Many of the occasions they would call me asking for directions (one time a driver called me 5 times in a row from a washington number, never left a message. I was in a work meeting and though someone died...), then literally minutes later would mark the package as undeliverable.
I finally spoke to someone there one night named Sara and spent over 2 hours on the phone with her while she refunded the whole order (like $100 of random "IoT" stuff), stayed on the phone with me while she got GPS coordinates from me (with my offering them from an app on my phone), put my address in their system, put a bunch of notes about how to get to my house, made sure the package would be delivered the next day. The packages are finally getting delivered (i made sure to call back and make sure her manager knew how much she helped), but I still have issues where the drivers just won't deliver it, or will beat the crap out of it.
Hell just a week or 2 ago I found a bubble mailer blowing down the road, by chance I decided to pick it up to throw it out assuming it was trash, only to find it was addressed to ME! Turns out it was something that should have been delivered a few days ago.
I'm not reupping my prime subscription when it's up. I already don't go with amazon if I need anything quick, because there's like a 50% chance it will take 4-5 days to get to me, even with prime.
Oh my god, this. I also never seem to get same-day delivery, despite it being "guaranteed". Amazon seems to have a completely different definition of what a guarantee is. I have also had more damaged items from their own delivery than even FedEx, which is pretty sad when you think about it. I wish they would just buy FedEx and turn it around rather than use their existing rag tag delivery service.
"Guaranteed 2 day shipping" - ordered on Tuesday. That would mean Thursday, right? Wednesday, Thursday.
So why does it say that it's coming Friday _immediately_ after? Ridiculous.
And having done that, still not fulfill the guarantee.
God, this has bitten me more times than it should have before I stopped buying from Amazon. Several times they marked an item as delivered even though it wasn't (I was home all day and nobody came to the door for any reason, no trucks on the street), presumably because they have a package quota and they aggressively overstuff their drivers. Once they delivered it, but left it right at the head of my driveway. What a huge pain.
I was noticing a lot of my deliveries were defaulting to this last year, but we've had mostly UPS/USPS since then. I had assumed that AZ had shifted away from them, but maybe just in my area.
I don't have this problem. The only place within 20 minutes I can drive to to buy stuff is Walmart, so if Walmart doesn't carry it (and they frequently don't have the greatest prices), then I'm looking at a substantial amount of time just to go buy something. I live a couple miles from work (about as far as the Walmart), so this means I only go to farther-away retailers on weekends, usually as part of an all-day excursion, so if those retailers have crappy hours (very common), then that makes it even harder to visit them. On top of this, there's a $6 toll bridge in the direction of the nearest area with a lot of retailers. Because of all this, I get a lot of stuff online when I can: it's usually no more expensive, and it's far more convenient.
That said, I've been becoming more and more disappointed with Amazon over the last year as well. There's just way too many scammy sellers and Chinese sellers on there (and they don't make it that easy to tell which ones are in China either).
Lasersh*t strikes again
I think the main issue is that there's only one lady staffing the office part-time, so it's sometimes closed when the driver gets there. That's not a problem for the major carriers: their drivers are professionals who know their route and when to be at the office; and if they they're late, they just put the package back on the truck for tomorrow. Amazon probably pays their randos on a piecework basis and they're not incentivized to follow the instructions and return the package to the shipping depot when I'm not at home and the office is closed.
I have communicated the office's hours to Amazon Logistics, and they said they'd enter it into their system, but that has done absolutely no good: the problems persist. A good carrier would have drivers that could read signs and update and retrieve notes from their own systems without requiring customer intervention. Amazon Logistics is not a good carrier.
Edit: Did some Googling and found this: https://www.reddit.com/r/amazon/comments/53ybde/amazon_logis...
> Amazon put enormous pressure on drivers, the reason drivers put parcels in recycling bins is due to the fact that we are reprimanded for returning to the depot with parcels. They expect 100percent delivered everytime.
No wonder they suck.
Me too, and I can add:
6. Spend time figuring out if the product is available locally for the same (or better) price. I feel like sucker buying from Amazon and waiting a minimum of 2 days to get something I could have gotten locally in 20 minutes for the same/cheaper price.
7. Deal with Amazon's new, terrible delivery service. Using untrained, un-unformed randos to deliver packages in their personal vehicles means my deliveries get screwed up much, much more frequently. I've had these people fail follow my package delivery instructions that are posted on my door (deliver to the apartment office, rather than leaving at the door), even after I've talked to them personally. No other delivery service has this problem. I blame Amazon for this experience far more than the drivers.
It's gotten to the point where I only go to Amazon for less-common long-tail stuff. If it's an item that may be reasonably available at a retailer, I just shop locally.