"This place is either hit or miss. If you received your order with no problems, count yourself lucky. I chose the "Free Super Saver" shipping option with my last order, which I found actually translates to : WE WILL SHIP YOUR ORDER WHEN WE FEEL LIKE IT ", according to several E-MAILS from their "customer service" response's I received from India. I placed my order on Jan.2, and I am still waiting.
UPDATE: I have since ordered several times from Amazon and have had no problems. Matter of fact they even did a price credit for me after I made a purchase and the price dropped. If I could write a seperate review, I would."

"Whenever I have ordered directly FROM Amazon (NOT one of it's marketplace vendors), I have been amazed at the excellent service they provide.

The last order that I placed was on 1/9/06. It was for two books and I chose free "supersaver shipping". The books arrived two days later on 1/11/06! This is the type of service I have received from Amazon repeatedly, and I shop there a LOT.

Also, whenver I have problems with a purchase that I made through one of their marketplace vendors, it is easy to get an Amazon customer service rep on the phone, and they are always professional, friendly and thorough.

This kind of service is rare these days.

I highly recommend buying directly from Amazon.
"

"Ordered a Seidio windshield mount for my EVO4 phone. Price was lower than anything on Ebay and it shipped free with no tax. It took a couple of days to actually ship but it arrived in just two days. Great experience!"

"I ordered a number of Christmas gifts for my wife and mother on December 19th. I chose standard delivery and everything was guaranteed to be delivered by the 23rd. Well, I am glad to report that, indeed, everything was delivered by the promised date and in perfect condition. The way Amazon handled my order, however, is the amazing part.

Because my items were shipping from different sellers such as Borders (even though everything was sold through Amazon), a couple of my items shipped right away. Three books and a couple of DVD's, on the other hand, were delayed in shipping out. Not only did Amazon keep me well updated on all my items, including the delayed ones, but they upgraded my shipping, free of charge, to Overnight UPS shipping on the delayed items, thus insuring that they would still arrive before Christmas and by the guaranteed delivery date of the 23rd. I was very impressed with this considering the horror stories you hear about some online companies such as Overstock.com or DeepDiscountDVD.com (both of which I have personally had excellent experiences with, but whom, if you read their reseller ratings, have plenty of complaints about as well).

So, I highly recommend Amazon. I have ordered from them before, but in a crunch-time situation like this during the busy Holiday Season, they really came through and bent over backward to please the customer. It makes you feel good knowing you can rely on them. A+"

"I had purchase a Garmin 60c from one of their merchants and never received the item. After failing to contact the seller and waiting the designated time given my Amazon I file a complaint. It took them a day to respond however they had me file another form against the merchant. After another 10 days I received a full refund of my purchase. I am pleased that I didn't have to go through my credit card company to deal with this. Amazon will receive more business from me."

"Amazon had the cheapest price for a new ibook and threw in a printer and mouse for free. Free shipping also sealed the deal. Amazon took two days to ship my items, which is not bad, considering the shipping was free. Unfortunately, Amazon used UPS to ship two of my items. The boxes came on time, but one was opened and the other looked like it had served as a soccer ball for a soccer team. The amazon rebate site is also a bit confusing, but overall, I am happy."

"This was frustrating. I ordered a Sharp Aquos TV from Amazon even though it was $300 higher than many other etailers. The reason for that is simple. Many, many of the other etailers has horrible ratings and abysmal comments. So, I carefully avoided them. Amazon sent me an email and said the TV would be arriving 12/16 to 12/22 (in time for XMAS). Well, I called the trucking company and they said all was well. (Oh, did I mention that the tracking number from amazon did not work). The trucking company call 12/23 to confirm delivery for 12/24. Now the problems begin. The trucking company (Valley Trucking)called on 12/24 and said the driver called in sick (They only have one driver for a whole company???). I called the trucking company and they said they cannot locate my TV at all and it appears to be lost. Well, forget pre-Xmas delivery. I emailed Amazon about this and they merely refered me to the trucking company. Well, SH**. I sent another email to Amazon reminding them that I bought it from them - NOT Valley Trucking. I left for a one week vacation on 12/26. On 1/3, I called the trucking company and they said it was still "lost". They said they would get me another one immediately. I told them no and cancelled the order. I emailed Amazon and asked for a refund to my credit card. It took them 5 days to respond to my email. But, they did refund my CC. Summary:
1. Amazon home page says they will respond to emails within 24 hrs. - Actual time 2-5 days
2. There is no way to telephone Amazon directly.
(although you can call a number to request a call back. But, you really have to dig through their site to find it.)
3. Any reference to tracking numbers on large items (20 lbs or more) are bogus and unusable.
4. Support for items in transit is non-existent.

Post-Mortem - I bought the exact same television with standard delivery (5-7 days) from B&H Photo (New York - Yipes! - 95% of New York Addresses are crooks). I received it 2 (yes two!) days later on my doorstep in California.
AMAZON SUCKS - B&H is wonderful!
Arnold"

"I recieved 2 prepaid visa cards, each for $100. I purchased a $100 Amazon gift certificate with 1, and then purchased a $7 gift certificate with a seperate debit card to cover taxes. The item I wanted to purchase is a Zen Micro 6gb, which was 189.99 with free shipping. I went to checkout, and applied the $107 in gift cards, and the $100 prepaid visa.

The order had a problem. Amazon charged the prepaid visa $1, and then rejected the card I could not order again, because there was only $99 on the prepaid visa, which coupled with the amazon gift card credits was not enough. I cancelled the order to avoid the automatic retry which I was afraid would keep charging $1.

We called their (outsourced) tech support, which after much discussion, they concluded they needed the full 16 digit prepaid visa number, and when I refused, they "transferred" me to their banking department, which while ringing, hung up.

=update=
After a week of arguing with tech support, I finally got the order through a third party seller on their website, "J&R". Amazon credited me $25 for all the hassle. In the end it all worked out, but because of this I wont be buying from Amazon ever again."

"I have orderd things from Amazon.com in the past. The thing about Amazon is that Amazon is not always the one doing the selling. When I order an Item I make sure it's coming directly from Amazon and not some other store selling through them.

I have made over a dozen orders through Amazon.com. All of them were satisfactory.
Amazon is not a super fast shipper but they usually will have the item to you within the 5 to 7 days range. Not stellar but bearable.

The trick to shopping at Amazon is to make sure the item comes directly from tehm and not a third- party reseller. If the Item you want is only sold by the third-party reseller, you might want to check up on their business dealings by coming to resellerratings.com, that way you can feel somewhat secure that you will not be jacked around. Just becuase something is sold at Amazon.com does not mean it is sold by Amazon. Shop wisely! and you will not get burned.

Anyway! I orderd some DVD movies directly from Amazon this time around and they showed up 8 days later on my doorstep. Keep in mind, I put my order in on a holiday. "

"YOU BETTER HOPE YOU HAVE A PROBLEM FREE TRANSACTION!!!

I don't usually judge a retailer by their mistakes (there are always exceptions of course). I do judge them by how they deal with a mistake or problem.

Let me tell you, from my experience Amazon.com doesn't give a rats ass about you once they get their money.

I purchased Visual Studio 2005 pro edition.

Received it very quickly. I go to install it and find I have 2 SQL server developer edition Certificate of authenticity and not one for Visual Studio 2005. And yes I tried both codes just for the heck of it and they don't work.

I contact Amazon, their response... Here's an 800 number to call Microsoft. Great, I call that number, it's the wrong number, this is for hardware.

In the meantime I replied to the email from amazon berating them for the poor service and explaining they've provided bad product and should have immediatly offered to replace it.

Sooo... I track down the correct number, spend 1+hours on the phone, the Microsoft rep was not able to give me a COA that would work.

I then get another reply from amazon's CSR's obviously based in India. They replied to the wrong email address, and then proceed to give me more Microsoft phone numbers to call.

At this point I am pissed. Credit card charges are about to get reversed...

I call Amazon and within a few minutes, their rep Amit is overnighting me a replacement and having me ship the bad software back at their cost.

2-3 hours to get Amazon to do what they should have done from the get go.

You dam well better hope you don't have any problems! If you do you now know what to expect.

If you try the email route, expect to get absolutely uncaring, canned, cookie cutter replies from India.

Pick up the phone and call them if you hope to get anywhere.

I will no longer purchase anything except books. If you look at all the reviews here Amazon rates pretty badly. It seems as if books are the only thing amazon seems to handle fairly well."

"Ordered a HP Pavilion zd8205us 17.0" Notebook PC on New Year's Eve with the free no-frills shipping option.

Item arrived on 1/4/06. Since 1/1 was a Sunday and 1/2 was a holiday, this is very fast, much faster than the Amazon estimated arrival date of 1/10-1/12.

I wish they would've put some more "air-packs" in the bigger box around the smaller notebook box, but the computer works and was undamaged."

"Kept delaying shipment claiming that it was being processed and I could not cancel. In January, I received email saying that my order was canceled and would not be shipped. Difficult to get questions answered--not honest. They wipe out all links to previous customer service as soon as they cancel the order."

"I've had only but good experiences with amazon online services, so my only advise to other potential customers is, expect a the kind of service a big, big almost faceless company gives."

"I have had placed an order for Chamberlain garage door opener back in October 2005. Amazon was supposed to deliver by early November. Since, I only have received notes for delay, and yet again they delayed the delivery even further to back of January. There is no evidence that Amazon would ever have the item at hand, although it has been listed as in stock and delivery is estimated within two weeks. Simply, if they don't have it why they list? My suspicion is that since this item was originally ordered at a lower price, Amazon is intentionally delaying the delivery for those customers who had placed the order at a lower price to discourage them and have them cancel their order. Malicious tactic."

"Possibly the best online merchant that I have ever had the pleasure of dealing with. I have been using them pretty consistently since 1996 and have yet to have any problems that made me reluctant to use any of there services. Whenever there was a problem with an item they always resovled the issues extremely quickly always providing next day air service on replacements when an item was defective or a incorrect item received."