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I purchased a book through Amazon. No big deal, I have a couple dozen ebooks that I purchased through Amazon. I checked my email a little bit ago, and found this:
"Some Old Guy, did 'A State of Disobedience' meet your expectations? Review it on Amazon"
Ehhh, I liked the story, and was prepared to write a review on it. So, I clicked the link. Odd - the link loaded, and they asked to send me a code to verify that I'm me. Didn't ask for my password or anything like that. I approved the code thing, then pasted that code into their form. The next page to load told me:
To submit reviews, customers must make a minimum number of valid debit or credit card purchases. Prime subscriptions and promotional discounts don't qualify towards the purchase minimum. For more information, see our Customer Review Guidelines.
Now, that seems pretty screwed up. I didn't exactly volunteer to spend my time doing book reviews for Amazon. They asked me, not the other way around. FFS, they know that I don't spend thousands of dollars per year on their products. Why bother to send me an invite, if they didn't intend to honor the invitation?
Just more stupid shit from a big corporation. Fek Amazon, and double-plus double-good double-fek Jeff. I'll probably spend even less money at Amazon after this.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Knowledge Troll on Wednesday September 05 2018, @02:34AM (1 child)
1) Amazon is doing this to prevent spam and astroturf in the comments because no spammer is going to pay the money to buy stuff to get over this threshold since that will be expensive
2) Unless the spammers buy stuff from accounts they cooperate with then only the sellers fees are lost, this costs a lot less
3) This isn't going to actually stop astroturfing and spamming
4) They are smart enough they probably know this and are just finding a new revenue stream - if you can't beat it, milk it?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 05 2018, @06:42AM
Number 4 went through my mind, but not quite the way you put it. I figured they were just "motivating" me to buy more. But, the spammers and astroturfers probably figure into the equation. But, even with those discounted, this exchange might net them some increased sales, in some cases.
I did note that they didn't say what purchase level was necessary, to be "permitted" to make reviews. Setting aside Prime purchases, and setting aside promotional sales - there might be some big purchasers who remain ineligible.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Wednesday September 05 2018, @10:40AM (5 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday September 05 2018, @01:06PM (4 children)
I've had great experiences with Amazon customer service. If they screw up delivery in any way, I try to get a refund or store credit. Managed to get a free $100 gift card due to late delivery.
Gotta milk that Bezos teat.
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(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday September 05 2018, @07:27PM (3 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday September 05 2018, @07:35PM (2 children)
To clarify, the $100 gift card was an actual item I had ordered that was not delivered on time.
I've heard that disputing too many deliveries can get your account killed off, but I have had plenty of orders that had no problems. And in contrast to what I've heard from some users here, rather than always getting things delivered late, I have gotten things delivered early on occasion. Usually when I select a slow 5-7 day delivery option.
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(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday September 06 2018, @10:14PM (1 child)
Deliveries are sometimes frustrating as all hell. A lot of shippers like that Fedex Smart Post. Now, Fedex is great, most of the time. I've often received things early, almost always on time - just so long as the shipper didn't use Smart Post. All Smart Post items go to Dallas, then to - uhhhhhh - some smaller town in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Doesn't matter which day of the week it arrives there, it is going to sit there until very late Friday night, or early Saturday morning. At that time, Fedex gathers up all those tons, and tons of packages, and attempts to deliver them all on Saturday. Except, it doesn't work. Maybe 80, 85% of the time it works, and the rest of it just gets kinda lost in limbo.
I swear, I have watched tracking, and seen a package get within fifty miles of my house a half dozen times, and it still doesn't get here. A week or more late, it finally gets turned over to the USPS, either in Texarkana, or Shreveport, or right here in my hometown of Foreman.
I have told people that if they ship Smart Post, then I don't want the damned thing. I might as well order directly from Hong Kong, Taiwan or wherever.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday September 07 2018, @12:26AM
This reads as if you are talking about eBay or Amazon's third party sellers. I usually don't go for third party sellers unless an item is really obscure yet at a decent price. Like some brewing equipment or something.
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(Score: 1) by realDonaldTrump on Thursday September 06 2018, @09:10PM
New York City, used to be so many book stores. And a lot where they told me, "oh, you can't come in, you're just a kid." Times Square -- incredible place. Now I'm grown up -- where are the book stores? Killed by the Amazon, killed by the online, killed by the cyber. Of which, the Amazon is half. Whole Foods, they bought that one. Ivanka's favorite -- she does the organic -- and now it's part of the Amazon. So sad.
The Post Office is losing BILLIONS of dollars, and the taxpayers are paying for that money because it delivers packages for Amazon at a very below cost. A very below cost, believe me. And the Amazon stock went to a TRILLION dollars because of that. If Post Office charged the REAL price, Amazon would be ZERO!!!