See You Next Wednesday
Monday, December 5
 
Amazonly inept, or amazonly generous?

I ordered two DVDs and one CD and another thing from Amazon. Amazon said my credit card didn't work but it would probably work if I asked them to try again. I was asking them to try again when I noticed my order was for one DVD and two CDs and another thing. Amazon said I could change my order but I couldn't really; I couldn't change the quantities and I couldn't add to the order, I could only cancel items. So I had to cancel the two CDs. Then I ordered one CD and one more DVD. (I could have combined my two orders into one but why tempt fate?) My credit card worked for my second order, which was good because there is no way to check the correctness of the credit card number recorded (which is also good). So it was fortunate it didn't work the first time or I would not have noticed the error in my order.

Amazon said the cancellation of my order was not processed due to a system upgrade and my order was dispatched in full. They said there was no order refund as I had not been charged. They advised me to return the "shipment" and they will reimburse me for the shipping costs. The advice didn't mention what was cancelled or what remained in the order, it implied I should return the whole shipment. They also gave me a five pound gift certificate.

The record of my order indicates the first order was dispatched 30 November, the day after Amazon said it had been dispatched in full. The record also indicates the cancellation was processed correctly. However when the order arrived on 1 December (one day after it was dispatched) it included the two cancelled CDs. I haven't received the second order yet (which was dispatched 29 November, the day before the first order). My credit card was charged for one CD and one DVD (the second order) on 30 November; and one DVD and one other thing (the amended first order) on 1 December.

Now I have two CDs I have not been charged for (and could use as Christmas presents); a link to be reimbursed for an arbitrary amount of shipping costs; and a five pound gift certificate. What did Christopher do next?
 
Comments:
Christopher wrote a blog and thought about writing an email to Amazon. Then he made a cup of coffee and thought about his D&D campaign a bit.
 
Did he send the e-mail? Did he return the 2 CDs and include chalk dust? Did he get arrested for that paranoid prank and locked up forever without trial, as the .au anti-terror laws change...
 
Xtopher wrote a program that repeatedly orders and then cancels, and thus pulls the same scam on Amazon, ad infinitum.
 
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This may not sound like the snappiest line from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), but it evidently caught the imagination of John Landis, who has worked references to a mythical film of this name into most of his own movies - memorably as the grotty British skinflick watched by an assortment of lycanthropes and zombies in the climax of An American Werewolf in Paris [sic] (1981). Ghastly Beyond Belief, Neil Gaiman and Kim Newman

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