[btrettel]

I cancelled Prime because far too many orders would not come in on time. They kept giving me free months of Prime, but eventually I started thinking I could do better than free months of bad service.

I rarely ever buy anything from Amazon now unless I don't mind when the product comes in, the price is competitive, and the product is not the sort of thing which is often counterfeited. Their Amazon Basics brand frequently satisfies these rules.

[kop316]

Part of me wonders if they allow the counterfeiting for exactly that reason, so you know the Amazon basics will not be, then they can make yet more money off of you.

[jrnichols]

I'm trying to think of the last time I've had something not show up within 2-3 days. I suppose that this issue may vary quite a bit depending on where you live. I'm in the Dallas/Ft Worth area, and there are 6-8 large Amazon warehouses in this area alone, and Dallas itself is an Amazon Flex area.

[btrettel]

I live in Austin, and I had pretty bad experiences when trying to get packages delivered to my apartment. The problem seemed to be with the carriers, who basically refuse to deliver to my apartment. My guess is that the carriers believe packages are too likely to be stolen where I live, so they refuse delivery.

To be fair to them, I might have had one package stolen, perhaps by an employee of a carrier. I don't know what happened other than that delivery was claimed to occur but no package appeared. Amazon was kind enough to to resend that one.

I can recall one time where UPS told me to drive to their facility in north Austin to pick up a package. I told them that they were paid to deliver and I won't be doing that. I can recall another time where I got a door tag from USPS that told me to go to a particular post office to pick it up, and it wasn't there when I arrived.

The most annoying part is that I think no attempt was made to deliver a fraction of these packages. I often would not receive door tags, and I can recall one time where UPS claimed they attempted delivery but refused because I apparently was not there where I believe I likely was there. No door tag that time either. The UPS driver seemed irritated at me when they finally did deliver the package.

I can also vaguely recall at a previous apartment (also in Austin) having some problems where delivery was claimed to occur but did not actually occur. That problem stopped at some point.

Even before then, when I lived in the Washington DC area, I can recall having major problems with LaserShip, who would do last-mile delivery in the area. Amazon seemed dedicated to using LaserShip. I recall canceling Prime back then specifically because LaserShip was so bad, and then starting again when I moved and LaserShip was no longer an option. You can read horror stories online about LaserShip. I vaguely recall one instance where they left a package in the rain that made me look them up and not trust them any longer.

None of this is necessarily Amazon's fault. The vast majority of packages that I received were from Amazon, and I haven't had problems with others, however. Might be that the carriers figure Amazon packages are more valuable than other ones.

In contrast, I've had no problems receiving packages at work from Amazon, but my work doesn't want me to receive personal packages there and I don't have a car, so I can't take large packages from work.