So last night I signed up for “Amazon Prime,” which provides “all you can eat” express shipping for a year for \$79. This is a great deal for me now that I live in Hawaii, since media mail to Hawaii can take weeks.
So I dropped a couple books in my cart and started the order process, expecting to see a sign-up for the service during checkout. That doesn't exist. You have to go out to the main page, sign in, buy the service, and then turn on “One-Click” ordering. So I did all that, using the Tablet Input Panel, went back to my “cart” and checked “Buy all with one-click.”
This morning, I found the Amazon confirmation email in my inbox telling me I was being charged \\(20 in shipping and handling. I fired off an email to customer service (”Wha...?”). Then, I did my morning clear of my “Junk Mail” folder to find a “Your credit card was declined for a prime membership” message from Amazon. Presumably, there was a recognition or typing mistake when I was using my Tablet to sign up, then my Bayesian filter said “Phish on!,” and then I got charged \\)20 for delivery of the paperback version of “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night.”
How will this play out? Will Amazon act like an old-fashioned organization and say “your problem, not ours,” or will they say “no one was really wrong here, but we'll refund the shipping charge.”
Stay tuned...
Update: Amazon promptly contacted me and refunded the shipping charge. They also told me that Prime Membership shipping does not extend to Alaska and Hawaii. But if they can put up “People who bought 'Curious Incident' also bought 'Jonathan Norrell'” on my entrance page, how come for the past month I've been getting a full-page ad for something for which I'm not eligible? I give them a B-. Excellent customer service, but it was only necessary because they didn't apply themselves to the technology on either the ad or the sign-up procedure.