Amazon
Reviews and Complaints

Since Amazon is a selling agent for many third party vendors, it seems they like to “spread the wealth” at the cost of the customer. They obviously do not have the standard online policy of only charging your credit card when the item is shipped.

I placed an order with Amazon for a canon printer and 2 sets of additional Canon ink cartridges. The price for the printer was quite low. Amazon charged my credit card for all three items then placed the orders with three different vendors. The printer was placed with Adorama, who was out of stock. They told me they did not expect inventory for 4-5 weeks. This means Amazon, or Adorama, would have been using my money for this period. Meanwhile, one of the ink vendors had shipped. I cancelled the printer order and ultimately received a credit. I tried to cancel the second ink order but could not and it had not been shipped. Now I have plenty of Canon ink but no printer. Amazon customer service responded right away but the fact remains they chose to split the order and never checked inventory. Over a week later this is not fully resolved, but I am the one who has to do all the work even though the error was theirs. The first thing I did was file a complaint with the credit card company.

About 2 months ago I placed an order with Amazon for 2 different size kitchen knives from the same manufacturer. These are expensive knives. It was well stated this was not shipped by Amazon and there was no free shipping. With their “Spread The Wealth” policy, they gave the order to two different vendors which means I paid double shipping. Checking after the fact, each of the vendors had both sizes in stock.

In all the years I have bought from Amazon I have never run into this type of behavior.

I ordered a Fisher Price Power Wheels Jeep from Amazon.com, supposedly IN STOCK according to their site, in late November, advertised for $205. I used a gift certificate for $50, so the total price of my purchase was $155. Amazon.com sends me an email within a week stating that the order will be cancelled due to problems with the supplier unless I reply to the message to confirm I still want the item. I still wanted the item and I did not mind to receive it after Christmas for that price, so I replied as instructed. Within a week I received another message stating that my order has been cancelled as the item is out of stock and it is unknown whether it can be obtained any longer. When I checked on my order history, the order was nowhere to be found. I emailed regarding this situation and the reply that I received was that I failed to reply to their first email (for which I have a confirmation).

I am not sure what the deal is with the "supplier", but I bought the Jeep directly from Fisher Price for twice the price (including $60 shipping) without any trouble. I believe the price of the Jeep at Amazon.com was some kind of "teaser."

Beware that enabling one - click ordering effectively disables "free shipping. " when you turn on "one - click ordering, " your only shipping choices are first - class and express. Even if you select "group items into as few shipments as possible, " you will still be charged for first - class shipping, even if the items you purchase say that they are eligible for free super - saver shipping. You cannot select super - saver shipping as a setting for one - click, so customers are effectively charged for the convenience of one - click ordering by paying for shipping that is usually given for free. Because this would seem to be a relatively easy problem to "fix" internally, it operates as a kind of hidden fee for one - click ordering - - one that has cost me personally a good deal of money over the past few years.

Turn off one - click ordering if you want the free shipping!

As I patiently sat with a timer in front of me for their gold box deal of the hour, I clicked on it when it flipped, had it in my shopping cart (you can tell by the "8" in the end of the price). I then proceeded to go through check out (in less than 30 seconds I might add because I was in Amazon's data based with a stored credit card). They sent the confirmation to my email. I didn't even take the time to print the order when it popped up before I hit pay because I felt time was of the essence. Little did I know how much that was true! Much to my surprise I found in my email the price $199.99 and no $100 gift card which was part of the "deal." I then called customer service and they were unsympathetic and useless. I had to argue for them to cancel my order.

I am NOT an idiot. I know what was in my cart and for it to take me ALL THE WAY THROUGH payment, take my money and then sub the item without the "deal" is the worst form of bait and switch. A less savvy buyer might not have known until the item arrived at their door with no gift card.

They did canceled the order, after I spoke with a supervisor, but the entire process left a bad taste in my mouth. This truly is Amazon.com's loss since my personal wish for Christmas this year was a Kindle. This would have linked me to Amazon where I would have spent hundreds on books through Amazon this year.

I am off to research which other brand of electronic reader is similar enough. I refuse to continue to do business with an unethical company and channel dollars into their pocket. In this marketplace, I do not understand this type of business behavior.

Greetings everyone,

As a company operating out to the state of Florida we have had the opportunity to deal with many eCommerce sites such as Amazon, eBay, OverStock, etc. In fact, we have sold with Amazon for about six months now. Over that time, Amazon has suspended our account twice. They reactivated our account after an initial 30 review while holding over $1000 of our funds. After the release naturally we became excited and relisted a lot of our products. Much to our dismay, after just 5 days of selling we received the dreaded suspension letter AGAIN and our account was put on hold, only this time with roughly $5000. As we did nothing wrong other than offer consumers products at GREAT prices, which usually ship the same day, Amazon said our volume of sales was not justified. What really gets us... is we had to go through all the same processes as previously (send us your suppliers, company information, websites, so forth and so on...), which we might add was sent when we went through this the first time in July that our account was suspended. We called several times and got the same BS story seller performance does not have anyone to talk to. Okay then, Amazon with their extensive operations worldwide does not have anyone in seller performance to talk to? Are you kidding me, well then put me on the phone with your automated server that sends out these emails and supposedly reviews our accounts. As Amazon has now held our funds twice “released once after 30 days” now it has been 30 days again and we just received this letter, “Hello from Amazon.com.

Thank you for writing. After a review of your account by an account specialist, we have decided your account will remain blocked.

We regret we are unable to provide further information on this situation. Further correspondence regarding the closure of your selling account will not be answered.

The closure of this account is a permanent action. Any subsequent accounts that are opened will be closed as well.

Best regards,

Amazon Seller Performance Team”

Let us remind you now that they claim that they are now going to hold our money for an additional 90 days! Well, as a doctoral student and a driven business professional, I will not let this case go, even if they release our funds. Why? Well, simply someone has to do something to start the revolution =) Join our fight in a class action lawsuit---Seven Times Seven on Twitter

Following a peremptory and dismissive e-mail to me, informing me that as a result of my seller performance feedback being deemed unsatisfactory my marketplace seller account was suspended.

I had prided myself upon the care I had taken as a marketplace seller to ensure that the service I gave to Amazon shoppers was first class and in all cases fair and honest. It was my experience however that Amazon shoppers were often not so honest and I suspect that I suffered from spiteful feedback in respect of a transaction.

when I asked Amazon to provide me with instances and details of the dissatisfaction they claimed I initated they refused, pointing out only there reservation of right to close seller accounts at their own discretion.

I find this cowardly, unjust and hypocritical of Amazon.co.uk

Potential and existing Marketplace sellers should be aware that their personal reputation is at risk when acting as an agent for Amazon.

I decided to set up a baby registry on Amazon.com in July 2009. I chose 5 items. One of them was a carseat priced at around $130.00. On September 30th I received the carseat purchased by someone for me. I checked the registry and sure enough, the carseat was now one of the items showing as unavailable due to purchase.. So far so good.
I attended my baby shower this past weekend and low and behold, there is another carseat there! I was confused, so I looked at the packing slip from the box, and sure enough it was purchased off of the same registry 3 days earlier than the one I already had at home! So now I have 2 carseats.. Simple enough, right? I call Amazon.com customer service (I used the international number which is not toll free so I could get an actual person, as the 800 number was strictly automated). I apparently reached India, which in and of itself was slightly annoying to me, however I proceeded to tell the gentleman what happened, and asked that he email me a prepaid return label so I could ship the duplicate carseat back at Amazon's expense. Since they neglected to remove it from the registry when it was purchased on 9/26, it was purchased again on 9/29 - NOT MY ERROR. I was on the phone with this man for 34 minutes going back and forth trying my hardest to explain to him that this was not my fault and I should not have to incur the $17.40 shipping charge to return one of the carseats! He kept apologizing however told me in no uncertain terms that "this is not our policy Ma'am, we cannot provide your shipping" OVER AND OVER he kept saying the same thing.. Like he was not getting the point at all, he didn't understand or didn't want to or something.. Then he tells me that they have no record of the first carseat being purchased, even though I told him I was holding in my hand the order slip directly from them with the purchase order number and all the info regarding the transaction.. I asked for a supervisor and was put on the phone with a woman who was even more ignorant than he was, and finally after almost an hour I gave up.
I returned the carseat at UPS this morning. I will be receiving a gift card back from Amazon once they get the carseat - minus $17.40 for shipping. HORRIBLE! I will NEVER deal with this company again. EVER. Crap policy and horrible customer service..

I received two credit card charges from amzn.com/bill wa in the amts of $94.24 & $39.90 on 8/3/09 & 8/4/09.

I did not authorize these charges & they don't leave any telephone number to call.

However, I 'googled' amzn.com/bill wa and found a website that showed more proof that I am not alone with these bogus charges.

In one comment, they state they had made a recent purchase at the real amazon.com & was charged correctly. Two weeks later, a couple of false charges showing the exact info (Different fees).

An individual suggested that we make sure no one else in the home used our credit cards w/o our permission and to contact the real amazon.com to ask who is using your credit card!

That's my next step, right after I file an "unauthorized charges" complaint with my credit card company.

Amazon.com - is the worst company for sellers I ever used for my bisuness . I am a power seller on ebay for 7 year s and I decided to start selling thoiug amazon.com about year ago. At first, what happened, amazon.com hold my money I recieve from buyers for 90 days because I am a new seller ( it doesn't mean that I did something wrong, its policy tells that it is in order to protect amazon0n. It looks like the sellers are credit union but they don't pay any interest to sellers. They hold my money twice for 90 days and it was thousands dollars which they used for their needs. Secondly, it is very bad customer service and attitude to sellers. One day i got email that they blocked my account because it is realted to other suspended account. I was shocked. Aslo again they hold my money for 90 days ! ( by the way, it happened at the middle of June and haven't received anything yet) . I had an option to write an appeal and it was done. It looks like nobody read this appeal and it was a standard anser that my account blocked permanently and I cannot appeal more. I tried to call and ask what happened. Nobody could answer this question. The advice was just to email again seller perfomance team which blocked my account. I did it again but answer was agaian " good-bye, don't wirte more - we will not answer more" and no explanation. It is my story. I want to be a part of any law suit against amazon.com becuase it is so bad company that uses our money and provides unhonest business

Amazon is rotten to the "core", although we wonder if this ECR staffer who lied about calling us the next day is also lying that the CEO asked him to still respond to us (which was the same doggerel). All contacts had to be initiated by us, as far contacting the unit and CEO. I find it telling that the switchboard operators say they are instructed to not connect any callers to executive offices and that such a great customer service company (another lie) has no easily accessed list of department heads. Then Amazon wants to whine about people who complain to consumer agencies independently, or governmental officials, not to mention lawyers. Perhaps karma will have Amazon crashing into oblivion like some other retailers - the ones who forgot to be responsible and ethical businesses.

We bought an item from Amazon that could have been purchased for almost half their fee from the company (who we learned also had free shipping), Anyway, we relied on the Amazon hype and the order was incomplete. When we paid for it online before a damn thing was shipped, all bank account information was correct, AND we got the item. Then a few weeks later, we could not get into our Amazon account. Our e-mail had a letter from TRS/Telechek saying that Amazon had authorised them to write us, having given them our e-mail address and telephone number without our permission. Also no account number generated by TRS was in the e-mail. They began calling several times a day, and we were clueless about what money we owed Amazon after several years of e-shopping from them. Both the TRS e-mail and Amazon provided hours that the collection agency is not open, so we got the correct ones when we called. No one explained why there was no account number on the e-mail, and one of the few people we talked to at TRS got belligerent when we told her none of us drove, had no driver's license to provide, and that we were not given such information as SSN or bank account information by telephone.

We were first told by Amazon customer service that the debt was 39 cents, then after Anthony of ECR was contacted at our expense he lied about calling back the next day, then getting accounting to clear the account and so inform TRS. Well, after we complained to the WA attorney general where the HQ is and Jeff Bezos, he writes back that we still have to pay TRS, this time $10.99. We had offered to pay again online had our account not been disabled, then seek a credit. Of the times we have contacted Amazon about unsatisfactory orders on their website e-mail and by telephone, we got the matters resolved after dealing with friendly, but insufficient outsource staffers abroad, causing our insistence on Amazon staff in the U.S. HQ to interact with. Simply put, I hope that Kindle is the beginning of the end of this bogus company that is the real deadbeat the way it treats longstanding customers like us and others. They are common thieves and frauds under the ruse of merchants.

Amazon.com seller policy really extorts new sellers. I first opened a seller account on Amazon.com for about a month. I finally made a sell which I accordingly fulfilled as specified by Amazon.com. Amazon.com figured out the shipping amount but in reality when I brought it to UPS...it charged me more than what the Amazon credited me for shipping (so I take my lost #1). When I entered my bank account after a sell for later disbursement of what I sold, Amazon.com suspended my account indicating I violated its policy without telling me what I actually violated so, as a result, it closed my store and it forbid me from further selling on its website (so I take my lost #2) but the stink of it was (after it got its cut on the sell & everything) Amazon.com held my money hostage for months (so I take my lost #3) even though they got my credit card and bank information when I signed up for the seller account in an event the buyer needs a refund. I'm just an individual seller who is buying it web space as a vehicle to perform my business. I can guaranteed what I sell for 30 days not forever like the big companies and I have my credit card info in my account as a guaranteed. My question is, "Why are they still holding my money hostage?" Are they keeping these funds from sellers so they can meet their bottom line when it comes to their financial reports? The last stock quote I got for Amazon.com is about $84. Are trying to play this tactic to boost their stock price? It treat first time seller like a criminal and it's unprofessional!

I have given Amazon a lot of business. I get upset having UPS deliver my expensive things. The first Amazon person told me she contacted shipping and everything was fine. She asked me to write a thank you note. Then I found out UPS was continuing to deliver my stuff. They said when things are a certain price range they have no choice to use UPS. I told the second person to pass it on. I will try my best not to shop at Amazon.

I have been working for amazon MT for almost two weeks now. the whole time letting my pay continue to build. Not knowing they where not going to pay me later down the road. this is what happened.
As of yesterday i went and noticed they in the claims section in their jobs for entering your bank account they dont have a paypal listing. so i wrote them asking if I could have my pay sent to my paypal account. this was their reply:
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I am sorry for any misunderstanding about how your Mechanical Turk earnings will be disbursed.

People from all over the world are welcome to join and participate in Mechanical Turk. However, we currently don't offer the ability to disburse payments via PayPal.

Currently funds received in your Mechanical Turk account can only be disbursed to a U.S. checking account or your Amazon.com Gift Card balance. In order to disburse earnings to a U.S. bank account, you will also need a U.S. based Drivers License or U.S. ID card.

If you request payment via gift certificate, the funds are automatically deposited into your Amazon.com Account. They can't be transferred or used on any of our international websites.
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so I wrote them this:
This means I cant even use my bank account for canada on here. I'm American living in Canada. I only have two ways I get paid. via my Canadian bank or Paypal. This mean if I get a gift card I cant use it either, because you dont allow them to be used on your international websites. May I ask how the blank do you pay Canadians then? LOL really I would like to know. I would like money not a gift card I cant use. and after all the work I did, this just isnt right.
Please get back to me soon,
Deborah
[Unhappy American]
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this is what they wrote me back again:
I am truly sorry for the frustration this has created for you. However, the information provided in our previous message is correct.

At this time, payment can be made either by ACH deposit to a U.S. bank account or in the form of a gift card balance applied to your Amazon.com account.

You must have a valid U.S. driver's license in order to disburse funds to your personal U.S. bank account. If you have a U.S. bank account and driver's license, you may enter the appropriate information through Mechanical Turk and then disburse funds to your account.

We do hope to be able to offer additional payment services to our international members in the future, and I'm sorry that we're not able to do so now.

I understand you're upset, and I regret that we haven't been able to address your concerns to your satisfaction. We can't offer any additional insight or action.
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And yet again my reply:

Then on this day 08/27/09 I expect a check in the mail to me for fund owed to me. I understand you will need to wait for the rest of my hits to be approved. by U.S. laws you have to pay me. Me being an American I know those laws. If within 30 days on 09/27/09 I do not recieve a check. I will make sure to report this. I am truely sorry, I do love MTing for Amazon. This is just not right. It does remind me of someone being prejudice. Many have tolds me of this happening with a contest that was held last year, I have also found others like my self that are not to happy. I just want to get paid in funds. Please do get back to me. I want to know if you will do what I asked or not. So I can take the appropriate actions.
Thank you
Deborah
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I'm waiting to see what they have to say now.

I have been trying for over a year to get books I own the rights to delisted from this Amazon site because they are OUT OF PRINT. Recently I discovered that the same books are still on my Author Central page. When I contacted them again about this they said they could not remove them. This creates an extremely stupid and avoidable situation, in which there is the impression that these books can be supplied later, when in fact they can't. Avoid using Author Central as a "social" network if you have any books listed with Amazon, no matter if they say it is the best place to be. They are lying. To date Amazon has continually interefered with authors wanting to clean out their closets and start with books which are actually in print, and inconvenienced many of their customers beside.

Please refer to my previous complaint re: Amazon (Molemax). The Amazon sent me the following e-mail today, threatening to close my claim in 3 days. I hope you can contact them in 3 days, and have them return my money, or send me the packages that I had ordered. Thanks, Asha Rijhsinghani.

Below is their today's e-mail:
Hello from Amazon.com.

We are actively investigating your Amazon.com A-to-z Guarantee claim for transaction [protected]. The seller indicates that a return has not been received for this order.

In order to further assist us with our investigation, we will need the tracking number used to return the item. Please note that we will be unable to take further action until we receive this information. If this information is not received within three business days, your claim may be closed.

We look forward to your reply, and thank you for your patience during our investigation.

---
Shaila
Account Specialist
A-to-z Guarantee Program

Hi,
I bought a Toshiba laptop from a company name `SPddys` through `Amazon.com` online last month.

When I saw that there was a problem with the touchpad of the laptop, I immediately called the seller and he told me `I should be calling Toshiba and Amazon because Toshiba would help me for the technical support and I am paying the money to Amazon he was just shipping. However Amazon told me that it was NOT TRUE, I was actually paying the money to seller. That means he misguided me either by mistake or on purpose.

When I called Toshiba I did whatever the costumer service told me but it didn’t work. I also have a Toshiba laptop so I am not very far from using laptops and following the gudiences. I asked many times if there was anything that I could do to fix or adjust it but after several trials they assured me that it was defective. I even attached a mouse to be able to adjust it from the settings. ( Later in one of the e -mails the seller asked me how I was able to set the computer if the mouse pad was not working kind of indicating that I was lying. This is the very simple answer to that question.) Toshiba suggested me bring the laptop but they told me that once they opened it I wouldn’t be able to return it. Also why should I be paying full amount for the defective item and used the warranty? I didn’t have car or time to look for Toshiba service and go back and forth and wait for them to fix it. So I didn`t.My friends also suggested trying to fix it but I didn`t let them because of the warranty issue, once it was opened I wouldn’t be able to return it and it was not for sure that they would be able to . I also read some internet reviews on touch pad problems some of which wrote it could be an important system problem so I didn`t want to risk it.

After talking to Toshiba I called Amazon and told about it and they guided me to fill a file against him. I had limited time in the USA so I had to act quickly. However I was reluctant to file the case so I made sure that if he responded and fixed the problem I could cancel the file by asking the costumer service of Amazon. I called the seller again but he didn`t pick up the phone that day. I called him next day in the morning again the and left a voicemail message and but he didn`t turn me back. I sent him and e mail and he replied me telling if I had contacted him he would have fixed it but as I filed a case against him he wouldn’t be able to help me in an angry tone. I was surprised and told him that I was guided by Amazon after what he told me and I could cancel the file any moment if he fixed it thinking may be he didn’t know I could cancel the file and he could still fix it but he sent me an e mail telling he wouldn`t talk to me until the case was over. He wrote me it was against the rules to contact to customer if there was a file. I was totally confused because I called Amazon and they told me I could cancel the file if he would ever fix it? When I called Amazon telling all about, they recommended me not cancel the file. Also he didn’t contact me at all after that.

Before I returned the laptop I called Amazon again because I had concerns that the seller might not be very confidential and he was also angry and wouldn`t want to refund me but Amazon assured me that I would get a full refund because it is Amazon A Z. Had I known that there was a risk of being partially refunded I wouldn’t have returned it because I already had lost my confidence to seller but I had confidence in Amazon.

As I sent the laptop directly to seller not to Amazon since I was guided to do so, I can never be sure whether it was fixed after I returned it. If it was something fixable without opening the laptop, Toshiba would have guided me too or the seller could have called me and guided me but he never did. My all calls with Toshiba were also recorded. My case number is 1-[protected]. Amazon should receive the returned products to make sure that nothing is missing or they are not fixed by the sellers. This is the very big system error.

The seller has never been apologetic but rather angry and never wanted to negotiate with me. He not only failed to guide but also rejected to help me, he doesn’t have any customer service and didn’t answer my calls. He was not being professional. There was a mismatch between what Amazon assured me and what he told me.

He cut off $130 from me claiming it was flawless, he could only sell it as opened. What he told me he did and it worked was what Toshiba also guided me to do but it didn’t work at all. What Amazon responded me was the seller cut off %20 because it was returned and it was flawless and the case was over.

SO he got my money and can still sell it to good price and he lost nothing. It is totally unfair because I had hard time calling all the people and dealing with that issue and I hardly got my partial refund. I did everything according to guidance and now I am paying for that. I wrote to Amazon again about this but they no longer contact me.
I really dont know what else I can do.

Thanks
Dilek Sahin

was paid for an item through amazon payments service online in the amount of 300. I verified my bank account with amazon and attempted to withdraw the 300 dollars into my chase bank account. I received a email saying the transfer failed. I called my bank and they said the transfer was not blocked on their end. I proceeded to attempt the withdawl again at which time I realized they put a hold on my account. I was given no reason for the hold and told customer service could not access my account. I was told my account could only be accessed by an account specialist. They proceeded to tell me that there is absolutely no phone number and all contact must be emailed to the account reps and that I would receive a response withing 48 hours.
After a total of 5 phone calls I still hadnt received a response from anyone. I called amazon again today may 21st and Customer service told me that it was my fault that I hadnt received a response because the form I filled out was incomplete.I had not told them my banks phone number. I told the customer service rep that I had not filled out the form, but rather one of their reps had filled it out for me and never asked me what my banks phone number was. I have multiple bank information on my account and asked the rep which number he needed and he told me he could not tell because he could not access the account. I would have to re fill out the form and wait an additional 24-48 Hours for a response from an acoount representative. I told the rep that I want the 300 dollars deposited in my bank account and my amazon payment account closed or I want the Amazon payments customer that sent me the money to have their credit card credited back for the 300 dollars. The rep told me he can do nothing to the account because its on hold and he would have to wait for an account specialist to take the account off hold. So at this point in time i cant even close my account or thouch my 300 dollars. This is the worst customer service I have ever had. This actually isnt customer service because the department does not have the power to provide me with any service whatsoever. All of the service lies in the hands of the Account specialist who dont even have a phone number.

I made an e-shopping to Amazon.co.jp and after got the information I should pay more than 80 USD for duties and taxes (the amount spent for shopping was 35 USD) I refused delivery and ask Amazon to cancel my order.

Sent them a mail to inform and got a reply saying they has refund my CC account. I was surprised to discover that I was CHARGED (again) in 44 USD! Really... Not a credit but a DEBIT!

After send information to Amazon, got an answer to check later or contact my CC company and clarify issue. What? Debit is still there. I am so upset to Amazon I could resign from refund, even, but having a amount charged from my CC is an insult!

When ordering new or used books, CD's, DVD's from one of Amazon.com's small vendors, a customer is offered 3 shipping options: Standard Shipping, Expedited U.S. and International.

In the USPS handbook of regulations, Standard Shipping is flatly defined as Parcel Post rate, nothing else.

Media Mail service is not offered by Amazon, but Media Mail is the service most Amazon small vendors are giving Amazon customers in order to maintain their profit margin. Media Mail service costs less that Parcel Post or 1st Class rate, and takes far longer for the shipment to deliver to its destination than either Parcel Post or 1st Class mail.

For example, a single book sent Parcel Post or 1st Class from NYC to Honolulu will typically reach its destination in 7-10 days, whereas a book sent Media Mail rate will typically take 29 days or more-- a difference of weeks. And shipping Media Mail, the longer transit time (up to 6 weeks, cross country) means greater risk of damage to the shipment with repeated handling and processing, and the routine open inspection of Media Mail, to which Parcel Post and 1st Class are not subject.

The customer pays for Standard Shipping, defined by USPS regulations as Parcel Post service, but the customer gets Media Mail Service.

I phoned Amazon Customer Service, and was told that for a vendor to arbitrarily decide to ship by Media Mail when the customer has paid for Standard Shipping, is flatly against Amazon policy. But every Amazon small vendor I've written to or talked with, says that Amazon actually suggests that sellers ship via Media Mail. They also complain that Amazon has been eating into more and more of the small vendor's profit margin with the fees and commission it extracts, and that it's useless complaining about it to Amazon. So Amazon cheats its small vendors, and these small vendors cheat the customers in turn.

A customer can argue with these small vendors about this issue until they're blue in the face, but most often, you get nowhere. And likewise, you get no help from Amazon, other than a referral to their A-Z Guarantee, which does not cover this issue. Making out an Amazon complaint form is not only time consuming and pointless, as no response or action from Amazon follows it, but Amazon limits customers to submitting 5 complaint forms in their lifetime business relationship with Amazon!

The fact remains, that in most media transactions, even though the Amazon customer pays for Standard Shipping (Parcel Post service), they still don't get their merchandise for weeks, because they're getting cheated with Media Mail Service by the small vendors.

I've found it helpful to instead order the media directly through a small vendor Amazon has listed as having the item, without going through Amazon at all, or to contact the small vendor ahead of making the purchase on Amazon and getting a pledge from them to ship 1st Class or Parcel Post for the Standard Shipping fee paid to Amazon, which many have been willing to do.