Mixed Amazon satisfaction

Started out bad, ended pretty good.

I ordered two spare batteries for my new camera from Amazon. They wouldn't let me send it to my PO Box (the post office doesn't deliver to my physical address), which normally means it's going via UPS, and will be delivered to my home. No sweat, I give them my physical address.

The tracking data says my order is arriving on Friday, which is good, since that's my first day off, and I'll be home (I work out of town). So, on Wednesday, I check the tracking data and it says the package was delivered on Tuesday! WTF!?!

I call my wife and ask if the package arrived. No, nothing arrived. I go back to the tracking info, and now it says it was shipped via Fed-Ex, and delivered at 3:50 PM. At 3:50 PM my mother-in-law was having outpatient surgery, and my wife was with her. There was no one home to deliver a package to.

Skip forward to Friday morning. The missing package is still missing, and I call Fed-Ex. The girl on the phone tells me they delivered the package, addressed with my home address to the post office. Huh? Ignoring the fact that the post office doesn't deliver to my physical address, only to my PO Box, why would they hand the package to the USPS? They give me a post office number to call.

I call my wife and have her check the po box, just in case. No package. Then I call the post office. The girl I talk to says the available info says the package was delivered. After some discussion, she opens an investigation into the missing package.

Then I call Amazon. I explain the whole situation to the girl at Amazon. Within five minutes, she has two more batteries on the way, overnight with shipping fees waived. Counting the weekend, they'll be here Monday. Tracking data says they are coming UPS and are already at the local distribution center.

The girl tells me if the other package shows up, refuse delivery so they'll be sent back to Amazon, sorry for the problem, have a nice day.

My experience is they're very good at fixing stuff that goes wrong

Same situation here, the P.O. does not deliver, all mail to our P.O. Box. So, with Amazon I just ship to, for example 235 Maple #123. (123 being the box number) This covers all bases, as on occasion UPS hands off to the USPS.

The UPS distribution center isn't too far from my home and I've been working with them for a while, so it's pretty much money in the bank that whatever I order through Amazon and have delivered through UPS will arrive a couple of days ahead of schedule. I start to worry a bit when I see the USPS has it, they also deliver accurately but are a bit slow and usually deliver on the last day in the window they give you. And the USPS tracking software is slow and does odd things sometimes (they sent a package from 15 minutes away back to NJ just ro re-deliver it the next day).