I knew today was not going to be a great day from the moment I woke up. I didn’t know why exactly, but there were some contenders: Snow fall while driving a car that likes to slide in snow, catching up my old department at work while they look for a new person to take over, the standard depression over the weather and area.. but the one that has me most irritated was having to call Amazon Customer Service.
To be fair, it’s not solely calling Amazon Customer Service that has me irritated, but having to in the first place takes a chunk of the responsibility.
Don’t get me wrong, I like Amazon. I like to order things. I like to get packages. I like to order things on Amazon and get packages. I’m a simple man.
Today I got a shipment confirmation, which normally gets me all excited, but.. but this time I didn’t order anything (from Amazon. Thank you eBay!) It appeared to be some kind of gamer gear, and considering my gaming life peaked with Super Nintendo, it was most decidedly not mine. The confirmation had the package shipping to my name, but to California. I can definitively say that I do not live in California, nor is Pennsylvania California, nor is Pennsylvania near California.
I was still at work at this point, Amazon is blocked on my computer, which is actually not very handy considering I am now head of maintenance and will most likely need items from Amazon at some point… So I check my account on my phone. It shows no recent orders. I do, however, have the order number from the confirmation email. So I google the Amazon Customer Service number and give them a call.
I get.. someone… If I had to guess, I’d say Indian. Not to be racist or anything, but she talked really fast and I couldn’t understand a god damned thing she said despite her speaking English. She had to ask for my middle initial 6 times before I realized she was saying “middle initial”. I’d say I’m being more stereotypical.
So after she verifies me I tell her I got a shipping confirmation for an order that says it’s mine, but I didn’t order it, and it’s going to California and I don’t actually live in California.
She confirms that I had a shipping confirmation for an order I didn’t place.
She asks if she can put me on hold (4 times because what the hell did she say? you could tell she was getting irritated… pull the mouth piece away from your mouth!)
She comes back and says that if the package arrives I should refuse it and when they see it was refused they’ll give me a refund.
Whoa, I say. Whoa. It’s not coming to me. I mean, yes it says it’s coming to me… but my address is not in California. In fact, when I called you asked me my address. It should be on your screen. In the event you’re not familiar with US geography, PA is no where near CA, although I do admit they sound similar when you do the abbreviations. She tried to reiterate: IF it shows up tomorrow, refuse it and when it’s refused we’ll issue a refund.
Well there’s no if about it. It’s not going to show up. Not here, at least. On the whole other side of the country perhaps, but definitely no where near where I currently am, which limits my ability to refuse said package. I get put on hold again.
She comes back and says the if it should arrive, refuse it, in the morning they’ll look into it and issue a refund. She’ll send me an email with information.
The email says:
“Hello Joshua,
You can refuse this shipment when it arrives. Refusing the shipment allow you to return it with having to pay for return shipping.
If Amazon receives a carrier notification indicating the package was refused, we’ll process your refund at that time. If we don’t, receive a carrier notification, it can take up to two weeks for us to receive your return and process your refund. You’ll receive an email when the refund is issued.
I’ll give you a call tomorrow in regards to this.”
So I’ve pretty dissatisfied with the result so far. Going through my emails, I did find some emails form Amazon, the initial order placement, a Welcome to Prime email, and an email about my refund for a previous order. I get like 60 bullshit emails a day and missed these ones until it was already shipped.
I do have a refund pending on a previous order… it was a $25 order. This was a refund of $210 for a flir imager that I ordered a few months ago. I talked to no one about that. The refund was issued to a gift card that was issued to my account.
I’ve since changed my Amazon password, Amazon store card password, and canceled the free trial of Prime. It does, however still show a $20 balance on the gift card. The reason for the refund is “account adjustment”. What the fuck is that? And are they expecting my Flir back? When they don’t get it, am I then going to have to cough up nearly $200 to pay for something I already paid for?
I don’t like any of this.
