I think it’s time to stop buying books and such from Amazon.
First, I ordered the Designing With Web Standards book by Jeffrey Zeldman back on March 31st. The book started shipping on Wednesday, May 14th Thursday, May 15th [so I’m impatient :-)], yet their product page still says:
This item has not yet been released. You may order it now and we will ship it to you when it arrives.
Wha? Real nice. Not only hasn’t their page been updated, but it hasn’t shipped. :-(
Here’s what I got from Amazon about the matter:
Concerning “Designing with Web Standards”, I apologize for the lack
of an estimated delivery date for this order in Your Account. This
appears to be due to a technical error. Rest assured that we are
processing your order.
I have asked our order specialists to investigate your order further.
We will contact you again via e-mail if we discover there is a
problem obtaining the item.
Nice and non descript. Where’s my book.
To make mattrers more fun, I also ordered Enter The Matrix back on April 15th. I ordered it then because the page said if I pre-ordered it now, I would have it when it is released. I paid for 1 day shipping.
Here it is, May 16th, a day after the game was available in every store on the planet. Same story. No game in the mail. This is what I got from Amazon:
I’ve checked your order and can confirm that we are currently
preparing it for shipment.
We still expect to ship it in time for delivery by the date listed
in Your Account: May 16, 2003.
That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. You’re preparing it for shipment and you still expect it to ship in time to be delivered today?
Yeah right.
Amazon is gonna give me $11.98 off of my bill since the game is gonna be late. I think I’ll snag a local copy and return the Amazon item instead. Better yet, I’ll just not sign for it and let them eat the shipping.