Is Amazon.com Screwing You Over?

I use Amazon all the time. In fact, I just ordered a new Apple Magic Mouse just before coming to this site. I have never encountered what you describe.
Amazon offers FREE shipping on orders over $25 and only charges extra for expedited shipping, which is fair enough. The mouse I ordered in the wee hours of 25 November, 2009 will arrive at my home on the 27th via a UPS van instead of Monday via free shipping. This will cost me less than $10 on an approximately $70 item, If I was willing to wait until Monday ( I will be out of town ) it wouldn't cost me a thing.
I have bought work shoes, scrubs, books, DVDs, computer software, camera equipment, computers and accessories, CDs, cooking supplies and other stuff from Amazon and have never encountered an unfair shipping charge. I also save on taxes, don't have to waste time and fossil fuel driving to a distant store or stores and it is delivered right to my door.
I guess if you want FedEx to overnight you a tube of lipstick you could get some high shipping charge relative to product price, but not for anything I have ever considered buying. Your posit makes for a nice headline, but I seriously doubt it.

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Ah yes, the supervisor in the meeting tactic. Classic call center right there, you recognize it immediately if you've ever worked in one.

I feel sympathy for three people here:

1. People who work in call centers. I've been there, and it's generally a low-paying, humiliating job with high turnover and little joy.

2. Customers who get the run around trying to navigate their way to justice when victimized by some corporate policy. These things are designed to thwart you. More often than not, the frontline worker feels for your situation but can't say anything, because everything is recorded and going off script is punished.

3. People who clicked on the link for this, mistakenly under the impression that this was actually an article.

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- in agreement with the last commenter - this is not worthy of appearance on Alternet. Just from my own experience, Amazon provides great service, very reasonable postage - I get large books and DVDs sent regularly to Thailand for about $10 or less, delivered in a week - 10 days. Sending similar stuf by my friends in Canada costs more through regular postage. And I am a writer - with Lulu POD, it costs upwards of $100 !!!!!!!!!!!!! (not a mispring - a hundred or more bucks) to send the same book Amazon will send for about $10. And Amazon packaging is much more compact, less wastage. (the book is Green Island http://www.rudemacedon.ca/greenisland.html .

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The article points out that the buyer noticed the high shipping cost at the very end and almost missed it. It is always good to thoroughly read through any financial transactions or contracts before signing them or clicking that final box.

As for Amazon, I make sure my order always is over $25 and is eligible for free shipping. Hair dye???????? Usually you can buy that in a grocery store or drugstore... I usually purchase cds/DVDs that are hard to find elsewhere (obscure musical tastes).

I don't really understand the point of this article - eBay sellers often overcharge on shipping as well. It's a case of "buyer beware."

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Some items are cheaper even before shipping if you don't buy it under Amazon's free shipping deal.

I buy lot's of stuff on Amazon and if I'm buying multiples of something, it never hurts to try the sellers own web-site in order to get the cheaper shipping, sometimes it's the same, so I just try goggling the item to see if I can buy it for a lower total (w/shipping or free shipping).

If you're in a hurry and you just click on the first thing that comes up without cross checking the prices or shipping, then you shouldn't be surprised if you get ripped off on shipping.

I stopped shopping on e-bay several years ago because their refund policy sucks, (really bad!) and some buyers knowingly cheat e-bay out of their per-item fee percentage by offering the item for (free) or a few cents and charging astronomical shipping fees in order to pocket the most profit themselves, but like others have written here, buyer beware.

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Lately I have been very surprised at the cost of having things sent from Amazon.com. I am a fanatic reader and tend to use the one-click shopping option--quite thoughtlessly--except when I get the bill. Then I find it incredible how much I am paying in shipping charges, which are difficult to question inasmuch as I live abroad. I think I'll stick with Amazon.UK, and keep an eye on their shipping prices too. Otherwise, what can one do? Any suggestions?

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Shipping fees go to the third party seller not Amazon. There may well be a problem with the charge structure for multile items but Amazon is not pocketing anything but their standard percentage.

BTW our used book store buys from Amazon all the time. (special orders for customers.) We use Prime and pay a very reasonable annual fee. Nothing but praise for Amazon from over here where we stand.

Dumb, inaccurate article.

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The fact is that shipping charges are always clearly stated up-front, whether the actually seller is Amazon or a third party from its Marketplace, which Amazon is always quite clear about.

Amazon doesn't get third-party sellers' shipment charges. They also provide a good way to give feedback on third-party sellers, and if you refer to it, you can generally get a very good idea of whether using them is to your benefit.

Another point that's ignored is that, even if you discover you made a mistake, you can cancel an order, and do it quite easily. If you do it before shipping, then there's no charge.

I'm not fond of Amazon's political stands - abhor them, in fact - but bashing them for something they don't do certainly doesn't help.

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I love Amazon. Other posters have already noted that items stocked by Amazon have free shipping if the order is over $25. I think an exception is a small shipping/handling charge for items like computers, televisions, etc.

The person who wrote this article lists items that total over $40. So if it was stocked by Amazon the shipping would have been free unless the buyer wanted overnight or other expedited shipping.

Shame on Alternet for publishing this article without checking it out. It sounds like a personal whine by someone with a personal problem.

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I really don't understand why you think Amazon.com shouldn't be looking to "pocket fees" and get rich. They are a business, not a non-profit charity.

BTW: People who use Amazon a lot - or plan to - can use join Amazon Prime and save on shipping, or pay closer attention to the various offers on items that offer little or no shipping.

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I have shopped at Amazon for years and do not pay for the two day shipping. However, there are shipping charges added when it’s not shipped from Amazon. I always look for the words “In Stock”, which usually means it’s shipping from Amazon. The person that wrote this article should have looked into PayPal instead of picking on Amazon.

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I've never paid shipping from Amazon. Even when I bought a bike, I was able to enroll in their 'platinum club' or whatever it is that entitles you to basically free standard shipping on any item for $80/year, which I then canceled after receiving the bike for a full refund.

All of their standard fare is shipped free if you spend over $25, I guess it sucks that your beauty product requires a bit more..."extra care", or tlc to reach your door step.

Sheesh.

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SPAM

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in the news, we are being told of the war between Amazon and Wal Mart. Now I can't say for sure but, this article sounds like Mr. Brown works for Wal Mart. I've heard stories like this from E-Bay, but never from Amazon shoppers. Mr. Brown, sounds like a shill, marijuana will kill you, drink alcohol, global warming is natural and there is no need to change our destructive consumption of fossil fuels, the wars we're raging are truly altruistic and not the NWO flexing their muscle, the bailouts of the rich elite was necessary to keep the upper middle class and below from losing everything. America needs the Federal Reserve and the private health care insurance industry. F*&# Mr. Brown and Wal Mart, shop the internet.

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I have totally had this problem! My total was $38 and some change for a few items from different third party stores, my shipping was almost 19$. I, too, found it absurd that the shipping was almost half the cost of the items.

I have used amazon a bunch in the past for various things and experienced little to no shipping. I have also used amazon to sell items and have never felt slighted.

But, I do feel like something is up. If you are buying multiple items of the same thing and/or from the same place shouldn't there be some sort of shipping adjustment? That just isn't good business practice. Not that amazon is a charity or whatever, its just fair business. Even if the shipping is clearly posted.

I also agree this is not an article. This is a complaint letter sent to the wrong people. Should be on consumerist.com or something.

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I have been buying on Amazon for several years and have never had this problem,s/h has always been reasonable or many times free?

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Amazon cuts its prices so low that they make it hard to resist ordering through them.( I don't shop at Wal Mart because of their business practices and loathsome treatment of employees but I don't need cheap tube socks and Amazon has everything I want.)

Their customer service is practically non-existent--another way they ramp up their profit margins. I pay for Amazon Prime membership so that two day shipping is "free"-then they'll use shabby services like A-1 Courier that lie about delivery attempts and then use USPS. As in your case, no one at customer service can explain or help.

At this time of year, their service is worse than ever. Don't count on your gifts arriving before Christmas when customer service can't guarantee Amazon will not use a disreputable bargain shipper to deliver your gifts.

I'm shocked that you were able to call customer service...unless you used their callback service. They don't provide any numbers on their site. Google "Amazon 800 number" to go to a blog post that gives you customer service numbers for large online retailers.

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Not only was it $15 less than most retailers, the free shipping was amazingly enough, free.

That's right nix, nada, zilch, zero, nothing.

This article is nothing more than manufactured phony outrage. I will give the author credit for actually calling Amazon, something other writers on the site would have skipped.

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the articles have taken a decided turn for the worst in the last couple of months. What is going on? There have been a series of questionable articles with very misleading titles. I can go to Fox news if I want misleading overblown poorly researched hearsay articles.

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Why is this article even here?

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As other commentors here already have pointed out, this seems to be a flawed and self-indulgent article about ordering cosmetics. It reminds me of a newspaper editor I know who abuses his platform to be punitive toward those who have offended him. AlterNet does nothing except undermine its credibility by printing such tripe. It borders on abuse of your influence. I'm bothered because credibility is crucial if AlterNet is to be an effective voice in the social and political upheavals of the day.

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You bought THROUGH amazon... god...

The amazon policy says if you buy more than $25 worth of stuff, you get free shipping.

The way you're talking about this, is as though you were buying the product directly from Amazon, like walking into a Walmart, and buying something from them.

If amazon DOES actually GET that money from the extra shipping, THEN DON'T BUY FROM AMAZON!!! Buy directly from the AmericaRx site...

If Amazon truly gets that extra $22 from shipping, which is just a money-making scheme anyway, then don't buy from them...
NOT that hard...

I typed in the same product, and there's a list of sellers who are selling that product.
Amazon itself ISN'T one of them.
You're buying from a SELLER on amazon, not amazon itself.
THAT'S why you're getting screwed over on the shipping.
Amazon has to make a profit somehow on allowing third parties to sell on their site, this is how they do it.

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That's the basic question when it comes to buying from 3rd parties, through Amazon.

I've been buying from Amazon for ages, and if there were ever shipping charges I felt were unreasonable, I simply didn't buy.

Most of my purchases never have a shipping fee, but of those that did, they were small 3rd party sellers - and the fee was 1/30th the cost of the plane ticket I'd have needed if I had to buy from that store in person.

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work for Amazon.com as a Customer Service Associate. Five years of stuff like this. An Amazon trainer told my group when I started that "We sell books to people that don't read." He wasn't joking.

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I just tested amazon.com ordering 6 "Just for Men" hair dyes.

Total cost: $42.24

Shipping - 3-5 days - $5.63
Shipping - 5-8 days - $0.00 (order is over $25.)

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Because I am a proud Liberal with high moral standards I never, ever buy anything from Amazon, because they are an evil inhumane corporation.

I don't shop at Wal-Mart or Starbucks for exactly the same reasons.

I purchase all my books through my local independent bookseller.

If you shop at Amazon, Wal-Mart, Starbucks or other evil, anti-competition, inhumane outlets like those, you can not possibly ne a Liberal.

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You have to understand there is a difference between buying something directly from Amazon and buying something from Amazon Marketplace, where Amazon is serving as an intermediary with a third party. Some of these third parties actively sell independently and some do not.

Shipping of Marketplace items does not fall under the regular Amazon shipping policy. It does not seem to follow any particular logic. The charges never seem to be the same as they would be with direct purchases. And they are not the same from one store to another.

I have found that the Marketplace shipping charges are sometimes the same, sometimes less and sometimes more than the store charges directly. It always pays to compare. The price of the item also may vary, although that is less frequent.

I just received today an item sold by Computer Geeks through Amazon Marketplace. In this case, I had checked, and the price was the same either way, but shipping was cheaper through Marketplace than direct. The previous time I found an item through Amazon sold by Computer Geeks I wound up buying it directly since in that case shipping was cheaper that way. So it's not even consistent by who actually sells it.

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I ordered a book from Amazon and was shipped an outdated version. When I complained, Amazon said it was between me and the third-party they used to supply the book.

The ease with which they deflected my complaint suggested this was an ongoing criminal operation.

I finally threatened to charge them both with mail fraud, and they canceled the charge for the book.

I'll never deal with Amazon again.

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Lots of companies are now using shipping skims to make money. I know this because in my job I read their emails. It's complicated, don't ask. We're getting offshored pretty soon, and when that happens, I'd be happy to provide a list of names. You'll know most of them.

There are a few variations of the scam.

The first is to use a third party program for a monthly membership fee to be applied to "discount" shipping. It's pitched mostly to frequent buyers, which on the surface sounds good, except that the discount is a fabrication. They charge you the actual shipping (unless you run up a sizeable bill, in which case the shipping is waived--although it's not even in that case, it's spread out in cost accounting for other customers) and tehn charge a monthly fee on top of that. The fee is then split between the program adminstration and the corporate vendor in a variety of percentage schemes. It's similar to bank fees.
A second victim of this scam are impatient people who aren't sufficiently leery of e-businesses "opt out" tactics when they run their credit cards. They wind up "enrolling" by default. Next thing you know, 14.95 per month off the card (the magic rate, btw, where people don't argue as much about the deduction). A large, nameless flower delivery service does this.

The other version of the scam is simply to do this same thing per unit shipped below a certain margin (free shipping with 50 bucks plus!). Low volume/weight units pay ridiculous shipping costs unless they drive the bill up to the magic number. The overcharge is split between the delivery service and the vendor.
This is the rarest scheme because ofthe collusion required. But I know of at least 5 or 6 corporations who do this as standard practice.

The last variation is the most common. This is simply where the vendor just jacks up shipping,
pays the delivery service a normal fee, and pockets the rest. You'll notice that much of this happened with the fuel price spikes, and that was used as the excuse for the increases. The problem with that is, as noted in the article and is obvious otherwise, when fuel prices go down, shipping costs typically don't. The second problem is that increased fuel costs effect every delivery service, and should thus effect the charges equally. They don't.
Upscale online retailers are the worst offenders of this practice.

I think the outrage is two-fold. First, it's not transparent. Shocking, I know. Second, is that this tactic is also largely used not primarily to skim fees from shipping, but to coerce customers to increase their purchase amounts in single transactions. This makes teh high shipping fees for small orders a sort of "cheapskate" tax levied by the companies.

You can see from the posts above that the tactics are not only fairly effective, but that they constitute more consumer training as "normal and acceptable" business procedures. That's how scams like fees become institutionalized.

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Amazon is running a bit of a scam. It profits off both its customers, and its vendors. As a vendor, I am not happy with Amazon.

But I am not happy with Alternet either. Where is the investigative journalism that gets at the truth of what is going on?

My company sells on Amazon. In most cases, we ship the merchandise, rather than relying on Amazon to ship it. Amazon is just a conduit that helps connect us to customers. Amazon takes a cut of each transaction. In a case like this, where a third party is shipping the merchandise, a shipping and handling fee applies to each and every item. The shipping and handling fee goes to the third party vendor. Because of this, my company substantially discounts most merchandise that we sell on Amazon. Mostly we well bumper stickers. A bumper sticker that costs $3.50 on our Web site (with free shipping), may cost $1.25 on Amazon, (with a $4.49 shipping charge). Amazon takes a 12 percent cut of the item price, plus 45-cents per item, plus 70-cents if the shipping is expedited.

Because of the high rate of claims of non-receipt, we have been forced to ship everything we sell on Amazon with delivery confirmation in special packaging. So even though customers may pay substantially more for our merchandise on Amazon, at the end of the day, we don't make much more. Because of Amazon's per-item shipping charges on third-party fulfillment, customers are discouraged from buying more than one or two of our items.

If a customer does buy more than three items, we upgrade their shipping. Sometimes, we even see fit to give the customer a partial refund if the total paid for shipping is really unjustifiable.

We have also tried shipping some of our popular items to Amazon for fulfillment by Amazon. Some items, like books, seem to sell better if they are in the Amazon warehouse. When Amazon is able to ship the order, it offers its customers special deals on shipping, like free shipping on orders over $25. This option is not available when you buy from a third party through Amazon.

For vendors, shipping items to Amazon has its own shortcomings. Vendors pay storage fees for their merchandise, as well as fees related to handling and shipping the merchandise. We make less money when Amazon fulfills our orders. We can try to compensate by raising our prices, but obviously, that tends to discourage sales.

Here is part of the disclaimer that we include on our Amazon store information page:

(We are) committed to providing each customer with the highest standard of customer service. PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO SHIPPING CHARGES! In many cases, shipping charges are imposed by Amazon on EACH ITEM. (However, if you see "FULLFILLMENT BY AMAZON" on the item description screen, shipping may be free or discounted.) We have no control over shipping charges. So that you can see your total shipping charges, we recommend that you DO NOT USE ONE-CLICK check-out. Because of the shipping charges imposed by Amazon, we price our products low, and recoup some of our costs through the shipping charges. ...

Amazon's policies are designed to pressure vendors into shipping merchandise to Amazon, and to discourage third-party fulfillment. From an environmental standpoint, this policy sucks because it requires shipping merchandise first to Amazon, and then to the customer. It would be more efficient, and less polluting, just to ship the merchandise to the customer from the original vendor. Also, third-party vendors often have custom shipping boxes or envelopes to ship items in appropriately sized containers. Amazon does not have the right box or envelope for every item, and Amazon does not take much care in packaging products.

Amazon is a corporate monstrosity the same way that Wal-Mart is a corporate monstrosity. But at least Wal-Mart gives lip service to protecting the environment.

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Amazon does not pay shipping on an item-by-item basis.

Amazon has annual shipping contracts -- an set contract fee independent of any parcel actual shipped.

This is why they can "give" you free shipping -- it costs them nothing.

Shipping & Handling is just another way to soak customers to boost the overall profit margins.

IOW, as you found out, a RIP-OFF.

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Like siamdave (watch out for those misprings!), I also live in Thailand and, like many other posters, I love Amazon.

But my strategy is a little different, I order from Amazon sent to US addresses so that, when I visit in summer, I can pick my items up and carry them home to Bangkok.

I mostly order books from Amazon. ALL used books, including those for 50¢, cost $3.99 in shipping. This often rankles and I often resort to buy a new book with free "super saver" shipping from Amazon...and perhaps that is their intention!

Lastly, I do think this article useful to our AlterNet community--after all, we are thinking people who read from many sources, inevitably including Amazon.

Is my grey showing???

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Amazon does ship for free (here in Europe) once a certain sum has been reached. And the fees on the markeplace stuff sometimes pushes the price over the regular price. A used DVD for € 9.95 for example, gets shipped for around 12. The new DVD (if I buy other stuff from Amazon) costs 11. 50...

But that is not the point. Ordering everything from amazon is killing local businesses, which is where a lot of people are employed. So I tend to check wares on Amazon, read up on the product I might need, but I shop locally in 90 % of cases. The savings I have had from Amazon whenever I did buy from them did not match the Customer Care hassles.

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