Amazon, Continued...

This is a continuation of my previous post:

So I had my mom return the double copy of my linear algebra book to Amazon, and a few days later I got an email from Amazon asking to reply with the total of the shipping charges. Amazon was going to refund them, no questions asked and without receipt proof.

Nice, right?

So I replied with the amount and thought that was the end of this whole issue.

Two weeks later (today) I got another email from Amazon saying that they had received the returned package and had processed a refund to my bank account for the entire amount of the order, plus their estimated shipping costs (total: $158.90).

"Uh..." I thought. "What should I do now?"

Actually, I was a little confused thinking that I was charged for two copies of the book and that I should take the refund, but I checked my bank account and credit card history and I was only charged once. So basically, I could have gotten this linear algebra book for free.

I called Amazon back *sigh* and explained the situation (again). The guy seemed surprised that I called, didn't really know how to process the reversal, and ended up charging me for the cost of the book, without shipping (reversing the refund). So if you were keeping track, I pretty much got a book from Amazon with one day shipping and I didn't have to pay for it. I don't have a prime account.

They realllly do care for their customers.

On the other hand, I think the Lord's testing me. I basically had two chances to get the book for free (or even make a profit off the one I wasn't using). I hope this is the end of the whole fiasco. I'm pretty susceptible to temptation.

<3 Amazon

Cool experience:

I ordered a text book from Amazon, but accidentally shipped it to my parents house in Pleasant Hill. Realizing my mistake a day before the scheduled delivery, I called Amazon's customer service center, where I was told that it was too late to reroute the delivery. They kindly informed me that once a delivery attempt was made I could call UPS to have them reship the package to my Stanford address and Amazon would cover the costs. "Wow," I thought. "That's pretty cool."

Today, I called home and told them what was going down with my package and later in the day my mom called back to tell me that UPS had delivered the book. I called UPS, who told me to call Amazon and have them contact UPS directly. So then I called Amazon back to explain the situation. The lady on the phone told me that once a package is delivered, they can't really do anything about it, but that she would ship another text book to my Stanford address at no charge with one-day delivery. I checked my Amazon account just now, and sure enough, my book is scheduled to come tomorrow and the order balance is $0.00.

That's what I call service.

I plan to try to return the extra copy of the book (the one at my parent's house) to Amazon once I get the chance, but it's really surprising to me that Amazon would go to such lengths to satisfy their customers. Some awful awful people could take advantage of this, but I'm not one of them - consider me a loyal Amazon customer. :)