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I made the mistake of pre-ordering the minute it was posted thru the Amazon.ca website. (I live in Canada.) I know a couple people who ordered the book thru Amazon.com - the parent American company - months after I pre-ordered through the Canadian site, and they received their books.
I was pisssed and made a phone call.
I was told that the pre-orders are "first in line" of priority.
It's hard to accept that, however, when customers who pre-ordered get their orders cancelled six months later, whereas others who didn't pre-order and waited a few months got their orders filled 'n shipped.
What was more alarming to me was to learn from the customer rep that Amazon.com and Amazon.ca are, quote, "two completely different companies."
H'uh?
I pressed the woman and said, okay, in future, is it now advisable that when ordering anything through Amazon, that I order it from *both* the Canadian and U.S. sites, to ensure the best chance of getting my ordered filled?
She said she could not verify but would not advise it.
I followed that up and asked if I did it that way, and received both orders, that I could then return the one order for a full refund. Again, she could not verify, so I asked to speak to her supervisor.
The supervisor qualified the rep's earlier comment, saying that Amazon is the corporate parent company in Seattle, but that the two different websites are alike in name only, and that they are, quote "two separate entities" with different inventories and different suppliers and different distribution and no interraction between the other.
Wow. Who knew?
I asked if the blame here belonged to the publisher or Amazon. I asked rhetorically that if I'm pre-ordering months in advance, then Amazon should have an idea about interest and place an appropriate order with the publisher, yes? And the publisher should have a clue as to how many copies to ship to Amazon, no? Why else, I asked, are you accepting pre-orders on the title. Never got anything close to an answer. (As has been said of Don King years ago, how can you trust a man who doesn't stop talking when you can't understand anything they say?)
I then pressed the supervisor the same question above, whether as a personal customer policy I should be ordering from both sites and getting a full refund on a return should I receive both orders. She waffled, hemmed & hawwed, and again would not verify, telling me to get in contact with Seattle, Washington if I needed a straight answer. (Nice dodge - she wouldn't patch me through - then again, they are "two separate entities" - and wants me to do the leg work... it started to feel like a game of chess and I was putting her in to a "Check" position.)
I think the fact that neither the customer service rep, nor her supervisoor, would make a firm denial, kind've confirms my answer. "Check Mate." From now on, *if* I order through Amazon again, I will order through both sites, and I will be making returns if I receive both shipments.
That'll increase the chances my orders are filled, regardless of which "separate entity" takes my order, and maybe, just maybe, it'll make them reconsider their lunacy and wake some customers up to the fiction that they are the same company.
Phew, glad I got that off my chest.
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