michaelhong.com

I buy a crapload of stuff from Amazon. I have an Amazon Prime subscription and most of the stuff that I ship two-day (free with Prime) usually comes the next day. Prices on Amazon fluctuate quite a bit. Only recently did I realize that Amazon has a 30-day price guarantee. The downside is that you have to track the price yourself over the 30-day period. However, there are two sites that will track the price for you. One is RefundPlease, the other is FlamingoWorld’s Amazon Price Drop Tracker.

At both sites, you just enter the ISBN/ASIN number, the price, the date you purchased the item, and your email address. If you’re worried about spam, you can just use a throwaway email address. Just make sure you check it!

Once you receive an email notification that the price has dropped, then go here: Amazon’s Return & Refunds Contact Form.

Log in with your user/pass and your recent orders should pop up. Let’s take my awesome recent purchase, the ice cream maker, as an example. Check the order whose price has dropped then click the Email button under customer service.

Now, under the issue dropdown box, select refund inquiry.

Then in the message box, just explain that the price of your item, <ITEM NAME HERE>, that you purchased on <PURCHASE DATE HERE> has dropped from $XXX.XX to $XX.XX and that you would like a refund of the price difference. You should receive an email from Amazon issuing the refund. I’ve recently used this to recover $20.00 from the price of my A/V receiver.

Easy peasy.

Oh how I love thee. I’ve been doing a lot of purchasing from the iTMS. Mainly TV shows, shorts, and anything else that catches my eye. My biggest purchase? The A-Team Season 1. Now I’m not a big fan of going out and actually buying DVDs of old TV shows. I just can’t justify spending 39.99-59.99 on a TV series I have already seen. Nevertheless, I was a little caught off guard when I found myself clicking the “Buy Season” button for the A-Team.
The price? $27.86.
A bit cheaper then buying the DVDs. Granted, I don’t get the “Extra Features” or “Deleted Scenes”, but what I do get, is the ability to watch them on my iPod whereever I go. It would have taken hours to get the DVDs to my iPod. Time I just don’t feel like spending. Now if only they would strike a deal with Fox to get Family Guy and the Simpsons on there, I would be set.

I’ve been an Amazon Prime member for almost a year now. Personally, it’s been worth it, as I can order anything I want and have it arrive via 2-day shipping for free. Or upgrade to 1-day shipping for $3.99. Today, I placed an order for Seasons 3 and 4 of 24. In my excitement, I accidentally hit 1-day shipping and placed my order. It ended up charging me $3.99 x 2 because my default setting is to ship each item as they come available. I changed the order to 2-day shipping immediately after I saw my error.

I just received a shipping notification a few minutes ago.

Item Subtotal: $69.94
Shipping & Handling: $0.00
Best Value Savings $-10.00
Total: $59.94

The strange thing was:

This shipment was sent to:

Michael Hong

via UPS Next Day Saver (estimated delivery date: February 3, 2006).

I wonder if this was a mistake on Amazon’s part or a glitch that other people have encountered…

So everything should be perfect right? I can enjoy a nice Friday night reliving Season 3 (Saunders, your ass is mine!) Wrong. I accidentally shipped the package home (Visalia) so now I’m actually going to have to pay to have it shipped to me. Karma at work. I hate karma. WHYYYY?!