Hats off to Amazon!

You don’t think they had something to do with it, do you? :astonished: :thinking:

The minimum has varied by time of year in the past. So could go down to £25 in September.

Also collecting at a relais might be free.

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Not a option for me, with a 30 km round trip each time to do so, and the only single time I did go to collect, the parcel hadn’t arrived.

BTW I hear that Amazon have offered their workers at Coventry the option to join a union, the GMB. Which is the General, Municipal and Boilermakers Union. :astonished:

These giant conglomerate unions are a menace, favouring often as they do one side of their membership against another. Ask any UK lorry driver from the 50s to the 70s what he thought of being lumped in the Transport and General Workers Union, along with his arch enemies, the dockers.

Then there is the irony of watching sci fi dystopian control films on Amazon Prime, one of the architects of the issue.

Received the soundcore x20 earphones today and must say again, incredible value. Soundcore must certainly be disrupting the market for sound equipment right now, as the quality vs price is excellent - very pleased.

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My recent experience is curious but maybe it can be of help should any other members run into the same issue.

I order a lot from Amazon.fr and last week a used book (Harafish by the wonderful Naguib Mahfouz :relieved:), sold by Roundabout Bookstore. I think the seller is American but the book was coming from Germany. I paid €18 with delivery covered by Prime. Simples. Or, so I thought.

Book duly arrived within a week via DHL. The girl making the delivery said there was a charge of €11 to pay, did I want to pay or refuse the delivery? Cash, card or cheque? Naturally, I felt in the instance my affection for Mahfouz could nit be quibbled over so I coughed up the cash and initialled her gizmo.

Once back inside and after a little think I decided to contact Amazon. I have bought many things, some via Amazon UK and some Amazon.de but never not been charged relevant transport or duties up front. Fearing something amiss, I wrote requesting an explanation just to set my mind at rest.

I actually accessed the Service Centre on Amazon UK, giving my purchase order number, because I couldn’t locate the email box fo Service Clients on the Amazon.fr site where I had made the purchase.

Service Clients, Amazon.fr had refunded €11.61 to my card within 2 hours of my message.

I still don’t know why it happened, and am hoping not some sort or scam by the deliverer, but I feel glad that I made the small effort to ask and that Amazon were quickly receptive.

I hope this will help if any reader finds themselves in the same predicament.

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Isn’t there a surcharge now for buying books online costing less than €35? Something to do with helping the bookshops on the High Street compete with the likes of Amazon, iirc.

There may well be a surcharge on books, including used/yellowed ones, bought through Amazon but the charges should all be stated and paid in advance. No problem. It’s the surprise surreptitious surcharge on my doorstep that I object to.

Yes, now I think about it, the last time I bought books on Amazon the fee was included upfront not requested upon delivery… So perhaps not related after all.

To follow up on this, I did buy a set of soundcore headphones - Q20. They’re OK in terms of detail, but a bit too bass-heavy really. Very snug fit so that even with noise cancelling turned off they exclude environmental sounds, but they feel tight on my small-ish head. The bluetooth seems to connect easily.

I’d rate them as OK so far, but the vintage style Betron jobs are a nicer headphone for comfort and general listening.

5 euros off when you spend 15 euros or more on amazon.fr for approved accounts - via HUKD:

https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/5eur-ps431-off-on-your-next-purchase-min-spend-of-15eur-ps1292-eligible-accounts-4393365

Might be useful to someone.

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Well, a bizarre mixture of disappointment, misinformation, perhaps even scam and finally hats off to Amazon 10 minutes ago.

My mate Eddie came round over a week ago to adjust the satellite dish that provides my French programmes. Quite plain before long that it was the arm and not the LNB (though possibly both) at fault and that needed a new dish altogether. Ordered on Amazon it was promised for last Wednesday. I waited in as long as I could but my son and grandson were waiting for me in the village so I left a note on the gate to please put it just inside the fence.

Nothing on my return and nothing for the rest of the day, not even a note to collect it from somewhere. Then in the evening an email from Amazon, full of apologies saying that the delivery had to be abandonned. This has happened once before due to damage in transit, and later another message said the new delivery date was next Monday.

Then yesterday I got a strange email (from Collissimo?) saying that it could not be delivered because no-one was here to sign for it. I was invited to click on a button to confirm my address, but I smelled a rat. Why no note if a failed delivery? What had happened to cancelled delivery, and what had happened to delivery next Monday? So I declined to press the button and settled down to see if it turned up anyway on Monday.

20 minutes ago the gate bell rang and a smiling post lady handed the large box over the gate to me. Of course, no signature required.

Hat’s off to Amazon, and to me, obviously. :joy:

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I now ignore the unable to deliver/triedto deliver/need more information etc messages. They are contracted to deliver, and things have always turned up (eventually).

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