The Haphazard Blog

It seems like Amazon.com likes to teach me lessons about shipping. Amazon likes to occasionally offer free trials of their Amazon Prime service. For those who aren’t familiar with it, for $79/yr you get “free” 2-day shipping on your orders and can get overnight shipping for $4.

I’d learned from past purchases that the free super saver shipping can take forever, so when I decided to try and find a copy of Burnout Paradise for the Xbox 360, shipping time was important because I planned to play it while my brother was visiting. Amazon was offering the trial, so I signed up and ordered the game.

I learned that 2-day shipping is not the same as 2nd day air. They will use closer warehouses and ground shipping to get your item to you in 2 days. The main problem here is that UPS does not time guarantee ground shipments so they have no incentive to get your package to you if they make a mistake because there’s no financial consequence. I called Amazon, and they said sorry and offered me a $5 Amazon.com credit (that never showed up). UPS said they can’t do anything (like re-route it using a faster delivery method).

So here is what my package did:

Amazon (and UPS) Not So Prime

Two days turned into 12 (7 business) and I got it the day my brother left. I had never seen so many problems with a package.

On the bright side, a couple days later I got an e-mail from Amazon refunding my purchase. That meant a free copy of Burnout Paradise for the trouble!