This is a public service announcement as well as a minor rant.
If you have this service check your Amazon emails - mine go mostly unread unless I am tracking an order so I nearly missed it.
I spend frequently enough with Amazon to have warranted paying £49 a year for its Prime delivery service - free next day on most stuff sold by Amazon.
The charge went through in January for the next year's membership. Last week I got an email telling me that Prime now includes Amazon Instant Video Streaming, and from the next renewal will go up to £79 a year.
I have cancelled my membership from when it expires, and told them I don't want, don't need, can't benefit from their videos and they are abusing their customer relationships.
I've been slightly uncomfortable with Amazon for a while, and stuck with it because of the returns service, prices and convenience, but up with this sort of treatment I will not put.
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Amazon's Super Saver Delivery is normally equivalent or perhaps a day longer than actually paying a delivery charge, so the Prime service is hardly worthwhile unless you buy considerable quantities over a year.
Ordered some sensory toys for autistic youngsters last Thursday afternoon (they cost under £20) on the Super Save Delivery service and they were delivered just before 12 noon the following Monday.
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Instead of getting my daughter to do it more cheaply from Amazon UK I bought a bilingual copy of Baudelaire's poems online from US Amazon the other day. Then to get it before the end of the world I paid for the fastest form of delivery, which doubled the price to 30 quid. But it did arrive on the stated day.
All for three quotes to insert in the translation of the book about the future by a French anthropologist I have just translated. The English translation, by an American geezer I won't name to spare his blushes, is very crap. There are serious infelicities, verging on mistranslations, in two of the quotes and a real gross mistranslation in the third. The stuff sort of scans and has poetic rhythm sometimes, but meaning is goddam meaning and I never mess about with it unless I can't figure it out myself.
However I have transcribed them faithfully instead of putting something better. Publishers like quotes to come from a published source, however bad it is - you scratch my back I'll scratch yours, more claret Jocelyn? sort of thing. No one should imagine that this sort of work is relaxed and cultured. It's rough and often immoral like all other work. You just have to concentrate on the very stingy money and hope it won't arrive embarrassingly late.
Tchah, knowImean? Some of you probably do.
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>>There are serious infelicities, verging on mistranslations
My own knowledge of French is imperfect but the output of some translation bureaux I have seen has been plainly wrong.
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I've always used their soup-a-saver but, I've noticed the deliveries have bin taking longer (dispatched later) in the last phew months.
Amazon have bin pushing their Prime for 50 squid or so lately, to include streaming etc., I/we did con-sider going forrit (swmbo reeds a lorra books) but knocked the idea on the head mucho pronto, like.
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I seem to have been absorbed into Prime, rather than applying for it. This has been via my Lovefilm membership which cost £7.99 with no limit on the number of discs (except to get only one at a time). In practice, I get an average of 5 discs per month.
This month I have only been charged £5.99 but with separate £2.00 debited from another Amazon account. Maybe it's going to cost £2.00 for each disc in future.
I don't need a fast parcel delivery service or instant video etc. Depending how charges go for the rest of this month I will probably back out of Prime. However, can posters recommend an alternative to Lovefilm?
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I'm in exactly same position as Manatee. Use Prime to get fast predictable delivery, not just to me but Uni books to kids and bits/bobs to my disabled mother.
Never used their streaming video and never see myself needing it.
Will be writing to tell them to revert to status quo ante or stick it.
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I always use the cheapest form of delivery. Amazon frequently deliver earlier than the estimate anyway.
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I have the same Lovefilm sub, which we use a lot, but no evidence of ending up in Prime, so I don't think it's automatic.
But recent Amazon purchases have all gone to a page saying words to the effect of "Welcome to Prime, click here to continue" with a little box at the bottom saying "No thanks", so perhaps you've inadvertently done that?
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As to the price increase, it seems clear enough to me - existing Prime/Lovefilm subs carry on until expiry. Fair enough. After that, the product changes to merge into one at an increased price. If you want to take that out, fine, if you don't, don't.
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Amazon's super saver, i.e. free delivery has always been very good for my purposes. Many items have arrived almost as quickly as the next day service, so I have resisted paying for "Prime".
My daughter however managed to join Prime a couple of weeks ago for the £49 and as part of that deal is entitled to share only the next day delivery element with up to four family members.
She nominated me and I received an invitation from Amazon with a clickable link to accept, which automatically registered me as a limited Prime member. One has to enable their "One click" ordering to benefit.
I have looked at most of the streaming video providers, such as Blinkbox, Netflix and Love Film and have yet to find content either up to date, or desirable enough, to want to pay good money to view.
Many of their movie offerings are either straight to DVD stuff, or have been or will be, shown on regular TV.
Old TV shows are already a surfeit on FreeSat TV!
Last edited by: Roger on Mon 3 Mar 14 at 09:51
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>> I have looked at most of the streaming video providers, such as Blinkbox, Netflix and
>> Love Film and have yet to find content either up to date, or desirable enough,
>> to want to pay good money to view.
Assuming you use a PC to watch them, then if you were to install the "mediahint" plugin for your browser you would find that the catalogues of both Lovefilm and Netflix become enhanced considerably, at no perceivable loss of speed and at no cost, complex setup or hassle. No registration required either.
At least, that has been my experience over the last couple of months.
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Amazon's last delivery to us, a book for Mrs BB, was left out in the rain all day. Would 'Prime' offer higher levels of 'customer care' I wonder (but doubt)?
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>> As to the price increase, it seems clear enough to me - existing Prime/Lovefilm subs
>> carry on until expiry. Fair enough. After that, the product changes to merge into one
>> at an increased price. If you want to take that out, fine, if you don't,
>> don't.
Yes it's clear. The service I am happy with at £49 is no longer available unless I also take another service I don't want, at an additional £30.
It's their train set, and they can do what they like, that is clarity I suppose.
It still seems reasonable to me to tell them I don't like it and I won't have it.
They have replied, saying they are sorry I am not happy, and thanking me for my feedback which will help to make them the Most Customer-Centric Business In The World (they really did say that), so I guess that means that when they have thought about my and Bromp's comments they will change their policy :)
I have been detecting a smugness from Amazon for a while - a sensation that they think they can tell their customers what to buy. Their marketing has certainly been very impressive in the past, but recently they have lost their aim badly - "Amazon Local" started emailing me a few weeks ago and the offers are poorly targeted - random things like helicopter flights and gin tastings in places such as Derbyshire, London, Oxford, Milton Keynes are neither relevant nor local to me.
As Tesco were, they are probably due for a bit of a slap from their hitherto obedient customer base.
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Amazon reply in not much over an hour:
Hello,
I'm sorry to hear that you're unhappy about the new decision on prime subscription.
Certainly, we can understand that you will not use Amazon Prime Video streaming.
Unfortunately at this time we do not have an option for subscribing only the prime membership (one day delivery alone) without Amazon instant Video.
Please know that all our customers are very important to us and I have passed your suggestion along to the appropriate department.
Customer feedback such as yours helps us to continue improving the selection and service we provide.
If you have any other suggestions for us or would like to make a comment at another time, simply send us an e-mail.
My current subscription runs to November so plenty of time for a rethink.
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Yes I think that's what I got. The Customer Centric guff appeared when I replied 'no' to 'did this solve the problem?'.
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Well I got...
Message From Customer Service
Hello,
I'm sorry you're not happy with the changes that we've made to Amazon Prime. We're sure you'll love the new benefit of Prime Instant Video once you've tried it out.
To give you more time to enjoy the upgraded Amazon Prime service, I've contacted our relevant department to extend your Amazon Prime membership by three months. This will allow you to discover the thousands of movies and TV shows available to watch for free with Prime Instant Video on a wide number of devices.
But I still can't see us ever using it, so unless they offer a no-stream lower cost option, we don't use them enough to justify £80 a year
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Well i subscribe to lovefilm dvd rental for a tenner a month and apparently this gives me access to Amazon prime streaming. Amazon are slowly re-branding that after take over.
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Thanks for the reminder guys. I have prime on a free trial until next March, but this thread has just reminded me to cancel it. £49 saved!
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More fun and games with Amazon customer service.
Didn't cancel the Prime in end as Lad uses vid streaminig service so I still get automatic next day delivery. Trouble is they're back on a practice they've tried before of just putting the item in first class post. Needless to say, something posted first class in Dunfermline at 17:00 on Friday doesn't get to Northampton's dormitory villages on Saturday.
I'm afraid that as soon as you get to specifics likle this their standard recipe of having a girl in Manilla apologise and extend the service by one month doesn't cut the mustard.
Trying to get a call back from somebody in UK whu might understand the problem but it's an uphill battle..
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I try to avoid using Amazon if at all possible - nasty corporate practices, tax evasion, 1990's website design, and the most annoying fact of all is that if you pick free delivery it's still sent first class, but deliberately held in the warehouse for three days to annoy you.
Nearly every other online shop has free next day delivery now.
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I tend to avoid Amazon too, I find it is no longer cheap either. I just stuck with Ebuyer and CCL for computer stuff now, and Ebay for rarer stuff.
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Happened to take out a Prime trial at the beginning of December, and it turned out to be very useful over the Christmas shopping period. For example, ordered something on a Saturday, ticked the 'take your time' delivery option to get a £1 Kindle ebook credit, and the item still arrived next day (Sunday)! That wasn't my first Prime trial, and I'll try again this year.
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1990's website design,
Huh? Its clear, fast, always available, good search options, and a pricing algorithm that would make your brain curdle with its commercial brilliance. All hosted on a in house developed cloud that is so good its a class leading service used by the US government.
>> Nearly every other online shop has free next day delivery now.
Indeed, ordered a rubber bumper for the new moto on friday for a measly 3 quid, free postage and it arrived today
Oh! forgot to mention that was on Amazon.
Agree tho as a company it has the morals of a snake.
Last edited by: Zero on Tue 10 Feb 15 at 13:05
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I trialled Prime over Christmas and was very impressed. However I don't think much of their search, it often puts up variants other than the one I've specified, and I've found no way of ordering the result into any useful sequence.
However their refund policy has been second to none for me and that alone, assuming similar pricing, is the clincher.
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I'm as impressed as Zero. This stuff isn't easy to do and I can't think of a better shopping website, although ebay comes close.
The search facility is one of its strengths for me. The others are choice, prices and returns policy.
I just think they are getting a bit big for their boots and taking their customers for granted. I'll be shopping less with them this year, now that Prime has run out and remains at £85.
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>> deliberately held in the warehouse for three days to annoy you
This is to instigate you taking prime membership.
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It is of course a sign of how our expectations have changed. Not so long ago if you ordered something for home delivery from a shop or catalogue you would be happy if it arrived in a couple of weeks. Now 48 hours is deemed unacceptable
Personally I can't think of much that I would order on line that I needed so urgently that I couldn't wait a a few days for and am generally amazed at how quickly stuff is delivered.
Mind you I have a sort of a view that most of the enjoyment in buying stuff lies in the research and anticipation. The actual ownership bit is normally a bit of a let down.
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Tue 10 Feb 15 at 17:09
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It's useful for impulse buying :-). And at Christmas I got the outside lights out to put up on the Saturday and found them beyond repair. New set was in my hands ready to put up on Sunday without leaving the house... and were much cheaper than the local sheds.
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Amazon Prime 'upgrade' - Stuartli
