull ups for my son because I was running out. Needed Prime delivery or I’d have to go to an actual store - who does that anymore!? Lol.

Get an email saying the items were delayed 4 days, frustrating call with language barrier and poor reception and 15 minutes later I have new items shipped out to arrive on time and I can keep the delayed order. All worked out in the end and now I’m pull up rich!

Glad to hear your saw will work out for you!

[Stephen Smith Sr]

The only stipulation was that the item had to come from Amazon itself and not a 3rd party. As soon as I put the saw in my cart the promotional credit showed up. Like Marshall said, it's a good deal as long as my saw actually shows up this time.

The question is: who ended up with the saw? Amazon had to have had possession of it at one time to be able to quantify the damage as mentioned in the description. Also, because of the business I'm in I've actually visited an Amazon warehouse before and let me tell you they have quite the operation, and there's no way they only had the fence when it was supposed to be a complete saw. So that leads me to think that someone on the transportation side ended up with a nice saw that just so happened to disappear along the way. Unfortunately there are some dishonest folks out there!

[Stephen Smith Sr]

We buy pretty frequently, but certainly not to the extent they would consider us a "big fish". There's no way they have us targeted for special treatment. My wife has always said their customer service was great, I just never dealt with them myself. No company is perfect, but I believe they were truly trying to make the situation right, and they certainly did that.

[Greg R Bradley]

I see good and bad here. Amazon will work with you to try to make things "right". BUT they just seem completely brainless and stuck in their standard procedures. An example is that I have all my Amazon items delivered to my business, roughly a half million dollars worth a year. Of course, I have a business account and have "Prime". Prime shipping means accelerated delivery for a flat $99 a year. There have been times they pay for Fedex Priority Overnight to get me a $4 item the next morning. Normal freight is $65 so even if they are getting the deal of the century on that it has to be a BIG loser. Another is they keep using their Amazon local delivery since I'm a few mile from one of the big warehouses (and the second biggest UPS and Fedex distribution centers in the US). The Amazon local deliveries keep using local subcontractors to leave stuff in front of my shipping/receiving office after hours. The life expectancy of anything left in this area after business hours is minutes. Aluminum cans left in the back of my truck DURING business house usually disappear in an hour! but they just keep "delivering" stuff and leave it in a commercial area filled with homeless trash up to 8:00pm!
Interesting is the $30,000 per month that I buy from Amazon is 80% screwups, not normal items. One item today was some parts storage bins at $36.24 per case. If I reordered they would be $127.20 per case. Here is the link to one of the items:https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00XHG72YQ/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Here is the order:
Quantum.JPG
Clearly their goal is to drive all of the legitimate businesses out of business so that they own everything and then we are getting completely screwed over. Sadly, they are screwing the sellers that are willing to sell on Amazon in the process.

[Ben Rivel]

Over the years Ive gotten quite a few free things from Amazon due to mistakes and mishaps like this and their odd way of handling them.

[Peter Christensen]

Stephan I'm glad you have a good resolution to your purchase.

Recently I wanted to buy a Makita 4 stroke string trimmer for the yard. Amazon had it for just under $400 so I ordered it. In the checkout process because it was a big package it wouldn't accept my postal box address and wanted an alternate address for delivery. It wouldn't accept my house address because I couldn't put in the postal code because the house doesn't have one. So I called the service department for help and after explaining the problem a number of times the guy putting me on hold said there was nothing that could be done so I politely asked for someone higher up. He hung up on me. Called back and another woman tried her best to do something but they can't override the system. She could only suggest shipping it to a friend or relative at another address. So since Home Depot sell them online and price match I tried to order from them. Same thing with the online order happened so I called them to order by phone. They would price match but wouldn't send it to my address without a postal code nor would they send it to a store for pickup. A friend let me use his UPS Store address for delivery and I got the trimmer that way from Amazon. A really dumb system that doesn't allow anything from the standard. The trimmer worked really well as any Makita product does.