Avner F.

Amazon has not mended its ways. It advertises products as eligible for free shipping but when you get to the checkout page it slaps a hefty shipping charge on you. When I complained, they had seven different reps handle my issue, with none of them offering any solution.

I bought a TWSBI VAC700 fountain pen with a vacuum ink pump from a reputable U.S. dealer. About a year later, the pump stopped working and the pen became unusable. TWSBI in China was incredibly unhelpful, blaming me for not greasing the pumping mechanism and refusing to make any repair or replacement. Never buy any Chinese fountain pens, above all not TWSBI.

I live in Israel and have been an loyal Amazon customer for many years. I placed an order with Amazon UK on May 29. I paid them an extra amount for shipping which was almost one third the item price. They did not ship my order for five days. I tried to have them call me but they only call a handful of European countries. Their Chat Service is only virtual with no live agent. Finally an Amazon UK representative called me a dozen times but every time I picked up the phone I heard recorded music. When she finally came on the line she interrogated me for about twenty minutes just to "authenticate" me. When she was done authenticating she said that my order would be shipped "soon." When Amazon UK did ship my order, it used the cheapest possible carrier, Australia Post Global, even though I had paid them for fast shipping. My order only reached APG three days after that, eight days after it was placed. Today is June 10, twelve days after I placed my order, and I have not received it. APG gave me information about my shipment that contradicted the information I received from their Israeli agents, Gaash Forwarding. APG at first said my shipment would land on June 8, then said that it had landed on the morning of June 9. Gaash claimed they had not received it. My messages to the Managing Director of Amazon UK, John Boumphrey, were answered by arrogant Amazon reps who said that everything was okay and that they could not give me any information. Gaash finally informed today that they had received my shipment and would deliver it tomorrow, June 11. This kind of "service" gives Amazon a very bad name. APG and Gaash are irresponsible in contradicting one another. Caveat emptor (let the buyer beware). Never agree to Amazon using cheap and unknown carriers. Always demand they use FedEx, UPS or DHL Express.

I own an expensive top-of-the-line Thermaltake computer case. For the past week I have been trying to get Thermaltake to send me a couple of 2.5" SSD mounts for this case. They ignored my messages until I e-mailed their CEO, Kenny Lin. Then they replied in bad English asking me to send them a photograph of the mounts I needed. After I did so they again ignored my message. After another message to Mr. Lin they asked which country I was in, even though it is displayed prominently in the signatures of all my messages. When I answered them with a cc. To Mr. Lin, my message was returned as Spam. Now they are saying "Due to Coivid-19, the courier and our warehouse will take some times [sic] to arrange the parts to send to you." In short, Thermaltake "service" is terrible to non-existent. Avoid Thermaltake products.

In late April 2020 I bought a Vectotech Rapid 4TB external SSD, paying their reseller Hard Drives for Sale $703.90 including shipping to Israel for a product that now sells for $599 on Amazon. I also paid $200 in local duties and taxes. I had problems with this product from the very beginning. I used the best disk-partitioning software but kept getting file-system-error messages. When it did work its transfer speed was 20MB/s instead of the promised Up to 540 MB/s. It took several bad reviews online for Hard Drives for Sale to issue me an RMA and finally refund my payment. It cost me another $67 just to return the disk to them, which was not refunded.

I have been a loyal FedEx customer for many years. I recently needed to change the address on my FedEx account from my no-longer-valid U.S. address to an Israeli one and to register for tracking updates for a particular shipment that is on its way to me. I called FedEx and an operator named Mary put me through to its International department. After a long wait I reached an agent named Charlie, who spoke with a very heavy Spanish accent, which made it quite difficult for me to understand him. Charlie kept me waiting on the line for almost half an hour. When he finally came back he told me to call their billing department. It turned out he meant the Revenue Services department. When I called the Revenue Services department I reached a lady named Becky who kept me waiting for a very long time and finally said she had updated my address but could not update my payment information, even though it was complete and accurate. She said she could not send me a screen shot of any error message either. This left me without being able to use my account to order pickups and pay for shipments. Becky then put me through to their technical support department, where an agent named Tim took my call, but the lines were crossed, my call got tangled up with their automatic telephone survey from the previous call, and Tim vanished from the line. All I heard after that was recorded messages. I called the FedEx Technical Support Department once more and get switched by an agent named Brandon to another named Anthony who registered me for the updates of my shipment. I then e-mailed John Ackerson, an executive support specialist at the company's Executive Services who had dealt with my FedEx issues before, about this. The only reply was an automatic one asking me to call a telephone number where he cannot be reached, only his voice mail. I then wrote Fred Smith, the CEO. All I got were automated replies that said my messages had been received and giving me case numbers. One of them even said "We are reviewing your email to determine whether or not it contains fraudulent websites." [sic!] During my last call to their billing department I reached a haughty agent named Christine who interrogated me aggressively about my personal information. When I asked her whether she wanted my U.S. or Israeli information, she replied, "I am asking the questions here!" In short, terrible service and a total lack of responsibility and responsiveness.

I live overseas and own a surround-sound audio system including front, center and surround speakers. The local distributor for Audioengine sold me a wireless transmission and amplification system for my surround speakers that included the Audioengine W3 wireless audio transmitter and receiver. He charged me almost twice the U.S. price for this item. The neck sleeve between the USB connector and the body of the wireless audio receiver became torn, the wires were exposed, and the contact became intermittent, which messed up the reception. The distributor refused to replace the receiver for me, claiming that his supplier would not replace it for him. However, his supplier is none other than himself, as he is also the importer. I e-mailed Audioengine Support. They opened a case number but did nothing and ignored my subsequent messages. I then e-mailed Dave Evans, the Audioengine CEO, but he did not even bother to reply.

I have been a loyal Polycom and Plantronics customer for twenty years, buying thousands of dollars' worth of products from them. I live outside the U.S. and, due to electrical power differences, some of their telephone accessories, such as power supplies, need local versions. Polycom has joined with Plantronics to form Poly. Their products are the most expensive in their market. Whenever I need to exchange a power supply or wall module for my phones they refer me to their Sales to buy another product. My messages to Poly's "leadership," including their CEO Joe Burton, have been ignored. They don't seem to care about your satisfaction, unless you are a big business that gives them hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue.