Amazon.com, which yesterday simply could not give me my money back after it overcharged me, today says it will give my money back.
So fairly indignant emails can help.
Still makes me wonder if Amazon’s business model includes trying to scam customers a little bit.
The Amazon.com mp3 service was excellent. There’s a free download every day and many of the prices seem to be be below those charged by iTunes.
Then a strange thing started happening with my account. Amazon.com started making billing mistakes and – now this is really strange – they were never in my favor. First an allegedly free download would show up on the receipt as a 99 cent charge. A $1.99 album would be charged at $6+. These errors were getting so common in the past few months that I got in the habit of checking each receipt and asking Amazon to correct each incorrect charge.
The first time the error occurred, Amazon refunded the whole amount via a credit to my charge card. In other words, not only did Amazon refund the money it overcharged me, it essentially gave me the album for free.
The next several times, Amazon did not refund the full amount, but did refund the difference between the advertised price and the inflated amount Amazon charged me. In each instance, I had to request that Amazon correct the charging error. Amazon never was proactive about it. So do the math. Let’s say 200,000 people are charged $5 for an album advertised on Amazon for $1.99. Let’s say half notice that Amazon overcharged them and ask Amazon to correct the error. That still means that Amazon makes $3.01 in unearned profit from each of 100,000 people. That’s a total of $301,000 on a single download offer. Keep doing that and pretty soon Amazon is making a lot of money b just offering something at a low price that it would honor only for those who demanded it.
Then today an entirely new thing happened. Amazon, after repeatedly giving my money back when I noticed it that it overcharged me, said it just couldn’t do that any more. Instead, Amazon said, I had to spend the amount it overcharged me on additional downloads! It was going to get my money one way or another!
Here is the actual text from the email I received:
Hello,
I’m sorry for the inconvenience caused to you in this regard.
Because of this circumstances, I have manually applied a $5.97 credit to your account. Please use this credit towards any Amazon MP3 Music Downloads in our store.
Please understand, at this time, we aren’t able to give a partial refund for the order. Hence, I have applied the promotion credit to your account.
When you make a purchase, any available promotional balance on your account will automatically be applied to your order total. You will be able to see your promotion amount applied in your Order Details after your purchase completes.
I hope this helps. Thanks for shopping at Amazon.com.
If Amazon can’t give a partial refund today, why could it last time it messed up, and the time before that and the time before that?
The moral of this story is: buyer beware.
Pretty original, aina?
Shoulda known better.
Shoulda figured the roofers would be back after lunch.
Shoulda known Abe the dog would freak.
Put him in the back yard yesterday with his little sister Tennessee Petunia. The back yard is fenced now, because Tennie likes to run and when she runs, the wind can’t keep up. And she runs every chance she gets.
Should be safe, right? Nice new fence (Badger Fence beat Milwaukee Fence’s bid by more than $1,000, by the way), gates with latches. The dogs could entertain themselves for a little while.
Except when I went out to get them, Abe was gone. Vanished. Tennie looked at me and barked that high- high-pitched bark that pierces the skull.
Went in the house and called Abe’s name, just in case. Silence.
Went outside. Checked the latch on the rear fence gate. Latched closed. What the hell???
Asked the roofers across the alley if they had seen my dog. They had not.
Called my friend Barb, who lives a block away. “Did you take Abe?” I asked, although I knew damned will she would not take him without telling me. No, she had not taken Abe.
“He’s just gone,” I said.
She said she would help look.
While I waited, I thought I should check the neighbors’ yard. My neighbors and I have joint custody of Tennie so we can share the shock therapy benefits of that awful bark. Abe has taken to visiting their yard and stealing chew toys and treats from Tennie.
Barb arrived and I told her I wanted to check the neighbors’ yard.
And there was Abe, standing on his hind legs against the inside of their fence’s front gate.
“Abe!” I said. “C’mon!”
He didn’t.
I called him again. He just stood there on his hind legs. And then I saw that he was stuck. His front paw was wedged between two pickets and he couldn’t get it out. He’d been trying, though. There was blood in his mouth and on the fence. The fence gate was chewed and clawed in places.
The fence that Abe ate.
I tried lifting his paw out and Abe very firmly applied teeth to my gloved hand. It’s not that he snapped at me — it seemed more like he was just telling me to knock it off, that what I was doing hurt a lot. We lifted him to get better leverage, then lifted his paw out.
Took him right away to the vet, who said Abe was just fine. A little bruised, and his paw was swollen, but that was all. And if he ate wood splinters, those would work themselves out, too, the vet said. The vet told me that he had seen dogs pass pin cushions with the pins still in them. Hearing that story was almost worth the bill.
So how did Abe get out of a fenced-in yard and stuck at the neighbors’? He must have panicked at the sound of the roofers’ air hammers — he doesn’t like loud noises — and jumped the brand-new fence without even touching it. Not bad for a dog who is eight or more years old. Then he ran to the neighbors’, where he got stuck.
He’s OK today, but absolutely. would. not. go outside when the roofers were working across the alley.
Abe Doege and Tennessee Petunia Backus Brachman Doege Schuldt.
Books! Or, life behind the best-seller curve
Monday, November 30th, 2009I tried to read this. Really. And it was good except for the dialogue and the stuff in between.
The characters talk like they are stuck in some sort of huge, romantic, heroic painting and can’t get out.
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