As I discovered when I bought a glass induction hob on Amazon marketplace, which was described as in “acceptible” condition. It came ina box that was much too large and wrapped in a single sheet of bubble wrap. It could only have been described as acceptable if one was a fan of glass jigsaw puzzles. Nevertheless, the returns process was absolutely no quibble and the money was back in my account in no time.
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Me too. All the values I’d admired in the firm were eroding rapidly. The old school, decent types in Europe and the US were retiring as well and shister politics were emerging, so it was time to go.
My finale “stroke” was to manoeuvre my CFO, a very competent female twenty years younger than me, as my successor. I had a catch up coffee with her at Christmas and she’s gone from strength to strength 
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I’m more concerned about Temu than Amazon. Adverts for items sold at well below a reasonable price have been appearing recently, and it seems millions cannot resist the opportunity for stuff now while sowing more seeds of disaster for later.
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I imagine many who work the minimum wage jobs at Amazon and the like have no other choice. That’s why zero hours contracts work as they prey on people who have very limited options.
My “crusade” as you call it is just that I believe it is morally wrong not to consider the impact of one’s consumer power. I have the luxury of having the time to make careful decisions, and enough money to be able to spend an extra few centimes to buy from a human being in a shop in a place rather than sit at home in isolation and buy from a computer. It is an ecosystem, so if I buy from my local brico that keeps a person in work who may well have children that keeps our school open, etc etc. I do buy online as choice here is limited, but generally direct from individual companies or artisans.
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Laudable as it is it takes a lot more than a few centimes to drive a ‘filthy’ diesel many kms to find something in a shop. There is nothing remotely like the choice at Amazon within 50 kms of where many of us live. The total cost of a round trip to Perigueux for me is € 6 or so, and much more than that for the multiple trips I would have to make to obtain all the stuff I buy from Amazon.
And yet again to return or replace something not up to scratch, even if the shop was prepared to do so. Several years ago I tried to return some light bulbs which were faulty to the local supermarket. They insisted I claim from Osram in Belgium, something which took many months. The shop wasn’t correct in law but I didn’t know that and in any case would have made a mess of argueing the fact in public.
As regards the employees, they have to accept the situation, just as I did as a skilled worker here on the minimum wage, a fact that was made clear to me from the outset, because of the low employment opportunities in the countryside. My boss even had drivers who lived over 30 or 40 kms away in other departements. I do accept though that that was made easier as they weren’t home every night.
I think you’re not in the same league as this woman, David. She’s got symptoms of an addiction. Unfortunately, for sites like Temu, this is their intention. They use daily games with discounts to be won, or regular notifications from the app installed on their phone, or multiple emails per day to make consumers into shopaholics.
I have the same issues with Colis Privé, they’re a nightmare! What do you mean you need more information about the address? That’s the address! It works for the rest of the civilised world! Grrrr!
With me it’s UPS. They never find my address the first time, and then make me walk to the gate of our résidence to collect the parcel.
Temu seems to be pretty dodgy - perhaps slightly less so than Wish but neither site is somewhere I’d buy from.
For direct from Shenzhen electronics AliExpress has been fairly reliable (quality varies so there is some element of caveat emptor) in my relatively limited experience. I haven’t tried any non-electronics purchases from there though.
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Yes, I think zero hours contracts are an abomination, a total abuse and should be banned forthwith. Though having worked part time as a barman in my youf, I can see some industries which rely on casual labour, as opposed to pretending employees are not employees, might need some latitude.
Just for info, based on my minimum research, Amazon doesn’t use zero hours contracts.
I’m pretty ambivalent about unions too, certainly there are some industries and types of work that do need their protection, but I also watched them get too strong in the UK with catastrophic results for companies, employees and management alike. It’s hard to strike (no pun intended) a balance. The last time I was in a union was when I was a summer job (though London transport didn’t know that) bus conductor. I remember our union rep, Len Scholey well, lovely man.
Breaking news 
I just Googled Len and found a photo of him. Isn’t that amazing, nearly fifty plus years later?
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Often a symptom of depression. My late MIL used to shop and return all the time, in the days way before Amazon and an acquaintance here did the same with Amazon. She had to go away for “a little rest”. She’s back now, fit as a fiddle and her binge shopping days are behind her.
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I have used AliExpress a couple of times too, but with the understanding that if something fails then there’s no practical return. It may have been foolishness on my part, but I tended to avoid the items priced ‘too good to be true’ because someone somewhere is paying the price, whether that’s slave labour or the environment.
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It is free if your delivery charges and other benefits [music/movies etc] exceed the sub for Prime.
The real world is dominated by those with no other choice and limited options, that’s how life is, unlike SF which seems predominantly wieghted with academics and professionals, retired or not, who have had the luxury of good employment with pension plans worth more than the wage the majority of the lowly worker can only dream of. That’s how the world has always worked and always will.
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They do a nice line in fake Gibson electric guitars I believe - known in the trade as “Chibsons”. 
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As the great Bernard Shaw put it in Pygmalion:
HIGGINS: Have you no morals, man?
DOOLITTLE [unabashed]: Can’t afford them, Governor. Neither could you if you was as poor as me.
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It’s delaying tactics. It’s the delivery company’s way of putting responsibility on you, for the fact that they’re not delivering to you promptly. Then, when you respond to them, they will take their time getting back to you. Or they may ignore your response, or deny receiving it when you follow up, and ask for the same information again, or different information.
That way they are not meeting the deadlines for delivery that they will have in their contract, but they can say it’s your fault not theirs.
It’s an old, old technique. Colis privé is apparently the most hated delivery company in France, at least by recipients, then next worst is apparently Chronopost.
I thought Yodel was bad in the UK, until I had years of Chronopost.
And that’s why France and I guess some other countries do not allow zero hours contracts.
But the UK does allow them, so employers will use them because it is a competitive environment.
So who should we blame, governments that allow these practices, or companies that do what they are allowed to do?
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Zero hour contracts have always been a red herring.
Remove zero hour contracts … It becomes agency work …which has always been zero hour contracts by another name. Or you employ the same people for minimum fixed hours - and treat them just like zero hours staff.
Used properly they work fine - the reality is the company’s who takes the p*** will take it whatever you call the contracts.
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Absolutely, when I was transport manager in the '80s and '90s I used many excellent drivers from various agencies. The best of which offered them minimum hours and holiday pay etc. They were my go to source whenever my directors authorised employing a new driver directly. By the time I finished there every one of the drivers employed had first arrived as temps.
Before that I was an agency driver myself, after I returned from working outside of my home city. The first place I was sent to was a previous employer, who promptly offered me a permanent job. It was officially against the rules of agencies, but by some subterfuge they got around their rules, and why wouldn’t they? They wanted to keep the business.
Many drivers though, liked the system, and didn’t want a permanent employer, they enjoyed the freedom and accepted the drawbacks as part of the cost of liberty.
The place I had returned to Nottingham from was Dover, where I had been employed as a casual international driver. I liked it, and liked the fact that I could turn down a trip whenever it suited me. Sometimes an international job wasn’t available and I was then offered UK deliveries for a week. After the first time I turned it down, preferring to have a week at home. Obviously we didn’t live high on the hog. My choice though.
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