Since 2007 I've been a cheerleader for Amazon, mostly because
when I was in college in the 1970s I was a member of The Austin Video Users
Club, a group of computer geeks and futurists. We knew a major transformation was
coming as people started communicating with each other globally, but we didn't know
it would be by computers. We thought the revolution would come in some form of home video. An
article I wrote for a local paper got the headline "Soon you will talk back to your TV set." We hadn’t predicted the home computer, but
we knew people would shop, get entertainment, and communicate personally over
some form of what we now call the internet. In 1995 I got my first home computer
and immediately signed on to AOL and started finding people with whom I have things in
common.
So when I first saw Amazon, I was excited, thinking it was the culmination
of all the predictions, and for a time it was. In 2007 I became a regular customer, first with books,
then Amazon started offering household and kitchen items just as transporting
around town became more difficult and stores became nerve-wrackingly crowded. Since 2007 every chance I got, I sang
praises of Jeff Bezos, "He deserves every dollar he makes," I'd say
and mean it. Because Amazon really filled a need, the 2-day prime delivery was
reliable, and the TV shows and movies… wow.
But in last few years things have changed. With the covid pandemic
I understood delayed delivery, but wonder why they keep advertising 2-day delivery when they
aren’t doing it, and the pandemic has gone on more than a year, why can't they figure things out by now. For a year Amazon has had an awful policy of combining six - eight
items into one box, holding back delivery until they can fill a massive box
with huge items instead of separating them, even when I go to great lengths
to order items separately, because I'm 73 years old, I don't want to lug huge
heavy boxes to my door from the mailbox.
Then Amazon customer service went downhill. Another thing I used
to praise about Amazon was their no questions asked refunding policy. Now when there's a problem and I
contact the bot with a human name for "live chat," I get argued with,
told it's my fault the glass bottle of soy sauce bumped up against other items in the box
and spilled on everything, until I argue and argue and finally get a human.
Then came the final straw. I needed help sleeping so
ordered Melatonin on Amazon, feeling safe as there was a big PR push recently that
no more products from China would be sold there. The Nature's Bounty OTC
medicine arrived (after about a week, jammed in a box with other stuff) and I took one
pill for 3 nights and ended up with a horrible fungal infection in half a dozen
places on my body, spreading aggressively. Obviously the medicine was impure, I
did some research and it turns out Nature's Bounty was purchased by The Bountiful
Company in China in January 2021, so likely the ingredients of the pills I was
taking were toxic, not fresh, something caused this horrible reaction.
The Medicine Comes From China.
I contacted Amazon and told them about this shocking allergic reaction I was having and nobody cared. They just offered to refund me the whopping 12 dollars. However, you can go to Melatonin on their site and read the reviews, mine included, where dozens of persons are having horrible
reactions to Nature's Bounty melatonin from Amazon.
Yet it's still on sale there, even at a marked down
price to promote more sales.
Through all this, I keep seeing that goofy look on Bezos's
face as he plays at shooting rockets into the sky, while people are getting
sick from the products he's selling with no quality control or oversight. I
mean, no wonder he's so rich, he doesn't have to pay for malpractice insurance,
he just doesn't care. He doesn't pay for quality control, he just lets the bots
print your reviews and ignores them.
The experience of shopping at Amazon went from wonderful to
awful in less than a year.
Meanwhile Target has everything I need, the rest can be
found at Instacart. ***
I hate watching Bezos fall, but he dropped the ball. He
went from hero to just another rich guy who is clueless about the effect he's having
on the world.
The last box I got from Amazon had three cartons of tomato
sauce that were so squashed up some of it spilled onto other items. The "breathable
cotton" head scarves I bought were the same cheap Chinese
"satin" as the last ones I bought and cannot wear as they make my
head sweat and so are very uncomfortable.
I accidentally ordered two Utz potato sticks and within minutes went to "my orders" trying to cancel one but the site would not let me, so I ended up
with two of them, crammed into that one big box.
I am looking now for other online places to shop, using
PayPal, which Amazon won't let me do, and totally enjoying the experience, because
these retailers Want My Business and seem to care, like Amazon used to care.
Goodbye, Jeff, I no longer want to contribute to your billionaire
status and really wonder how any human being can take all that money, and see all the homeless people
and whole nations that can't even vaccinate their populations, and use your
cash to buy a yacht to service your other yacht. You could write a check and
build apartments for every homeless person in USA but instead you want to send
rockets into space?
Jeff Bezos is not a visionary at all anymore, he's
just another rich clueless jerk.
@CassandraofTro2 (Twitter)
*** Although Instacart too is becoming weird about not letting the customer choose replacements if an item is sold out, they just send you whatever they want to send you. As a result I ordered "unscented" and emphasized "no scent please" at last Instacart order, and now have instead a sweet smelling fabric softener in my laundry area making the whole room smell like someone sweating with bad diabetes. But at least I can count on them to get to me within two hours.
