Be Wary of Amazon's Promotions
by simonsmom - Written: Apr 02 '02 (Updated Jun 16 '02)
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I have shopped at Amazon a few times over the last three years. Shipping was hit and miss. Some items arrived within a few days and some way past the ship window given in the item description. I did not have any experiences with Customer Service until just recently.
I was thrilled to see that one of my utility companies was offering a $25 Promotional Certificate for Amazon to sign up for free online billing. I have used things like this with Amazon before and never had a problem.
On April 1, 2002 I found an item in their Toys R Us section that was included in their Spring Savings Sale. Some of the items even had free shipping and this was one of them. I was going to order it that evening after I showed my husband what it was.
I sat down to order it about 8:00 PM and got to the point where I was to submit my billing information. I hit "continue" and it came up with an error page. It told me to try again and to file an error report if the order did not go through after several tries. I tried many, many times, cleared temp files on my computer, cleared the history on my computer, cleared out my shopping cart and started all over again-nothing worked. I filed their technical error report and after I submitted it, a page came up telling me I would not get a response for the report I had just sent them. I thought to myself, "how am I supposed to know when it is fixed?" Well, I kept trying to submit the order with no success at all. I checked the details of the free shipping promotion and their was no expiration date, just a line saying it could be "pulled at anytime". So, I sent an email to customer service stating I had a technical problem and what I had done to resolve it and asked if they could give me an idea as to when the free shipping promo would be over. I didn't want to miss out on it because of a technical error on their part.
I got online the next morning and tried to order again. My instincts were right in asking about the free shipping promotion because it was gone! I retrieved my mail about 8:00 AM and there was a response to my inquiry from the night before. They apologized for the technical error and any inconvenience it caused me. They said that these errors usually clear up and to try again. I saw that on the error page...I wanted to know about the free shipping promo! I proceeded to send them and e-mail to tell them, very nicely, that it was quite obvious they read no further than my explanation of why I was asking about the promo dates and that I don't agree with their "can be pulled at anytime" statement in their promos. And that I was asking when it would be over, not about the error. I also told them that I would use my certificate and that would be the end of my business with Amazon.
A few hours later I received a response that apologized again for the inconvenience and for the misunderstanding. She explained that the promo ended on 3/30/02 and it could not be applied after it ended and in order to get the promo offer I had to order within the promo dates.
My problems with this are:
-The promotion was clearly stated on the Toy page on 4/1/02...she said it ended 3/30/02. March 30th was a Saturday. I saw this promo on April 1st, the following Monday.
-She said I needed to order "within the specified promotional period". The details of the promo gave no specified period, just stated it could be pulled at anytime.
-Since the promo was clearly stated on the toy page when I went to place my order on 4/1, I could only assume it was still going on. I really feel the should give me the free shipping because it was an error on their website that prevented me form placing my order while it appeared in every way that it was still going on.
-I don't spend alot of money there but having about 10 years experience in retail I know that when a customer says they are done with you, you try to make ammends with them. In my experience, losing a customer, no matter what they spend, is not taken lightly and is always dealt with to ensure satisfaction with the customer.
I will use my certificate and when my order arrives, forward them my correspondences about my problem and this review and ask them to delete all of my information from their website. I am even thinking of sending my utility company that offered the certificate an email to make them aware of the customer service (or lack there of) that Amazon is offering their customers who try to redeem the certificates.
I am completely aware however, especially after reading other reviews here, that this will get me nowhere with a company who has obviously lost focus of the whole customer service concept, but it will make me feel better that I can at least inform others of what they may encounter when trying to shop at Amazon.
UPDATE 5/1/02
I sent a letter to Amazon.com on 4/16/02 and have not heard a thing back. I enclosed with my letter print outs of all the email correspondences and screen prints to show them exactly what I was talking about and my letter to AT&T as well as a print out of this review. I am still absolutely astonished that no one, not their email customer service or their corporate headquaters, cares that I had a major problem with them. They have certainly lost my business. I gave them a chance to right their wrong and they seem to really not care at all.
My final say on Amazon is, just be careful. This was my first run in with a problem after having a few orders over the last couple years. I would be meticulous with details as they seem to provide very few and don't like to follow through with what they advertise when they have a technical problem which prevents you from ordering within a given, or in my case, not given time period. They do run some great promotions which I will miss but to me it's not worth the hassle.
Another Update:
On 5/22 I received an email from John Clark, Executive Customer Relations. He again apologized and said that maybe Customer Service should have looked into the situation a little further than they did but I should be assured that they were not trying to brush me off.
He offered the free shipping to me (finally!) on the item I wanted and also offered to send a free Little Tikes gas pump to go with the item. I declined because I wanted to purchase the item at the promotional price and with my certificate which I had already used. I did however check to see if the item was on sale again and it was no longer listed on their website so I couldn't have even taken Mr. Clark up on his offer anyway. I had thought about pursuing it further because of this but I had wasted enough time with it already. I did thank Mr. Clark for replying to my letter and for the offer but I also told him that I really had my doubts that anything would be different if I this sort of thing happened to me again.
So, again...be wary...I had to go through an awful lot to get someone to listen to my problem and offer me a resolution. In my opinion it should have happened alot sooner than a month and a half later and with less effort but at least it happened.
Recommended:
No
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