Fuckwits.
Posts tagged 'Amazon'
AMOEBA ALERT!
The Amoeba Squad has been out in force over the last few days.
On Sunday morning I ordered some timber from Wickes, it was a Click & Collect job, and checkout was via PayPal. I don't have an account with Wickes, so I assume that my contact details were gleaned from PayPal.
Wickes started sending emails regarding the order status, that's fine, but they also started sending texts... to my mobile AND to our land-line. Thanks to the amoeba that set up their digital communication algorithm, whenever I get a mobile text the land-line chimes in and we get an auto-woman reading out the text. It/she is hilarious - my order number 680432227 was "order - number - six - hundred - and - eighty - million - four - hundred - and - thirty - two - thousand - two - hundred - and - twenty - seven". Twats.
Next, and somewhat predictably, it was the turn of the Aldi Click & Corrupt service. As usual there were some subs for items not in stock.
We'd ordered Easter eggs, all allegedly in stock on Saturday night when the last chance to amend the order had passed, i.e. the point at which the card payment is authorised and the order becomes "firm". But when we arrived at noon on Sunday they'd run out of all the eggs that we'd ordered and for which we'd authorised payment. The reason given was that "they'd been flying off the shelves all morning". So, we can order and authorise payment the day before, but, the day after, someone else can buy them in-store and wipe out the stock, including our items which Aldi couldn't be arsed to reserve? That stinks.
In short, NONE of the eggs that we'd ordered were in stock, so their amoeba-powered algorithm had subbed the lot, and all of the subs were unsuitable:
The middle item/sub is a belter... I ordered the box of "Specially Selected Exquisite Belgian Chocolate British Birds Eggs" specifically for my Dad, as he's interested in such things, but Aldi thought it would be a good idea to sub it with A SLAB. WTF? In what way is that OK?
Fuck 'em. I rejected the lot.
You'd think that would have been enough, but no, there was more to come... the Amoeba Factor was still in effect...
Amazon's Subscribe & Save thing had decided that it couldn't get us any BarleyCup...
so it offered us this bizarre substitute:
We're bemused... in which universe is a dry snack bar a suitable replacement for a hot-drink powder?
I mean, I'm partial to a stiff drink now and again, but that's a tad too rigid for me!
Happy Easter!
Amazanalysis
Amazon Subscribe & Save.
In theory, Amazon Subscribe & Save is a great idea - you and Amazon know in advance what's been ordered, you and Amazon agree a schedule of delivery dates (so you can plan to be available to receive deliveries), each order should arrive as one delivery (to save planets), and there are discounts (which may or may not save you some filthy lucre).
In practice, Amazon Subscribe & Save is a steaming pile of shit.
Leaving aside issues like price fluctuations (most items seem to become magically cheaper just after they've taken payment) and the fact that most orders are split into multiple deliveries, I decided to make a rough & ready chart, plotting items delivered against relative delivery days. They say that a picture's worth a thousand words... most of my thousand are expletives.
Number of items up the side, relative delivery days across the top. If you can't understand that, you should go back to school on Monday.
The chart above includes all ordered S&S items for 2020 and 2021. Ordered items are supposed to be delivered on 4th March, 4th June, 4th September, or 4th December.
Of a total of 68 items ordered, 5 never arrived and only 4 arrived on the agreed selected date. To put it another way, only 5.9% of items were delivered on the agreed selected date, so it's a certainty that someone here needs to be available to receive items for at least six consecutive days every three months.
It's not as if the advisory emails are any use either - yesterday morning I received six emails informing me that all outstanding items would arrive today (Saturday), but those emails were bullshit - all of the outstanding items arrived yesterday (Friday) afternoon. Go figure.
And then there's the packaging... Amazon are trying to do their bit by reusing boxes, but for [insert your preferred deity's name here]'s sake, they could at least try to tape up the sides of the reused boxes. This was today's yesterday's first delivery (three packages):
Yes, this is how it was left on our yard. It's a disgrace.
Like I said, it's a steaming pile of shit.
