Pissed off -- suggestions on how to respond?

jwbryson1 · Jan 3, 2012

I ordered some Cowboy wireless radio slaves from Amazon on 12/28. They were supposed to be delivered to me in Montgomery County, Maryland on 12/31. Long story short--they never arrived. I tracked them today and they are in Mount Pleasant, PA. For those doing the math at home, that's 175 miles from me.

I called Amazon and they were less than helpful. They gave me a $12 credit on the shipping costs for my next Amazon order and told me the package would be delivered by this Thursday. How they know that is beyond me.

I then called the Mt. Pleasant, PA post office and talked to a nice guy--he told me that they did not receive any mismarked packages and everything was out for delivery already. He says that means that whatever package came from Amazon had a Mt. Pleasant address on it.

So my options are as follows:

1. Reorder from Amazon and wait again for delivery (if ever). I don't know if you can buy Cowboy radio slaves from anywhere else? (I'm DONE with Amazon!!)
2. Wait and see if they come back as misaddressed and go from there?

Suggestions? What would YOU do?

I am so PISSED off at Amazon. I had a 3 day weekend to shoot with my new umbrellas and YN 560's and my radio slaves are misrouted. Lovely.

rgregory1965 · Jan 3, 2012

I feel your pain with the delivery services noadays....I just ordered 3 cases of green tea from walmart, on case arrived and the other two never did....after waiting on the phone with fedex they told me that two of the cases were damaged and were returned.....now here is the messed up part....walmart shows them as deliverd and wont help me.....now im out 40.00 and no tea......the fight contiues

my motto even if I have to pay more get it local if possible.

Dillard · Jan 3, 2012

Well i'm currently waiting on my "in stock" D7000 to arrive at Ritz Camera so they can then ship it to me.... :grumpy:

It was supposed to be here tomorrow and when i call i find out that they are awaiting a shipment, that the website was actually wrong when listing it as "in stock". And I have three days of shooting (gymnastics, cheerleading, and tournament paintball) this weekend and am currently camera less. Time to go suck up to my father!

So I feel your pain. Surprisingly though, I have never had negative experience with amazon..

MLeeK · Jan 3, 2012

Well, that's a risk you take when you order on line. Shipping **** happens.
I recently had the same thing happen with one of my amazon orders. I had THOUGHT I ordered through amazon directly, but I had actually ordered through an amazon seller... Seller claimed the package came back to them damaged and they sent another one out right away... Of course I got it late-really late. I ordered on Dec 1 and received on Dec 22. HOWEVER I have never had that problem when I ordered from amazon directly. EVERY time I order through an amazon seller I have had a problem.

If you aren't feeling the love for amazon, give up on cowboy studio and go to adorama or B&H or even LinkDelight they have the same exact set of slaves marketed under different names. Adorama is flashpoint I know.

analog.universe · Jan 3, 2012

Did you pay for a guaranteed delivery date? Many of the USPS services will have an "estimate", or a "scheduled" time, but they're in no way guaranteed. I worked in shipping for a long time, and the USPS was the worst to deal with. They require the shipper to do a lot of extra leg work, and then they don't offer that great a service. They're cheap though. FedEx was hit or miss as well, better, but not great. UPS probably had the best record, maybe 1 in 5,000 packages had issues. That's still a pretty consistent error rate, but I've learned to never trust the Postal Service with anything time sensitive/crush sensitive/high value etc...

iresq · Jan 3, 2012

That really sucks (Hi from Annapolis, btw). I have never had an issue with Amazon though that doesn't really help you. I think it best to wait and see how it's labeled. One would think that the shipping label would auto populate from your order.

sm4him · Jan 3, 2012

Call Amazon again, and tell them what the Mt. Pleasant PO told you. I wonder if maybe you just got someone who was tired from the holidays or something.

I had a similar problem with a package recently, but FAR better results from Amazon. I'd ordered a 32 gb. sd card for my sister for Christmas. Over a week later, it still hadn't arrived and kept showing on the tracking as being somewhere in Pennsylvania. I called Amazon and was told the item was "lost in transit." They sent me another, which arrived two days later.
About a week after that, the FIRST sd card arrived, too. I called Amazon to see what I needed to do to return it to them and was told, basically, it simply didn't exist to them any longer and I should just keep it. Sweet!! Two 32-gb cards for the price of one! And the one was on sale for $30!

In the meantime, start looking elsewhere for what you want. If you find it, and haven't gotten satisfaction from Amazon, refuse the package and then demand a refund from Amazon and tell them exactly why. And keep going, as far up the hierarchy as you have to until someone listens.

I sympathize; I also recently very nearly lost my religion while on the phone with Adobe support. It can be SO frustrating when customer service people are more interested in bureaucracy than in actually being helpful...

Good luck!

CCericola · Jan 3, 2012

Did you buy FROM Amazon (Distributed and Shipped through them) or another company that uses Amazon marketplace? I have never had a problem with Amazon but then again I have never bought anything from the other companies through marketplace. Basically if it doesn't say sold and shipped through Amazon I don't buy it. I've seen other places sell Cowboy studios stuff, but I mostly see them on ebay stores.

Sorry you had such a hard time.

Robin Usagani · Jan 3, 2012

Is it Amazon's fault? Or is it USPS fault? Hard to blame anyone until you receive the package.

480sparky · Jan 3, 2012

USPS, UPS, FedEx...... none of them are owned & operated by B&H, Ritz, Wolf, Adorama, Blacks, Abe's, Calumet, Best Buy, OverStock, NewEgg, Amazon, Ebay, etc.

Once it's shipped, it's no longer within the shipper's control.

GeorgieGirl · Jan 3, 2012

I had three package issues this holiday and I am still waiting for two to turn up. None from Amazon though... As for Amazon shipping I find it to be a terribly slow ordeal so much so that I really don't use their site for anything anymore. Sellers are quicker but Amazon is very slow.

jwbryson1 · Jan 3, 2012

Schwettylens said:
Is it Amazon's fault? Or is it USPS fault? Hard to blame anyone until you receive the package.

Hard to tell. Amazon claims it will be to my house by this Thursday. But when I called the Mt. Pleasant, PA post office, they guy told me no shipping exceptions so he thinks it was mislabeled. If that's true, then I will never get it.

@ Christina -- it was sold AND shipped by Amazon, not another retailer.

Trever1t · Jan 3, 2012

I have had nothing but excellent service from Amazon. I ordered a cold shoe mount bracket and was given the bait and switch from one of the vendors, Amazon sent me a replacement and refunded my $.

jake337 · Jan 3, 2012

480sparky said:
USPS, UPS, FedEx...... none of them are owned & operated by B&H, Ritz, Wolf, Adorama, Blacks, Abe's, Calumet, Best Buy, OverStock, NewEgg, Amazon, Ebay, etc.

Once it's shipped, it's no longer within the shipper's control.

Yup, at my work we ship 44,500lbs of mail order catologs on every load. Once the Bill of Ladding is signed, the load is the drivers responsibility.

Rephargotohp · Jan 3, 2012

Most likely the package is at a sort Facility in Mt Pleasant, Not the regular PO. The MT Pleasant PO is NOT going to be the delivering PO, Your Local one will..most likely Thursday. Remmeber you talked t oa guy at the POST OFFICE, they are crazy and he has a gun.

You can order from Cowboy Studio direct if you want to.

next time you need something quick don't go with the cheap usps shipping...now you know why