.de promised to call me, never called. Split an order in three, used a bank account I had already removed from the system, then made me pay a fee three times when the money naturally could not be retrieved. One item in the order was a fake, when I returned it they claimed I kept it - thankfully I still had the receipt that I returned something, together with some stern words that was enough to end that.
Never buy from Amazon, especially not .de. Germany has a bunch of alternative online shops that are better.
Well, germany has customer protection laws, but before amazon, customer service was always worse than in the US i would say.
Just think about Media markt customer service for example…
Amazon changed that by introducing US-style no-questions-asked 30 day returns etc… but nowadays they are slowly chipping away at that, 14 days is the the norm now, (which is the hard limit anyway, since being set into law a couple years ago)
But yes the customer friendliness is slowly being cut down, due to growing costs. Zalando (an online fashion retailer) has also reduced their return policy recently.
Yep, I'm sure it's the brilliance of Amazon and not the same old trick of creating a monopoly then exploiting it that people have been using since the early middle ages and regularly outlawed because it destroys economies.
Say ... what was Amazon's initial reason for success? Being cheaper by exploiting the interstate commerce clause to avoid paying sales tax when it's competitors weren't allowed to do so? You don't say. Amazon is famous for losing money on their delivery business (up until recently)? It's constantly repeated in 10+ years of their financial statements ...
So either Amazon has completely changed tactics and become truly brilliant and we still don't understand the plan ... or they're up to their old tricks, being slightly cheaper, now with less legality!
... and not just the law but consumer protection agencies. The Verbraucherschutz does not mess around - break the law strategically and you will get banged up hard.
This is what Cory writes about: We need laws and regulations if we want to prevent enshittifiaction.
In the US these laws have been dismantled since the 70s (if I get the text correctly, I'm not expert on US labor law). And in Germany there is a chancellor who is pushing to increase the 40 work week (which still meant up to 50 hours) to a 48 hour work week - that's the change necessary to have Amazon (and others) treat their drivers and warehouse workers with more dignity. /s
Check the Philips Ultinon H7 led bulbs reviews on Amanzon.de. There are dozens on verified reviews complaining that they received halogen (cheap) bulbs in the led bulb packaging, suggesting some internal job at Amazon warehouse.
The only thing keeping me there is the no-nonsense, helpful, customer support.
Any issues i have are always resolved, so it still seems to be working over here.