I had hoped that this problem would have been resolved a long, long, long time ago, but here I am still waiting for Amazon and their contract delivery services to do the right thing and refund me the $613.47 for two lost packages.
In the meantime, Happy Halloween everyone.
Cheers Lynda. Sparky sends his woofs!
However:
It belongs to a person who lives in Okanagan Falls, 17 kms (about 11 miles) south of where it was delivered. We are going to meet up later this afternoon so that I can give her the parcel.
Why do I mention this?
Today is the 34th day since I asked Amazon to refund my money for two lost packages, packages that their contractors insist have been safely delivered to my address.
For the first two weeks, I was stonewalled by an ever-changing line of Customer Service agents until I started emailing the executives directly.
Now I get daily 'love letters' from a variety of agents who are part of the 'Amazon Executive Relations team.'
Every agent reassures me with similar words. "We are working to resolve this concern as quickly as possible. You don't need to take any further action."
Call me skeptical but I don't see this as progress.
Cheers, Lynda
Today's love letter from Amazon was slightly less annoying.
Thankfully, this time I was not asked to supply the same information - again.
It's from someone who works for the Amazon Executive Relations team. I had a similar letter a week ago from a different person on the same 'team.' I responded to that one, and never heard from that person again.
Amazon seems to use a revolving system of assignments. I have never had a response from the same person twice in the 31 days of dozens of phone calls, and dozens of emails. It's damn annoying.
Fingers crossed I'll get my refund of $613.47 soon - before the stress kills me.
Lynda
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A pleasant person named Aparna from Amazon has sent me another form letter asking me to supply the same information that I have supplied, daily, since September 27th, through phone calls to the Customer Service line, or through detailed emails to at least 27 different Amazon Customer Service agents.
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I have discovered a new way to kill someone.
Try getting a refund from Amazon for a partial
shipment that never arrived. Make that two partial shipments that never
arrived.
Amazon owes me $613.47 and they refuse to refund my
money. It’s a devious, untraceable way to kill a person.
My blood pressure and pulse rate soar every time I open another unhelpful email from their “customer service representatives.” Amazon
is trying to kill me by proxy.
The trouble started in early September when I decided
I would participate in several holiday gift markets, I enthusiastically ordered
a total of 655 copies of my 10 mystery novels.
For my Canadian murder mysteries, Death in the
Vineyards, I ordered 250 copies of CORKED. 200 copies of SMASHED. 150 copies of
CRUSHED. These were given three separate order numbers on my Amazon account.
(You’ll understand later in this article why this is important.)
For my Mexican murder mysteries, Isla Mujeres
Mysteries, I ordered just 55 copies of the seven books because my Canadian fans
prefer the Canadian series. These 55 books were given another order number on
my Amazon account.
The boxes started arriving on September 25th.
Lots of boxes. Many boxes.
My books weigh about one pound, or 455 grams which is
about half a kilo. No sane person would ship an order that weighs 250 pounds in
one box. Which means that the orders arrived in 22 packages. Some boxes
contained 43 books, others 39, or 16, and oddly a few arrived in separate padded
envelopes containing just one book.
And now the trouble began.
A box of 39 copies of CORKED was posted on my account
as ‘Undeliverable.’
Then a box of 43 copies of SMASHED met the same fate. ‘Undeliverable.’
There was no explanation from the delivery company why
the boxes were undeliverable. All of the other packages arrived safely from the
same printing company to my address.
Checking my Amazon account the message said to wait a
few days to claim for the missing merchandise. On October 10th I
tried to do a ‘request for refund’ on my account but discovered I couldn’t
because I didn’t have anything to return.
So, I called the Customer Service line, and the real
fun began.
My first conversation included an interesting bit of
advice: “You have to return the entire shipment if you want a refund for part
of the shipment.”
So, that means that I have to find the people that I
have already sold books to, refund their money, then package up all of the
books, and send them back to Amazon, who will then send them back to the printer.
Then I have to re-order the books from Amazon, and hope that nothing goes
astray this time.
Wow! That is an amazing Amazonian solution. (Not!)
Earlier in this article I said, you'd understand later in the article why the three separate order numbers were important.
And here is the reason: When a Customer Service
Representative receives a request for a refund, the Order Number and the Total
Invoice must match. There is no accommodation for multiple invoices for one
order number. Crazy but true.
Amazon does not know how to process a partial refund.
I have been in contact with Amazon via phone calls or
emails every single day from October 10th until today. Every single communication
said, “I was unable to
find the order you have issues with so I would request you to provide the
following details for better assistance.”
Recently I found the email addresses for several of the
top Amazon executives and tried sending them a letter begging for assistance.
And guess what? They referred me back to the Customer Service Representatives,
and their computer-generated form letters.
I have several times sent detailed letters with
attached supporting documents printed from my Amazon account showing the four
original orders, and the various separate invoices listing the contents of each
box.
No joy there. I still get the standard computer
general replies, “I was
unable to find the order you have issues with so I would request you to provide
the following details for better assistance.”
So, now I am wondering.
Does anyone in this multinational megacorp
actually read letters from their customers?
Does anyone know how to compose a letter without the
assistance of AI bots?
Does any of the upper management know how to solve a simple
problem that is outside the parameters of their accounting system?
I will persist...if they don’t kill me first.
Cheers,
Lynda
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| Bernina and I are good friends |
I met this grand old lady when I was 18, and she has been my friend for 55 years. She’s tired and is scheduled for a checkup next week, to see if we can revive her. She is a model 730 Record, Bernina sewing machine. We have been through a lot together.
Like
many females of my era, I learned to sew in Home Economics class in Grade 8,
making the obligatory multi-pocket apron. As I advanced through high school my
sewing projects included several dresses, then in Grade 12 a tailored plaid wool
skirt and matching plaid wool jacket.
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| Wacky grad dress! |
Using
my mom’s old pedal Singer Sewing machine that lived in the basement of our home,
I created my high school graduation dress. The tunic design and the multi-colored fabric might not have been my best choice, but when the artsy owner of the fabric
store and my creative mother ganged up on me, I acquiesced to their suggestions;
their very persuasive suggestions.
The
summer that I graduated, I was chosen as Miss Merritt, to be an ambassador for
the town of Merritt at various British Columbia festivals and events. I
designed and sewed the costumes for myself and the three young women, referred
to as princesses, who shared the responsibility of being ambassadors.
Many
events required a long formal dress. I didn’t have a lot of money, so I made whatever
I needed. Some of the dresses were cute and some were oddly formal and too
mature for an 18-year-old, but again, my creative mother and the artsy fabric
store owner thought I looked divine.
 |
| A formal dress |
One
year later, Mom decided to buy me a sewing machine. I planned to move to
Vancouver with another Penticton girl and share an apartment. Mom went into the
Bernina sewing machine dealership at 418 Main Street in Penticton and purchased
two 730 Record machines; one for my sister Judith in Vancouver, and a portable version of the same machine for me.
In
those days the machines, without the cabinets to house them, were around three
hundred, or more, dollars. It was a lot of money for a recently widowed woman
to be spending, but she insisted that we needed sewing machines. Judith’s was
in a cabinet. Mine was a portable. I was single and moving frequently and I
didn’t want to deal with a bulky piece of furniture.
 |
| Ladies and me in costumes that I made |
My
next project was curtains for the Vancouver basement suite that my Penticton
friend and I shared for six months.
Then
friends asked me to make bridesmaid dresses for them. A year later I made a
wedding dress for me, and my first husband, Sandy, requested that I make him several
cozy wool shirts.
My
portable Bernina sewing machine moved from Penticton to Vancouver, West
Vancouver, North Vancouver, Bowen Island, back to Vancouver, then strangely
enough back to Penticton in 1992, when Lawrie and I bought a home and acreage
here.
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| Lawrie, sofa that I recovered |
Then
when Lawrie and I moved to Mexico, in 2007, I left my Bernina with my oldest
sister, Val in Gibsons. I didn’t want to subject the machine’s delicate
electronics to the high humidity and salt at our oceanfront home. Val is a
fabulous seamstress, and she had several specialty machines and didn’t need
mine, so it languished in her basement for twelve years.
When
I returned to Canada, in 2020, my sister reminded me that she still had the
Bernina but she wasn’t using it. I retrieved it from her home, all thirty-five
pounds of it, and brought it back to its origins in Penticton. It seems that
both the Bernina and I are destined to live in this city.
The old girl doesn’t respond when I plug her in, and I have an appointment at the same Bernina dealership at 418 Main Street to see if the current owner, Wes, can repair her. Let’s hope she’s up for more adventures.
Cheers
Lynda
Sparky
sends his woofs!
