The Saga of Harry Potter or Why I Hate Amazon.com

We were promised, nay *guaranteed* delivery of Harry Potter by 7pm yesterday. 7pm rolls around and no sight of the book. I was busy (though at home) so I decided to wait to contact them until this morning. Their website is completely unhelpful - keep this in mind because it will relate to a comment from one of their (thankfully not in Bangladesh) "customer service" reps I talked to this morning. I can not access the order on the website. It's simply not there, in spite of the fact that I have received no less than 5 separate emails about my order. One this morning about 3am telling me the price dropped a dollar and I'd be getting a credit on my next statement (gee, a whole dollar?).

UPS HAS the shipment one town over and has since FRIDAY but, guess what? It didn't get delivered yesterday and there was someone home all day long too. So I try to get help via the amazon.com website and it's a complicated labyrinth of webpages with ZERO helpful information. I click on "contact Amazon.com" and, lo and behold, there is NO customer service phone number to be found. Why? They don't want you to have it because, and I quote "we're an internet based company". Well, golly gee, I never would have guessed. Don't you think an "internet based company" would have a HELPFUL website where their customers can get the answers they need in that case?

I finally found the customer service phone number on a website that was, you guessed it, NOT amazon.com. People have taken to posting their customer service phone number on various webpages because you can't get it from amazon.com (by the way, if you need it it's 1-800-201-7575). So after jumping through THOSE hoops, I call. I give the guy my order number. He wants to verify my email address. No problem. Then he wants to verify my mailing address. Okay. And my name as well. Mind you, I have now verified 4 separate pieces of "security" information for them.

Guess what?

It's not good enough. NOW I must jump through an additional hoop or these geniuses can not access my account. Now I have to figure out which credit card I used and give them the last FIVE digits as well as the expiration date. And they tell me they're doing ME a favor. All I want is my book and my money back. They guaranteed me something they did not deliver. But no, they can't help me. Oh no, until I give them the information they need for MY protection, they say, I'm out of luck.

After going round and round with them, I finally told them to screwthemselves and I'll call back later when I can dig up whichever credit card that MIGHT have been used for the order. And I am going to demand my money back as well as my damn book and then I am going to terminate my amazon.com account as soon as I have both.