Amazon.com - trouble in paradise?

[massact]

I love Amazon - have from day one! But all of a sudden I'm hearing of them pulling really shady or sloppy things that you'ld only expect from discount houses or something like that. This Christmas they've managed to rip off my mom (which ticks me off to NO end - she's a crippled little old librarian, for Pete's sake). They also, inexpicably decided not to send the HUGE order of gifts I placed with them on the 8th until next month. Everything's in stock, at Amazon. No explanation at all.

I'd heard a few grumblings in the past about them, but usually from people who were "working the system", trying to double discount with a side of free shipping or something like that, ya know? But when this happened to us, I wondered how many other long-time loyal customers are now getting the short end of the stick too? I'll update when/if I hear back from their customer service!

[SurveyBang]

from a financial perspective, amazon isnt doing all that hot lately. they are facing a lot more direct online competition with the decline in sales versus their previous years combined with cost of operations. That and the fact that no one is willing to shop online anymore more unless they have some sort of coupon or discount (not that i blame them). customer service is always the first thing to go...basically because labor is the easiest expense to control.

[massact]

I did, actually, hear back fairly quickly. I'm still stuck with the extra shipping costs and no promises that all the stuff will get here for Christmas, but they were kind enough to point out that it was my fault for not reading the fine print. I'm a long-time internet shopper with a degree in English Lit, for Pete's sake, so I CAN read fine print, mind you, but here's the deal (in this case):

Amazon apparently has warehouses all over creation (makes sense). It takes varying amounts of time to retrieve things from these different sites. One of the 2 dozen items I ordered was in a site (I suspect at Area 51) that, for some reason, they could not access until after Dec. 29th. So my entire order was being held up for that one item. That part is my fault, since I checked "Ship everything together". However, when I buy something from Amazon, that is shipping "From Amazon" and "In stock", I don't expect it to take a month for them to get it in the mail - that part, in my opinion, is their fault.

For now I'm just keeping my fingers crossed everything will get here soon. I just wanted to share this since so many survey sites pay with gift certificates from Amazon. So many companies are going under, it's always risky to accept or give a GC - it may be useless tomorrow

[Whatatay]

I don't think you get any kind of a discount for shipping everything together.

Say you buy two $13 items to put you over the $25 order for free shipping and one item is out of stock. They will ship them both separately for free.

Why anyone would check the box top have them all ship together is beyond me, especially on a big order. In this case I say it is your fault.

[majax79]

I paid $79 for Amazon Prime and all my eligible orders are shipped 2nd day for free for one year.

I've saved myself a ton of money doing that. If you don't have $79 to shell out though it's tough. I've never had a problem with Amazon though. I did find it weird back a few years ago when they started selling everything in bulk.