I Don't Heart Amazon

In fact, to be honest, I loathe being an Amazon customer. Or I loathe myself. One of the other or both.

Let's face it, Jeff Bezos has conquered the world and other than not having the nuclear Football to play with, he is in position to outlast that pig-eyed over-stuffed prig in the White House and be an international power all by himself. He can force cities all across North America to spend lavishly wining and dining he and his decision staff in the (as it turns out, foolish) belief they could be the new OTHER HQ for Amazon, when all along Bezos was going to pick a town (or two, as it turns out) where he could hop to work in a helicopter from his home, whether it be in New York or Washington, where he maintains East Coast homes. Toronto, a mile or two up the road from where I sit, was particularly lead on.

This from a man who pays his workers low wages, runs them like dogs at a racetrack that PETA should be working to shut down rather than imperiously demanding folks stop using phrases like Bringing Home the Bacon, in favour of the ridiculous Bringing Home the Bagels. Isn't the latter culturally insensitive to non-Jews??? (Of course not, it's just ridiculous stupidity from a group with a good message that has transmorphed into a parody of a cult).

And Amazon's face, the one that people at home see when a package arrives at the door, are as poorly treated by Amazon as the warehouse staffs. Maybe more so. Doesn't excuse the stupidity I've found rampant for these last mile Amazon employees. But it should be said, so that I acknowledge that time is money and delivery drivers get paid to deliver, not to chin wag with customers. Still, the rules Amazon imposes and the monetary realities facing the drivers, make most deliveries a case of drop and run. The needs of the customers getting the deliveries are completely and utterly ignored. I know, because I'm a fairly large Amazon customer for a private citizen.

I have to. I'm a shut-in. I can't move around all that well and the only time I leave the house these days is to go to the doctors. And if I'm going out, I like to combine as many doctors visits as possible because I know the following day is going to be wasted in bed, trying to cope with the pain in my legs from doing as little walking as I do. It's taking my fully-prescribed load of pills and trying to sleep my way through it.

So, I need some compassionate delivery. Like I get from my pharmacy or my on-line grocers. Both of which call me in advance before showing up because, as the sign on my front door says, I take some time getting to the front door. But Amazon has a different approach. No phone call. No waiting for me to get there. And if they see the opportunity to put the box or boxes inconveniently as possible, they snatch that opportunity up with relish. Whether it's Amazon delivery personnel, the Post Office or one of their hired-out delivery companies. It's become so bad of late that last month I tried to cancel my Amazon membership.

Before talking about the details of the delivery problems, let me say that I'm a published Amazon author with more books on the way. That's right, I make money from Amazon, yet I wanted to be rid of Amazon from my life. That is how absolutely furious I've become with Amazon of late.

And as it turns out, getting out of Amazon is only slightly less difficult that retiring alive from the mob. In fact, I was successful in canceling my Prime membership, which has always been a scam up here in Canada, although the Prime Video was finally added a while back. Prior to that, Prime did mean quicker than usual delivery, given that you were paying for delivery up front. But even that was and still is a scam. First, most orders are big enough to qualify for free standard delivery anyways. Secondly, during the last two months of this year, every delivery gets that standard. Amazon's gift to the Christmas/Chanukah gift-giving world. And a kick in the face of we idiots who paid for Prime. Second, the fact is that most deliveries are going to get to the customer quicker because Amazon always promises an extra day or two and then delivers (early) on time and the customer feels like that's wonderful service. It's like holding a sale by first raising the prices and then discounting back to their regular prices, leaving customers conned into thinking they are getting bargains. It's a loathsome, evil, vile little way to screw with people's minds and make them think Amazon is the best retailer in the world.

So, I could cancel Prime. Effective August of next year. No canceling and getting back the three-quarters of the money. That money was now Amazon's money. So, I have Prime whether I want it or not. And as for canceling my actual account ... which I can't do because I need it to run my book publishing mini-empire (joking, it's one book for the time being), well, you try and do it. The passive-aggressive threats you'll get will sicken you. Included is the loss of my books, the ones I bought for my Kindle. That's right. They would disappear if I ever accidentally or otherwise, deleted them from my Kindle. I could only access my owned book again ... if I bought it again after setting up a new account with ... Amazon. Now, I've actually been aware of that threat ever since the great George Orwell misadventures from Amazon a few years back where Amazon just didn't benignly keep your Kindle books updated, if the circumstances warranted it from Amazon's perspective they could (and did in the case of one of Orwell's books) reach into your Kindle and delete it. So, I've always taken delivery of Kindle books to my computer and then side-loaded them. That way, I always had a copy of what I paid for. So, when I canceled my Amazon account early this decade because I had both an Amazon.com and Amazon.ca account, the only way to clear up the mess Amazon had created for me was to cancel both and start anew. The loss of the books would have been a deal-breaker (and I did loose updates on the books, which I accepted as a loss I could live with), but I was prepared.

Still, reading through the emails warning me of the dire consequences of canceling my account would stop most people from even starting up an account. Like the fact that all my reviews would be deleted too. Meaning that an inevitable return to Amazon would mean my reviewing rep-building would start anew. And why's that important? Well, prodigious reviewers often score free swag to review, building up a pyramid of review a lot, get a lot, review more, get more, etc. and etc. and etc. Suddenly, you're an Amazon employee. I review stuff when asked politely by the company. I rarely hand out five stars because five stars should mean Amazing! It doesn't for most folks. And of course, you can't hand out zero stars (I tried). Which is what some product scams are worth. And I remember that the product I wanted to zero star was actually rated something like 1.5 stars. A star less than average. yet the product was a complete ripoff, NEVER working for anybody who actually bought the product from what I could see. It was a repackaged item that said it was one thing when it was a worthless hunk of junk that never worked, being something else entirely. Yet 1.5 stars. Because paid-for reviewers would rate it two stars. STUPID people who reviewed before using would rate it two stars. So it sold, to dopes like me who were so entranced by the price-point versus what it promised, that it was worth a few bucks to see if it was a bargain by mistake. it wasn't. And I had to go through the process of returning the product to Amazon. Make no mistake, this was a case of buyer beware pricing blindness. But you know, that product is still for sale on Amazon.

I get daily emails from Chinese trolls trying to get me to review iPhone cases and other such stuff. Never had an iDevice from Apple and will probably go the grave still being able to say that. (And yet, I was a low, low-serial number buyer of the Apple ][ computer back in the 70's. Wrote for Apple-oriented magazines. Was there for the launch of the Lisa and then the Macintosh. You know, the ones in the Jobs movie. But I never bought another Apple after the ][c. I had professionally switched over to the Evil Empire by then, working with IBM computers and something called MS-DOS from a little outfit in Albuquerque New Mexico called Micro-soft. When Jobs completed the transformation of Apple into a boutique computer manufacturer who started building high-end devices, I was lost to the Apple world. Still, a whole series of come-ons that are probably scams arrive in my in-box. Amazon won't say which is which. Which is peculiar since they gather data from me with such gusto, that I have to re-read the privacy policy weekly to keep up. So, I refuse to even read the pitches. I imagine others go the other way and wait for their swag to arrive. And obviously, some of it does. Good reviews are forth-coming. And, I presume, once you've shown your value as a reviewer of knick knacks, the trolls upgrade you to better swag. The problem is, I'm not interested in giving all my personal data to just anybody who offers me a free iPhone case for review with my non-existent iPhone.

So, there is a LOT of stink to the Amazon carcass. I could happily miss out on it if I had an alternative. I've found a bit. My next door neighbour visits Canadian Tire for me. Walmart's on-line stock isn't half of what I can get AT Walmart, but I haven't stepped foot into one since I almost stroked out (heat stroke) in the parking lot of one late in the Aughts. And the free shipping is a bit hit and miss. But it's getting better and I will soon have an Amazon alternative for the day-to-day stuff I need. And Marilyn has become my personal shopper, meaning if I am willing to abuse my friendship of more than 30 years, I could have her running all over Brampton on my behalf. I have enough integrity left over to try and minimize my requests. Barely. Still feels like I'm imposing on her.

At one point, I started taking Amazon up on their subscription services. I was ordering enough Ketchup for the average ten-person family each month, lots of Kraft Dinner original and things like pens, markers, tissues, paper towels, spices, water flavourings and medications, the list was, at it's peak, about 40 items in total and represented hundreds of dollars monthly. Then I got a notice from Amazon limiting me to one pack of Kraft Dinner a month. The next day, the other shoe dropped ... and this was long before President Small Hands forced a Ketchup tariff into place ... Amazon would only ship me one bottle of the Ambrosia of the Gods (Heinz, of course). I asked why, got no answers. At least they didn't TRY to say it was because the biggest retailer in the world had suddenly been given quotas by Kraft and Heinz. I canceled all my subs immediately. Turns out, a lot of people did that. No more 15 percent discounts. Amazon emerged weeks later with a new subscription scheme, topping out at 10 percent. I'd been gaslighted to save Amazon five percent. I was not alone. But it left me asking why I wanted to continue doing business with this greedy, rapacious outfit.

Which FINALLY brings me to the delivery issues. Let's start with Amazon policy to HIDE the boxes in the bushes. Not wait till somebody comes to the door and hand it to them, only leaving the boxes if there's nobody there in a minute or two. Just delicately brush your knuckles lightly over the door (it looks better from the street) and then dump the boxes in the bushes and run. That's POLICY. Time is money, but Porch Pirates require SOME semblance of not leaving the packages out in the wide open. So, HIDE the box. The problem is, I live in Canada and most of my deliveries come in a time when the bushes around my front door HAVE NO LEAVES. Furthermore, my bushes are a full level lower than my front porch/stoop. I walk with a cane and try to avoid it at the best of times. IF the box is in the bushes, even at the best of times, I have to don slippers, grab my cane, go out my door and bend over to pick up a package that is BELOW the level of my feet AND is always heavier than I would like. In effect, Amazon is doing it's unlevel best to kill me.

So, I've asked, politely and not so politely (rudely to be honest) to stop trying to hide the boxes in the bushes. The immediate response was to hide the boxes in the runway between my fence and my garage,behind the back gate. The last time I saw THAT space was when I had raccoons removed from the garage ... a decade ago. If I didn't have my back yard attended to regularly, I would NEVER HAVE KNOWN of the boxes. They would have lay there moldering until the next owners of this house moved in. I was ... unhappy with Amazon. And shared it.

Still, Amazon delivery personnel became adept at stupid placement of the boxes. I have a door that opens towards the north. They'd put it on the south side where I would never look for anything. I got one delivery of a big box and the decision on that one was to place it directly in front of the door. A heavy box that I could not budge sufficiently to leave my own home. I called a neighbour to help move it three feet north and then into the house. I hope that driver doesn't procreate. And worse things. Another driver came close to doing the right thing. He put the box between my outer screen door and my inner door. Too big to close the outer door, but a good try, if it hadn't been on a seriously windy day coming from the north. My box was found five doors down and returned to me. Wind has driven my deliveries north and south. The best effort was at the end of my street to the north. A total of 20 houses. Sometimes, I don't get deliveries and theorize it's more likely it was delivered, but blew away, than it was delivered to the wrong address. Not that that THAT hasn't happened. Twice, in fact. Not everybody on the street knows me, although I have lived here for more than fifty years.

I acquired a chair with a porous bottom so water and snow wouldn't pool. I had it chained backwards to the street so that it would serve as the defacto hiding place. It's right beside the door, under the mailbox. Any rational person delivering a box to the address and NOT waiting for me to come to the door, would put the package on the chair and be happy it was hidden from the street, meeting Amazon policy. So, last month, in one week, I had single delivery I had checked off to arrive on the Friday, start arriving piece meal, beginning on the Wednesday. Three separate deliveries on Thursday and one, that finished off one of the Thursday deliveries, came on the expected Friday. Of the deliveries, one was on the south side of the door. One, the big one, directly in front of the door, one in the mailbox, one in the space between my doors and one UNDERNEATH MY CHAIR. Not ON the chair, UNDERNEATH IT. I discovered that one on Saturday. Number of packages ON the chair: Zero.

Because Amazon gives you tracking websites for your deliveries, I knew that agreed-to Friday shipments were coming on other days. So, for Wednesday and Thursday, I didn't go to my office on the second floor, I did some paperwork and napped on the bottom floor approximately twenty feet from the front door. Never once did I hear a knock on the door. I'm old, but my hearing is decent enough to hear a rap when it comes. Not once. In fact, in the past half-decade, I can count the number of times I heard a knock on the door (and my doorbell is a video doorbell with a rather loud chime, so that is not the alternative they can claim) on one hand. Out of dozens of deliveries, approaching hundreds. Never mind the disruption to my work day and my sleeping habits, Amazon's deliveries are never ON-TIME.

For at least the last two sets of deliveries, I have ordered shipments to arrive on the same day. It's a new feature Amazon is testing out BECAUSE too many customers are complaining about unexpected deliveries or having to re-arrange their lives for multiple days when the deal was to get them all on the same day. Last month it was three days of deliveries for the one that was on the agreed-to day. This month, ALL of the deliveries will occur on days other than this Friday. The one I ticked off to receive all the boxes, even though I could have had same-day delivery for half of them on Tuesday. I live a two-minute drive from an Amazon distribution centre!!! But I CHOSE to get them all on Friday to minimize disruption of my day waiting for the delivery. The number of packages I will get on the agreed-to day? NONE. How very serviceable Amazon is. Taking the savings they give me in delivery costs by wasting two afternoons and early evenings of my life. By my calculations, if I hadn't been charged for what I bought at all, meaning free stuff delivered for free, Amazon still owes me a few hundred dollars based on my billable rate.

And when I bought this up with Amazon support last month, one of the idiot managers had the temerity to say, well there's a line you can fill in for instructions. Which is a bald-faced lie. There is no such line. There's a security code space. If she thinks that's adequate, you try and fill in instructions with 25 characters to fill. "Knock on the door, ring the doorbell and wait at least one minute for the customer, who has health issues. If the customer is not there in a minute, leave the package on the chair beside the door." Yeah, doesn't fit. Should be on my file. Been told it is. I've been lied to.

So, THIS month, I resorted to once again choosing to get all the packages on Friday. Which is stupid of me. But I added a second address line. RingBell,KnockOnDoor,LeavePkg-Chair That's my full 35-character limit for that line. My delivery yesterday? No bell, no knock, the package between the doors, where it didn't fit. Congratulations Amazon. You've kept a screwing up streak intact that would embarrass most companies.

But not one Jeff Bezos runs. The package was early. Nothing else matters.

And because I disagree, but am one of millions of Amazon thralls, I can loathe Amazon, myself for using Amazon and everybody at the support desk who have two answers to ALL complaints once you can find a way to contact them: Replace the shipment for free (which works unless it was time sensitive) or pass along the complaints/suggestions to the department in charge. That's the two answers. Placate and move on. The whole Amazon Customer Service playbook. Not fix, just wait for cheap prices, ease of ordering, large selection and that ever-present early delivery to wash away whatever today's problems are.

Amazon is heading for government regulation. The company will be split up with Amazon.com and Amazon Web Services inevitably becoming separate companies. Both run in an ethos developed by Jeff Bezos. Not much will change, but politicians in the USA will puff out their chests and proclaim to one and all that they were doing their job regulating mega-monoliths like Bezos. And nothing will actually change. Deliveries will continue to be early and disrupting and hidden in bushes. Bezos will be indifferent to all of this citing his monopolistic power in many vertical market niches is for the good of the customer ... which he determines to be price-point dependent above all else.

And I will loathe Amazon, because I will still be a customer and author. And I will come to loathe AWS because somehow that relationship will sour over something or other. Did I mention my cloud backup service is Amazon Glacier?

No, I don't heart Amazon. I did once. But the love affair is over. And it will never come back. Amazon is a group of largely good, hard-working (over-worked) people who work for a loathsome organization. A plague on Bezos' houses, all three of them.

POSTSCRIPT: Today, the driver knocked and rang the bell and left the package on the chair. In other news the world stopped spinning to allow me to recover.