Amazon.com

Amazon.com is DOWN - the site is not loading. When I try to visit either "http://www.amazon.com" or "http://amazon.com", I get this error message: "Http/1.1 Service Unavailable". What's going on? When will service be restored? This happened on Friday as well -- why is there a pattern of downtime emerging?

Looking up for people's profiles on the net on http://www.yasni.de/ (german) amongst profiles in social networks appears my Amazon wishlist.
As this is my private list, not my favourite list which I agreed to publish, I would like to mark it as private, available only for me as registered and logged in customer.

Browser unable to load or find the amazon.com server

Ref: Amazon Order ID 058-1471745-8243763

As a long time seller on Amazon, I recently had a situation where the buyer decided to file an A-to-Z claim against me. Amazon "ruled" in favor of the buyer, taking my proceeds from the sale and refunding them to the buyer. Hey, I'm all about customer satisfaction. There's nothing worse than making a purchase on eBay or Amazon only to be disappointed. However, I had a USPS delivery confirmation that the book arrived to the buyer AND the buyer did not ship the book back to me. So I'm the big loser all the way around. Amazon wouldn't even answer my emails until I went to the Better Business Bureau! Then, when they do answer, it's the same re-regurgitation that they do not recognize delivery confirmation as proof of delivery. What?! I guess Amazon is smarter than the post office - what a joke.

It all began when I placed an order for 5 Redi Shades - I had just moved and needed something to cover the windows and provide a little privacy.

The first hint of trouble was when I noticed that each shade was being shipped separately. They arrived, each in its own 3 ft long, triangular box. No packing material around the shade, just air. So 3 of the 5 were damaged, because the box was long and light and easily bent. If they had packed all 5 in one box with a stiffener, there would have been no problem.

Now, Amazon customer support has been outsourced to India. If you've ever tried to have a conversation with one of these reps, you know how frustrating it can be. (I once managed an IT outsourcing project to an Indian supplier for a Fortune 500 company so I have prior experience!).

Replacements were sent (on three SEPARATE order numbers, just for fun), packaged exactly the same way of course, and one of these was damaged as well.

Return labels were promised and not sent. Shipping was not credited as promised. One of the returns was not processed. On and on, all with those wonderful customer service platitudes being read off some cue card in a singsong Indian accent. Having to explain things over and over, and basically train the rep on how to solve the problem, is not what I signed up for...

I estimate it will take, let's see, 2 more phone calls - about an hour on the phone, 9 emails and 21 more days to resolve this problem.

We'll see how close I come to that.

Amazon, it's costing you money to operate like this. Each shade was less than $10.

Amazon offers an "A-Z" insurance policy whereby they will refund your purchase after investigating the issue, if your purchase did not arrive by the date the originally gave you. However, you have to wait 3 business days before submitting your claim. My purchase arrived during that 3-day period, so Amazon told me that my item arrived during the "wait period," and I'm not eligible for the refund. Sounds to me like Amazon gambles on the purchase arriving during that period and people cooling off. Amazon needs to either change to a 24-day wait time (from its current 21-day wait), or else honor the terms of its refund policy. The customer service people were rude to me, and I don't want to shop at Amazon anymore, after purchasing 4 years' worth of college textbooks and several other books there.