The point is understand the tech and its implications. OF COURSE a 24/7 live mike in your house is insane. Is it really that onerous a task to push a button on the remote control?! We've had Amazon Prime for past 6 years and find it worth the cost in time saved, information available in reviews, etc. Also movies, tv shows. We live in rural area 15 miles from major shopping, let our local UPS people do the driving. Real harbinger of spting is when the UPS guy starts wearing shorts!
IMO it's actually worse than that if you understand the tech. It's not just a live mic in your house, it's a live mic that sends everything it records to their servers, where it is possibly stored forever. So something you say today could "come back to bite you" years from now.
Just wait until your kids start scanning all those old pictures up in your attic and posting them on Instagram!
Amazon and the USPS... a marriage made in hell! I ordered a couple batteries for my drills last Friday, they are old models so I couldn't find them locally but there were several sources online. I used Amazon since I didn't want to register on another site. The fastest shipping option was 2 day USPS - I would have paid for next day UPS or Fedex but they weren't available and the USPS was guaranteed delivery on Sunday. Never arrived - Tuesday the USPS tracking only showed that it was "delayed" in Swedesboro, with no updates since Sunday. Did an online chat and they were very nice - the lengthy apologies came so fast they were obviously "canned" Refunded my shipping cost and sent a new set of batteries for arrival today via UPS. But what a pain, makes me less likely to use Amazon next time.
I had something similar, but Amazon was not a part. Ordered some printer ink from my usual, they ship USPS. Never arrived, they shipped another and when it arrived there were 2 boxes, the original order and the replacement. I refused delivery of the firs,t to be sent from where it came, notified the store and about a month later received confirmation they had received the refused item. If you ever get a chance to visit one of the sorting locations do it. It is amazing more stuff doesn't end up like the letters on the street in south Jersey when the carrier to decided to quit on the spot.
The replacement order arrived today via UPS as promised. As for the original USPS order, the Amazon guy said "I should not even worry about that" because he would personally make sure that shipment was cancelled. We'll see.....
Guess what.... the USPS shipment arrived today, 4 days past the guaranteed delivery date. So much for my chat with the Amazon guy who said this wouldn't happen. But I'm actually posting this to compliment Amazon, because they really surprised me this time. I was very annoyed at wasting more time with online chats and returns, etc. But here's how it went. The Amazon rep offered this on her own, I did not ask for it, and we are talking about a $135 order. 09:11 AM PDT Pamela: You are not going to be charged for this 09:11 AM PDT Boyd: Are you saying that I can keep both items but will only be charged for one? That doesn't make sense? 09:13 AM PDT Pamela: Boyd, this was a mistake from our end, that is the reason why we sent you the replacement, we are not going to charge you for this, so you can return it and it will be fine and you can also keep the items as we didnt fulfill the delivery promise with the original order 09:14 AM PDT Boyd: Well, thank you. In that case I will just keep both orders. I really do appreciate this! 09:14 AM PDT Pamela: sure, I am sorry for all the troubles, you can keep both and we are not going to charge you, is there anything else I might help you with? I certainly never expected this - nice job Amazon! Seriously, they were able to turn a very annoyed customer into a very happy one instantly.
No way! I actually considered ordering 4 batteries initially, since they are only going to get harder to find in the future, but didn't want to spend that much so I just got two.
