The Mail Demon

I was *this* close to making heads roll the other day. I had recently started a subscribe and save on Amazon for the Olay microderm stuff for their face brush thingie. (you'd think, being a woman, I'd be more up with the terms but turns out, no.) I get push notifications on my phone when things get delivered, and at about 4pm on delivery day, I got my text:

Your package is undeliverable as addressed. Please contact the carrier to resolve the issue.

Say WHAT.

So now I was scrambling. I get on Amazon and find that it was delivered via FedEx SmartPost (not so smart) and they list numbers so I called them. Turns out that even though it's delivered by "FedEx" they like, hand it over to USPS. OK whatever. I call the number for USPS which I think is their national number or something... it's 4:30, I'm clocked off of work, I'm annoyed as frack, and I just want to go home; and I'm sitting on hold. So, with my multi-tasking skills, I find my local post office, and using my cellphone I call them - while I'm still on hold with the national company. 

Here's the most lame, annoying rule I've ever heard: Once it's determined undeliverable it gets sent back to the shipper. Period. There's nothing they can do. No holding it for pick up, no trying again the next day. Nothing. I'm out of luck.

At this point, I'm fuming. I don't yell at the dude on the phone even though he was a little aloof with me (a "sorry ma'am" would have been nice). I get back on Amazon and read about their policy. Once they get the item back, a refund will be issued, but it could take 2-4 weeks. Luckily this thing wasn't hundreds of dollars! They tell me I need to order it again, so I try to do just that: except the price had gone up by almost $5. I email Amazon although it's hard to be polite even though it's not their fault at all. I just ask if I can get a price reduction and re-order at the same price as I had before.

Then I went home.

At this point I'm still living with my parents so I ask them if they got their mail. They had. Now I'm even more angry. It's the same damn address! I mean, what the actual f*ck?! (Sorry for the French). I was determined to call USPS tomorrow and scream at them. There was no logical reason why my parents would get their mail yet my item was "Undeliverable".

Then I checked my email, and I'd already gotten a response from Amazon. As I read the email I'd felt as though I was lava being drenched in cold water. They made it right. They gave me my refund, asked me to order again and they would refund the difference in price. They even offered to ship it one-day for free. 

Wow.

At that point, I was so calm and satisfied that I never even bothered to call USPS. The only thing I can figure is because I was moving soon, I'd already put in a request for a change of address; however the change wasn't supposed to have taken effect until the 19th of April. Maybe there had been some confusion there, who knows. But I'm so happy that Amazon made it right. 

Have you ever had this happen to you? What did you do about it?