Amazon Marketplace

A WORD OF WARNING!! DO NOT USE THIS SERVICE IF YOU ARE A FREQUENT PURCHASER.

I am a longstanding frequent customer of Amazon purchasing new and secondhand books from its inception in the UK and during the last 5 years I have placed roughly 900 orders for books and other items. Many of the books were through Amazon Marketplace i.e. out of print items. I placed these orders on the basis that Amazon act as guarantor and will refund my money if the goods do not arrive and,overall,have made a total of FIVE claims for books which have never arrived. I would emphasise I have only made a claim after querying the non-delivery with the seller and receiving no response. I am now advised by Amazon I can make no further claims in my lifetime.

I accept that amazon must protect itself against fraud by buyers but a limit of five claims in a lifetime for frequent purchasers is simply not reasonable. If Amazon allows sellers to offer books via their site then equally they should guarantee refunds for non-delivery on a more proportionate basis.

Twice in the last year, the Amazon web site stated the item was “in stock”. After purchasing, a day or more went by and then informed by email that the items were not in stock and shipping date was unknown. On the first occasion, this issue created a problem since I had a dead line to meet and the turn around time to contacting Amazon and canceling the order exceeded my dead line ( complicated by the Amazon web site down for 1 day). How many of us have the time to repeatedly check a web site to see if it is up? So, I took a chance and ordered through another company and canceled the Amazon order at the next available date. Shipping delays met not just days but weeks and uncertain or “estimated”. The second item was not time sensitive, so I waited. No problems with item received. Order accuracy - fine. Customer service - OK, if the web site is up and running. Overall satisfaction - now leery of ordering from Amazon if I need to receive an item on a deadline.

Item was advertises at a sale price and ordered, but tracking showed it in UTAH for an entire week, I did not receive the item, but back at Amazon the item price increased by 33%. They told me the item was probable lost in transit.
Two weeks earlier an item was ordered as a Christmas gift for a child, the order was held up for a week (mid-December) before I was told it would not ship until February.
I will never buy from Amazon again. Buy.com seem to deliver what you order, at the price you see online, within the time frame promised.

While my husband has happily ordered tools from amazon, I have had a terrible time purchasing used and out of print books. First, the filters are so poor that it is difficult to tell whether a book is used, new, hard or soft cover; there are many in the wrong section. You basically need to email the seller (and it's not easy to find their contact info) to make sure you're getting what you want! Furthermore, the listings are by title, not isbn, so you can't even be sure you're going to get the correct item. E.G. I bought the music to Lady & the Tramp, and got the book of the same title. It's a terrible organizational system, and very frustrating to shop there.

Just placed an order with amazon.com for 2 items totaling $89.94 and was charged $18.23 for STANDARD shipping. They used to give Free Shipping if the order was over a certain amount - automatically. Now you have to go out of your way to select "Super Saver Shipping" or some such thing. On top of that I was presented with a "summary" of my order which DID NOT show the shipping charges. They showed up on the confirmation e-mails indicating my order had shipped. I will not buy from them again. Buyer Beware.

I love Amazon.com. I have both ordered and sold from there.There delivery speed is very good.They were very accurate. The customer service is outstanding. They always email me back immediately.This is definately a great website to both order from and to sell from.

What a waste of time. When I placed my order yesterday Timeslips 2005 software was in stock at a great price and being shipped by Thursday. Today I get an e-mail from someone not even Amazon (their authorized supplier?) saying, so sorry, but we cannot fill your order. Now I will have to buy elsewhere (at a higher price that I was promised) and pay higher shipping to get the software I needed here this week. Never again!

Looking for particular books used to be a problem for me I could never find what I wanted in the shops. Now I generally only use Amazon to purchase books. It is the most convenient and easy way to shop for books.

They have an excellent search facility that allows me to find even the most obscure titles at a reasonable price quickly and easily. They sell both first hand and second hand books but even the second hand books I received were always in excellent condition. They have a very prompt delivery service and I have never had any problems with my orders.

Overall I would definitely recommend Amazon as being a highly competent and efficient company.

I ordered just 2 audio cds from Amazon, which were in stock. They gave me a shipment estimate of 1 1/2 months. And arrival for 3 month (4 and a half for 2 cds!). The last day of shipment estimate, i wrote an e-mail. They told me that the products were not in stock, however on site there were more than 15 available. They lost 60$.

Marketplace is a superb place to buy new(and used) DVDs.Good sellers are rated highly and can be trusted.All sellers are closely policed by Amazon themselves.
Paul Teal.4/8/06

We ordered a microwave oven from Amazon.com. It arrived damaged. Fortunately the delivery man took it back. I notified Amazon of the problem and a replacement was promptly sent. However, it took two more communications from me for Amazon to remove the charge for the first oven from my account. Generally Amazon gives excellent service except when returns are involved and everything in this review applies only to this particular instance.

So I bought a Samsung A900 from Amazon. They had a great deal where the phone would be free after rebate, excellent. But when I tried to activate the phone, Sprint said the serial number is from that of a stolen phone!! It seems Amazon is doing shady deals behind the scenes. I walked into a Sprint store to activate the phone and they wanted to hold me there for further questioning!!! So embarassing! Amazon is the absolute worst place to shop. Do not shop there, please.

Have been shopping and buying at Amazon over ten years, Never one problem of any kind..great prices, quick delivery and friendly customer service. I have purchased many items of all kinds, very happy and look forward to checking out Amazon's site every day.

I order things from amazon marketplace all the time. It's just like ebay, regular people selling their stuff. However, amazon decides how much shipping to charge so you dont get ripped off by the seller. They do it based on weight. So its like $2.49 for a movie/book/video game. And you can do expedited shipping and international shipping. And sometimes you come across a seller that ships late or sends you a bad product. But the same stuff happens on ebay. And amazon has a marketplace guarantee. So if something like this does happen, you get all your money back (even shipping!). Amazon marketplace is so easy to use and reliable. I feel you dont get as ripped off with amazon as you do with ebay. Great place to shop!! And cheap!!

Highly disappointed...I was looking for a particular hard to find item, and came across Amazon Marketplace which had the item I was looking for...and at a really great price (1/2 the price of what I had found at other locations) I proceeded with the ordering about 2 pages worth of generic information given, I never once received a total cost including shipping. I get to the page where I am to enter my credit card information and still don't have a total, I think "something is fishy". I blanked out the information I entered and then found this web-site and all of the fabulous "do not shop here" reviews, I sure am thankful I did not proceed with my CC info. I may have been charged 20.00+ for shipping which would have doubled the original manufacturers price including shipping.