Well done Amazon - boo to Ooma...

[Rich Engelhardt]

According to the Amazon web site, there was a $30.00 rebate on the Ooma Telo that ran through 6/21/2014 (today).
The one I ordered came in today's mail.

I got online to submit the rebate form and when it came to the part about the documentation required, they were very specific that the cash register receipt must appear exactly like the one pictured or the rebate would be denied.

Naturally, the one I'd printed out from Amazon looked nothing like the picture - so - I called Ooma to find out what I needed.

Omma tech support had no idea. They wanted my name, address and phone number so they could get back to me in 3 to 5 business days!

I told them that was ridiculous since the promotion had been going on now for over a month and there was no way that this hadn't come up before this. I simply could not be the only person to have purchased the Ooma device from Amazon.

I told the guy, go ahead and find out & I hung up.
Next I got online with Amazon and explained the whole thing to them in a chat window.

Amazon, to my surprise, simply said, "No problem, we'll refund you $30.00 if that will make you happy".
I said, yes it would, but, why should Amazon have to pay when it want' their fault?

The guy said, "Because we value our customers".

A big well done to Amazon!

[Alan Caro]

Rich Englehardt,

Amazon, as your post suggests, has become an odd combination of the atrocious and the marvelous. On the one hand, they present an unsolvable bureaucratic conundrum regarding the rebate, then offer to pay the rebate themselves.

I had a similar odd collisions of a problem with seemingly generous response. In February, for a new HP z420 computer, I ordered a tray that converts a 3.5" hard drive bay to hold a 2.5" solid state drive. My choice was an $11 Thermaltake that was well made and finished and arrived faster than quoted in a sturdy cardboard box. However, it didn't fit. Because it held the drive in the center, I could not connect the data and power cables which on the HP are configured so they stack vertically to serve three 3.5" drives. When connected to the 1TB mechanical drive, the stiff cable could not bend within the 1.5" between the bays towards the center to connect to the SSD.

These things happen! Knowing Amazon has a generous return policy and makes it easy with printable return labels, I wrote asking for return authorization and I would buy another. But, they rejected my return! Instead, they oddly wrote that "as a valued customer" I could keep the device and the cost would be refunded. I thought this was extremely generous, but as I become suspicious whenever a corporation with the GNP of Africa does something generous, I assumed that it cost them more than $11 for the postage, restocking, and processing the refund. However, I didn't argue and ended up designing my own tray (sorry, not from wood) which Sawmill denizen Sotos Patistas very kindly cut out on his laser and assembled. I used the mounting screws from the Thermaltake tray, so all was not lost.

Thanks Amazon!

But,..

Having a positive attitude towards Amazon, I ordered a new hard drive and DVD burner to prepare my old computer for sale and these arrived in a crumpled, folded-over piece of scrap cardboard that only had folded in flaps on the end and the drives wrapped in a couple of ragged pieces of small size bubble wrap. The light metal drive tray was sent in a sturdy box, but the heavy, delicate drives were done up in the open scrap. It was miracle the items didn't push their way out the unsealed ends. As there was not apparent damage, I only resolved not to buy computer components from Amazon again. But here was that odd confluence of Amazon being generous and helpful and then remarkably slipshod.

Since that time, I keep reading surprising negative and suprisingly regular reports on Amazon; that they have these accelerating packing / shipping quotas in warehouses, one of which was closed from ventilation so it was more than 110F and others. >

http://www.salon.com/2014/02/23/wors...ating_workers/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/eamonnfi...se-conditions/

http://www.businessinsider.com/bruta...ehouses-2013-8

>Then, recently, was the revelation that Amazon in it's zeal to lower prices, began throttling sales of books produced by Hatchette- charging full price, not offering the paperback, and delaying shipping in order to intimidate Hatchette into lowering prices.

http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketc...ry.html#page=1

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/10/te...spat.html?_r=0

Of course, Amazon has to pursue certain policies to remain competitive, but personally, I tend to feel less pleased with the things I buy if I believe it was produced, negotiated, and/or delivered under adverse conditions. When companies gravitate towards these extreme market control. profit policies, ambulances have to be parked in series outside their warehouses to collect the fallen warriors, they discourage sales of books to bully the publisher, there are rumors of price fixing on electronic books, and I receive $120 of delicate electronics in a used cardboard flap, I find my own gravitating is towards shopping elsewhere.

The scales are tipping for Amazon's public image, and I hope they make an effort to redirect their energies.

Alan Caro

"No matter what your wealth, power, or talents may be, the cheapest things in life are free."

[Brian Elfert]

Rich Englehardt,

Amazon, as your post suggests, has become an odd combination of the atrocious and the marvelous. On the one hand, they present an unsolvable bureaucratic conundrum regarding the rebate, then offer to pay the rebate themselves.

The rebate was from OOMA directly, not from Amazon.

Amazon's packaging has gotten a little wacky recently. I ordered several items from Amazon in the past two weeks. Most arrived in the standard Amazon packaging, but one was obviously a reused box. These were all from Amazon directly and not from a third party. I was shocked that Amazon would reuse a crappy box since they normally use new boxes with Amazon logo. (I am never shocked to get reused boxes from other vendors.)

[Rich Engelhardt]

The rebate was from OOMA directly, not from Amazon.

That's what I was going to point out, but, after sleeping on this overnight, I'm wondering if Amazon has a policy in place for when this happens with the Ooma rebate?

The response from Amazon with an offer to refund the $30.00 was instantaneous.

Amazon probably has a deal going on with Ooma where Amazon will make the rebate good to anyone that contacts them, then Ooma and Amazon will settle up later.

Either way, I'm happy since I got my rebate!

[Rick Potter]

When Amazon had that super sale on DeWalt track saws, mine came with the 8' long track in packaging that was falling apart. The end of the track was dinged up. Amazon sent me a new track, and told me to keep the old one. I was very pleased, especially because the packaging was from DeWalt, not Amazon. The new one came in the same packaging, coming apart, but no damage to the track.

Hope Amazon got damages from DeWalt for the crappy packaging.

Haven't done it yet, but that damaged 8' track is gonna become a couple shorties, when I decide the sizes.

Rick Potter

[Mike Henderson]

That's what I was going to point out, but, after sleeping on this overnight, I'm wondering if Amazon has a policy in place for when this happens with the Ooma rebate?

The response from Amazon with an offer to refund the $30.00 was instantaneous.

Amazon probably has a deal going on with Ooma where Amazon will make the rebate good to anyone that contacts them, then Ooma and Amazon will settle up later.

Either way, I'm happy since I got my rebate!

I have no direct knowledge, but I suspect that when Amazon does a rebate as you describe, they just charge it against the vendor's account. If the vendor objected, Amazon would just tell them to sell the stuff through another channel.

Mike

[Andrew Pitonyak]

I have found the Amazon customer service to generally be very good (willing to deal with broken things, for example). I have also found their packing to often be lacking. As such, I simply choose to not purchase certain things form amazon. I just don't buy hard drives from amazon given their sometimes poor packing. I don't want to risk a drive that may function but will fail prematurely because it was seriously knocked around.

I have returned drives for warranty repair to Seagate. The packing requirements for amount of foam were rather stringent, so, I assume that is what they think should be done for safe shipping (hint: just pay them to cross ship a replacement and use their packing to return the drive). Thankfully, I live near a Micro-Center that has good prices on such things so I just buy them locally.

[David Weaver]

Amazon probably has a deal going on with Ooma where Amazon will make the rebate good to anyone that contacts them, then Ooma and Amazon will settle up later.

That's what I was thinking. For the privilege of selling on the amazon site or through amazon, the retailer probably has to make amazon whole on anything where amz thinks that you're in the right as the consumer and they are the party refunding you.

I remember when I was in college, everyone thought that walmart had such a great return policy back then (this is mid 1990s) and how generous they are. This seems far removed now from being anything special because everyone offers a similar policy. Anyway, you could just return anything to walmart. One of my class professors pointed out that at the time if you wanted to sell something through walmart as a manufacturer, you had to take back (refund) the returns and give walmart an additional 10% of the item value for handling the transaction vs. what everyone thought was walmart.

That was probably a real stinger on the manufacturer back then when there were still a fair number of things made in the US such that production costs were an appreciable % of the actual item.

[Brett Luna]

Living where I do, I've done quite a bit of business with mail order vendors like Amazon. I can't recall ever receiving shoddy or reused packaging from them but I do think they've been having some problems with packaging supplies. I've notice over the last year or so that I have received several small items (well!) packed in comically large boxes. They were apparently out of small ones.