Friday, February 23, 2007

FREE Super Saver Shipping

or, You Always Get What You Pay For

In late January I ordered a new Canon SD700 IS camera to replace my venerable SD400, which died an unpleasant death over Christmas break. As usual, I ordered from Amazon, and not being in any particular rush, I chose their free Super Saver Shipping option. I've had good luck with Super Saver Shipping; some packages arrive within a couple of days. This one, however, did not.

A couple of weeks after ordering, I checked the shipment tracker at Amazon and was amused to find that my camera had been shipped promptly from an Amazon warehouse in California (the state that I live in), and that the next tracking record had the package arriving in Minnesota (nowhere near where I live). The package went out on a truck in Minnesota on 2/13 and after that, silence.

A few days ago, tired of waiting, I notified Amazon that something was fishy. They decided that the package was lost and shipped me a new one, this time via UPS and not USPS. The replacement camera arrived yesterday and seems great. More on that later.

Today, the original shipment finally arrived, looking slightly the worse for wear:

Camera Box I

Camera Box II


Here's the final shipping route from USPS.com:
  • Delivered, February 23, 2007, 12:49 pm, PALO ALTO, CA
  • Enroute, February 23, 2007, 12:31 am, RICHMOND, CA
  • Enroute, February 13, 2007, 1:32 pm, SAINT PAUL, MN
  • Enroute, February 08, 2007, 12:55 pm, RICHMOND, CA
  • Electronic Shipping Info Received, February 05, 2007
I'm glad that the replacement arrived first; I wouldn't have been too happy to see my expensive new camera in that state. One can only imagine what happened during shipment (theories are welcome).

3 comments:

sbyrnes00 said...

Yeah, sorry about that. To make a long story short that box got me out of a pinch on a Russian shipping vessel headed for South America.

Ned said...

I'm sure that this is somehow Animal's fault.

Anonymous said...

Good post.