(updated see below) Congratulations to Amazon who have made my online purchase of a book far more complex and confusing than if I had just walked to a bookshop.
To be fair they generally give a pretty good service, but all communication I've had with their customer support (with this issue and prior) has been depressingly useless. I suspect (conjecture) that their internal order system does not properly log conversations so when you contact them and are assigned a random staff member they have no access to prior conversation about the order/customer. It's the only way that this months entertainment makes any sense.
I am also making a little leap of logic here and assuming that warehouse_deals_uk are in fact a subset of Amazon who sell second hand books as opposed to an actual separate company.
So... I fancied a copy of Foundation ActionScript 3 Animation: Making Things Move! because I am a truly fascinating person. Here is how it went down.
16 July - Order second hand book from Warehouse Deals UK via Amazon.
22 July - Email from Amazon informing me of a delay to the order. It will be at least 7 days before order can be despatched. That's fine, I'm in no hurry.
30 July - 12:40 - I email Amazon to see if there's any news.
30 July - 16:56 - Amazon email me telling me the order was despatched on the 16th July. They are confident the book will be with me before the estimated delivery period ends. Could I please wait until the 10th August before chasing up the order.
30 July - 17:00 - I email Amazon asking them to kindly confirm the order was despatched on the 16th as I received no despatch confirmation and their earlier email (22nd) had stated it would not available for despatch until at least the 29th.
30 July - 22:02 - Amazon email me telling me the order was actually despatched on the 29th July and could I give it until the 8th before chasing this up. So complete contradiction of earlier email.
03 August - Amazon email me letting me know that the they were unable to get a copy of the book I had ordered and as such my order has been cancelled and I will be refunded shortly.
03 August - I order a copy from elsewhere.
So, my order has been despatched on two different dates and yet will never arrive because it never actually existed.
I would have been fine with 'sorry we don't have it' at the start, rather than complete lies. Why tell me it had been despatched (twice) when it clearly hadn't. Do their staff not check discussion history to ensure they don't actively contradict each other.
Ok, this is not the end of the world, it's not a book I desperately want to read but given the growing monopoly they have on the industry it would be great to have some real customer service. This is not the first time I've had problems with them and I've never had a satisfactory experience with their customer service.
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Updated 04/08/2009
Amazon actually called me to discuss the problems I'd had and explained that although Warehouse Deals are in fact part of Amazon due to the way their system works they have to treat the orders in the same way as if the order was for a seperate company, hence not having full access to all the information.
They explained that because this was treated as an external order I was told it was despatched on the day of order as the system automatically sets the despatch date to the order date. They were confused as to why I had been told another despatch date as well.
I suggested maybe updating their system.
They bought me off with a £5 voucher. Which was nice.
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