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.
How about this? https://www.macrumors.com/2019/01/10/ring-employees-customer-camera-access/ Over the course of the last month, some troubling information has surfaced about Ring, the Amazon-owned company that has millions of cameras inside and outside homes across the globe. - - - - - - - - - - - Starting in 2016, Ring allowed its Ukraine-based research team to access "every video created by every Ring camera around the world." Video content was unencrypted and "easily browsed and viewed," plus videos were linked to specific customers. - - - - - - - - - - - Employees with access to customer feeds could view an individual's camera with just an email address. - - - - - - - - - - - Employees allegedly showed each other the videos they were annotating and discussed some of the incidents they witnessed, such as people kissing, stealing, and guns being fired.
Meant to follow up on this. Amazon started sending e-mails warning that I would be charged if I didn't return the extra batteries. I decided to just wait and see what happened. Sure enough, they charged my credit card. But they only charged for one of the two extra batteries, and didn't charge for shipping. I just let it stand, was not up to wasting more time with customer support and arguing that I was "entitled" to free batteries. So, I ended up with 4 batteries for the price of 3 - not too bad - but next time I'll do my shopping elsewhere if there's a choice.
If you used a CC, just contact them, send them the chat where Amazon said no charge, and they'll probably take care of it.
Honestly, it's not worth the effort. I want to keep all four batteries and was never looking for a handout. I got 4 for the price of 3, I'm good. But I'm annoyed that a 2 day guaranteed delivery took 5 days to arrive and that I spent about an hour dealing with Amazon. Lesson learned, there are other places to buy things.
Hah! The best protection anyone unwise enough to have one of these systems in their house has is the sheer volume of boring, stupid images in the database. As for Alexa--- someone I know asked her/it a question which elicited the response that video was only uploaded if requested. So I asked Alexa "Where is the camera?" Long pause, then "In Bern Switzerland" Really? There's video capability? This is in the house of my 85 year old neighbor whose daughters got her the Amazon system. She likes Alexa since she can ask what the weather and time are. All she knows is that she has to preface any query with the word Alexa to get a response. She lives alone and I'm helping her since her family is not local and she has mild cognitive impairment. Next time I visit her maybe Alexa and I should chat. LOL
