Amazon Schmamazon
![MPj04030710000[1]](http://www.martinwolfenden.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/MPj0403071000011.jpg "MPj04030710000[1]")
It’s that season again, the one where people go insane. The shops go bonkers and folk wrestle each other to the ground for the latest toys or computer game. Last year two men were seen wrestling naked in front of a fireplace and in Croydon a Vicar was shot up the anus for his copy of Modern Warfare 2.
To avoid these scenes of carnage I decided that this year I would do all my shopping on the internet. So I booted up my laptop and set about doing just that. It was pleasantly easy to get everything I wanted from Amazon and after an hour I’d bought all my Christmas presents and sat back feeling very smug and self satisfied.
A few days later I received the usual cards from the Royal Mail to say that they had tried to deliver my parcels. So I popped into town and picked them up from the sorting office. This is the norm for me; I’m never in during the day so I rely on being able to pick up undelivered parcels locally. So imagine my annoyance when I discovered a card from ‘The Home Deliver Network’ telling me that they had attempted to deliver some parcels. The card had a number on it which I called:
Me: Hi, one of your drivers tried to deliver a parcel, can I arrange a new delivery.
HDN: Certainly, when do you want it delivering?
Me: Saturday morning would be good.
HDN: We don’t deliver on Saturdays.
Me: Oh well after 4pm on Monday will be fine.
HDN: We can’t give you a specific deliver time, it’s between 7am and 6pm.
Me: But I’m busy every day up until Christmas between 7am and 4pm.
HDN: I’m sorry sir but we can only deliver between those times.
Me: OK then, can they deliver it to my office?
HDN: Sorry sir it’s against our policy to deliver to a different postcode area.
Me: In which case can you deliver to my neighbour, they have the same postcode.
HDN: I’m sorry sir but we can’t do that either.
Me: But ‘left with you neighbour’ is one of the options on the card they pushed through my letterbox.
HDN: That’s an old card, we don’t do that anymore.
Me: So how will you get these parcels to me?
HDN: I’m afraid you’ll have to wait in for the driver to deliver your items.
Me: This is ridiculous; surely you can’t be this inflexible.
HDN: You will have to be available…
Me: And as I’ve already told you I can’t be available.
HDN: You will have to contact Amazon then sir, goodbye.
So I did. The lady at Amazon said that I could cancel the orders but they would charge me for delivery and only refund the cost of the items.
As a result of this, six people won’t be getting a present from me this Christmas or will they? Well yes they will because when I returned home tonight I found a card telling me that the driver had left my parcels with my neighbour.
Amazon and The Home Delivery Network are fucking cunts.
Next year I will be using proper shops.
The trick — as I found out in a similar situation a few weeks ago — is to keep ringing the courier twats until you get through to the one non-fuckwit that they are statutorily compelled to employ. When I tried to get a parcel re-delivered to work I got a range of responses ranging from “You’ll have to have it sent back to Amazon and take it up with them”, to being told they’d leave it with a neighbour but actually just leaving yet another “You weren’t in” card at my house, before I finally talked to a chap who said “Yeah, no problem” and got it to me at work the next day.