Why Amazon, oh why

A few weeks ago I dug my old Kindle out of the dead electronics pile. It was a Paperwhite that I bought in 2014, and used religiously until the battery softened and I started using the Kindle app on my iPad.

My wife had “inherited” a Kobo Libra2 and I was showing her how to use it, and that sparked my reKindled appreciation for reading on an E-Ink display.

A long charge and the battery came back to life, so I started reading it again. But, it is 11 years old, and I wanted an upgrade. Off to Amazon and I ordered up a new Paperwhite.

The cool thing is that I was able to trade in my old one. They would give me a paltry $5 credit, but I also got a 20% discount off a new device. I had a ton of AMX points, so it really was about a wash (that is free).

Once I pulled the trigger, I got the email for the trade-in. And that is where I got me a beef.

The Trade-in process

I have traded in plenty of things from Apple when I refresh my tech. I tell them what the condition is, and they give me an offer. Once I have bought the new device, I get a postage paid shipping kit delivered to my door, and instructions to follow.

Zip-bang-boom and a quick trip to FedEx Kinkos, toss it at the clerk, and off I go. Two days later I get a notification it’s been received, and a day later I get the notification that I didn’t mislead them on the condition, and my credit card is credited for the trade-in.

Easy-peasy lemon squeeze.

Amazon tries to do this, but poorly.

I got an email with a bar code, and two choices. The first choice is to go to an Amazon Return center, located “conveniently” in a Whole Foods market. Or, I could pull a pre-paid UPS shipping label.

Yesterday morning, I take a trip to the local Whole Foods.

I got there about 9:30AM, and there was one person ahead of me. Soon after I arrived, a wave of people showed up to queue. Probably 20ish.

I thought I had scored!

I was wrong.

The lady in front of me was returning about 20 books (individually), a throw rug, and some kitchen gadget. It took fully 20 minutes to navigate the slew of QR codes that had to be individually scanned, each item labeled, and several of them grouped into shipping bags.

Needless to say, it took about 20 minutes. Groan.

She’s finally done and I belly up to the bar and the lady working told me that the person who does trade-ins wasn’t there, and that I needed to come back later (she confided to me that the bulk of the people were at a baseball game as a “team building” event.

Fuck.

Now, I need to package this 11 year old device, and drop it at UPS.

Amazon has a lot to learn.

And far too many people return gobs of the shite that they impulse buy from Amazon.

Amazon could learn a lot from Apple. But they won’t

(I will add that while I like the elaborate packaging of Apple devices, the Amazon packaging is much less waste)