Amazon may(?!) have changed their Prime 2-day delivery guarantee policy, Or not. I honestly couldn’t tell:
Hello,
Here’s a copy of the chat transcript you requested:
03:50 PM PDT Brian(Amazon): Hello, my name is Brian. I’m here to help you today.
03:50 PM PDT MBlatz: Hooray!
03:50 PM PDT Brian: Hi there Marshall. How can I help you today?
03:50 PM PDT MBlatz: Can you help ,e top typ better?
03:51 PM PDT MBlatz: Just kidding. My Prime order is late.
03:51 PM PDT Brian: I see. I do apologize for that one. Is this for the Thermos Stainless Steel Beverage Can Insulator for 12 Ounce Can?
03:52 PM PDT MBlatz: Yes. 4 of them, actually. I hope.
03:53 PM PDT Brian: Alright. I can see one of this items is into another shipment. One moment and I will check the tracking details for you.
03:55 PM PDT MBlatz: Tracking indicates they will be here tomorrow. Hopefully.
03:56 PM PDT Brian: I don’t want to give you false promise with this one. There’s a note coming from the carrier that the package can be delivered until Wednesday, May 16, 2018. I just want to give the maximum time but the item can still arrive earlier than that. My apologies for this one.
03:57 PM PDT MBlatz: Great. Since my membership costs just went up, I figured I’d start taking advantage of delivery guarantee, though.
Apparently it provides for an extension on membership? Does this situation meet guidelines?
03:59 PM PDT Brian: My apologies but I still don’t have that option at my end since the delivery didn’t past the estimated delivery date for the package which is Monday, May 14, 2018.
04:01 PM PDT MBlatz: The tracking details say that >now<. But at time I ordered it it was a Prime 2 day delivery…right? Just like it is being offered >right now< (I just added and removed from my cart to confirm).
04:03 PM PDT Brian: 2 day delivery doesn’t include the transit time for the delivery. I am so sorry for this one. Please give us the chance to deliver the item by the estimated delivery date on Monday.
04:04 PM PDT MBlatz: Did you just try to tell me that the 2 day delivery time doesn’t include the time for the delivery.
04:07 PM PDT MBlatz: Hello? I just got an email from you. [_EDIT: this is when I received the “we hope your issue was resolved to your satisfaction, please rate your experience email”]
04:07 PM PDT Brian: . Please allow me to explain
this to you. Our delivery estimates are based on the item’s availability and the delivery speed you choose.
If an item is “In Stock” and you choose One-Day, or Prime Two-Day Shipping, you’ll receive it more quickly
than if you choose Standard or Free Shipping.
We try to consider as well the shipping address and the location for the fulfillment centers we have on US.
04:08 PM PDT Brian: I am sorry if you didn’t still receive the item after two days.
04:08 PM PDT MBlatz: I am not sure you are getting the situation. I did select the Prime 2 day shipping. That’s because I wanted it in two days. JUST LIKE THE OTHER STUFF I ORDERED AT SAME TIME THAT I HAVE ALREADY. Get it?
04:09 PM PDT MBlatz: And Amazon just raised my Prime membership rate. Are they going to stand by their guarantee or not?
04:09 PM PDT Brian: The other items are coming from different fulfillment centers that is why you are able to receive it as soon as possible. However we try to locate first the other items that is why it is on another shipment.
04:10 PM PDT Brian: Prime is getting better every year and the cost to offer Prime has increased. I do apologize for the increase for this one.
04:11 PM PDT MBlatz: So? I don’t care if they are coming from the moon? They just need to be here when I was told they would be.
04:11 PM PDT MBlatz: And PLEASE stop apologizing for things you didn’t do or aren’t responsible for. I don’t know who trained/taught you to do this but it just infuriates customers since they know the apology is empty
04:11 PM PDT Brian: Please give us a chance to deliver the item by Monday.
04:12 PM PDT MBlatz: What you are saying doesn’t make sense, and I don’t want to be BSed with sales and marketing talk. How do I escalate this
04:12 PM PDT Brian: We appreciate your feedback about these changes. I can submit this contact to our internal department to review this one for you.
04:14 PM PDT MBlatz: When will they get back to me? Please don’t say “2 days”.
Also, Why did you send me an email that had the tone of “this discussion is over” when we were still in the middle of talking?
04:15 PM PDT Brian: I don’t have an exact time frame from that one if I ever send a feedback after this contact.
04:15 PM PDT MBlatz: What does that mean?
04:16 PM PDT MBlatz: as in “if you ever”? Are you considering not sending?
04:16 PM PDT Brian: Each contact is reviewed Marshall, any feedback and complaints are being taken note to have special resolutions.
Thank you.
If they are using AI bots, I find it ironic that one of their new Amazon Original series has a story about a post-apocalyptic factory that keeps producing stuff and delivering it via drones. Everything was run by AI in the factory including the “customer” support. It is called Electric Dreams - Autofac and it comes free with your Amazon Prime membership. haha
I didn’t read the wall of text. However, prime free shipping isn’t always 2-day, which is irritating. Sometimes it’s just free shipping. Stuff that is fulfilled by a third party but is prime isn’t always 2-day. See the below pic. The first and second item are prime 2-day, the third is just free shipping (3-5 day).
I had it out with an online person too about a prime delivery that took 4 days. The 2 day guarantee is 2 days from the day it ships. They may take 2 or more days to ship, and that is when the guarantee kicks in. I called total BS and got a $5 credit and decided it wasn’t worth the headache to push further.
My current beef is that 90% of my delivery status (when delivered by amazon courier) shows as handed to resident. I think I have once had a Amazon courier hand me a package, because I happened to be heading out the door at the same time. I’ve even had one that claimed it was left at the mailroom - at my house! I know if I ever have something not show up, and it shows handed to resident, I’m going to be pretty much SOL. But they sure don’t make it easy to figure out who to talk to about drivers habitually lying about delivery status.
As far as I’m aware, they stopped guaranteeing 2-day shipping over a year ago. Guess they had enough misses that comping that month of Prime was cutting into their margins.
It may indeed be an out of date policy; I was being guided by this post from ~6 months ago on Tom’s Guide:
I didn’t see any other recent hits though, including one I might have expected from Amazon amending or rescinding the policy, although that would likely have come as a “Hey, we updated our policies…try and figure out where” email.
Their current Guaranteed Delivery Terms and Conditions policy seems to only cover a refund of shipping fees, and does not explicitly refer to Prime memberships?
As an update to my particular quest, I called and got a person on the phone, who did provide me, happily by the way, with an extra month of Prime after I explained things. So…?
Policy being its own thing, Amazon employees are at least very much empowered to give credits and things like that when they judge it to be appropriate, so it can be worth contacting them if you feel dissatisfied with how things have gone with your order.
The post office doesn’t even go as far as the county road my parents are on. Just before you turn from one county road to theirs, there is a long rail with a couple dozen mailboxes on it. So far, they also maintain a city address, so they have the rural box marked as not accepting mail.
I had an Amazon order not delivered today, and of course, when I checked it was a USPS shipment and the driver was just flat lying.
Shipped with USPS
Tracking ID 9361289670090395279993
Sunday, May 13
9:42 AM
Delivery attempted - Business closed
Carrollton, TX
8:06 AM
Out for delivery
Carrollton, TX US
7:17 AM
Package arrived at a carrier facility
Carrollton, TX
6:19 AM
Package transferred to USPS for final delivery
Carrollton, TX
6:04 AM
Package arrived at a carrier facility
Carrollton, TX
2:35 AM
Shipment departed from Amazon facility
Dallas, TX US
Because of this thread, I decided to use the Amazon customer service chat and see what would happen. Chat transcript:
Initial Question: USPS lied, we are open 24/7 and are here today. USPS did not even drive by. Tracking ID 9361289670090395279993
12:49 PM PDT Girish(Amazon): Hello, my name is Girish. I’m here to help you today.
Thank you for being a Prime member.
I am sorry to hear that your order wasn’t delivered to you.
Please do not be concerned, I will definitely try my best to help you with this.
12:50 PM PDT Stan Simmons: Can you please check that USPS is set to be the LAST POSSIBLE choice for shipping to us?
12:50 PM PDT Girish: May I place you on hold for 2 minutes while I look in to this?
12:50 PM PDT Stan Simmons: yes
12:52 PM PDT Girish: thank you so much for your patienc e
I have checked the order and in this case, I will contact the carrier team and request them to deliver the package as soon as possible.
12:53 PM PDT Girish: I am sorry for the delay. To compensate with this, I will go ahead and extend your prime membership by one month.
Will that be fine?
12:53 PM PDT Stan Simmons: That would be great! Were you able to see if USPS is set to be our last possible shipping choice?
12:53 PM PDT Girish: Yes
12:54 PM PDT Stan Simmons: They routinely lie about delivery on weekends.
Thanks for your time. Have a good day.
12:55 PM PDT Girish: You’re welcome. Is there anything else I can assist you with today?
12:55 PM PDT Stan Simmons: No thank you
12:55 PM PDT Girish: It was a pleasure to assist you with this. Thank you for contacting Amazon.
Please click “End Chat” to close this window.
As you can see, Girish extended my Prime membership without prompting. I’ve always gotten much better results for simple problems by using Amazon’s web chat rather than phone or email. I guess @mblatz just got a chat rep that was having a bad day.
Yeah, sounds like shit luck on your end. I had a problem with an over $35 one day shipping, sent the wrong record to me. I got on chat ended up with a free month of prime, 10% discount on renewal and (had I not already sent it back being two days later) would have been able to keep the record as well. All I asked was how they were going to take care of the shipment of the correct record and mentioned it was a surprise birthday present.
