Last Christmas, Brent waited until the last minute to order one of my Christmas presents. He got it from Amazon and in order to receive the gift in time, he signed us up for the Prime Shipping Club because he would get free 2 day shipping. The club costs $75 a year and it guarantees free 2 day shipping on most items. His plan was to cancel the club before they charged the credit card. But he forgot. So, for the past year, we have tried to make as many purchases on Amazon as possible to justify the $75 club membership.
Now jump to November 29, 2010. We ordered 6 items from Amazon for Christmas presents. One item had to be shipped separately because it was back-ordered and wasn’t even expected to be here by Christmas. To our surprise, the back-ordered item arrived a few days later. We began to wonder where our 5 other items were. We gave it a few more days and Brent decided to chat online with an Amazon customer service rep. Brent explained that we ordered this and that on the 29th with 2 day shipping and the stuff still isn’t here. The rep told us to wait until December 3. That would be understandable except for the fact that it was December 5. We were told to wait a few more days, then call FedEx if the items still had not arrived. A few days later and there was no FedEx package waiting at our door. Brent called FedEx who explained the shipping label fell off and they lost our package, and not only did they lose our package the also unpacked everything in the package and all of our items are unmarked and scattered throughout their building. First of all, how did the shipping label “fall off” if the entire thing is a sticker? Second of all, why did FedEx unpack the items? Brent gave a description of the items and that was that. The next day, the same FedEx lady called Brent back and asked for another description of the items, specifically the books. He explained that two of the books are this and that (Can’t tell you in case you are the one receiving these gifts). Then he said that the other two books are Bibles, one is the ESV study Bible and one is an ESV thinline leather Bible. She asked for the author of the books. Brent wasn’t sure how to accurately answer that question. Does he say “God” or “Isaiah, Moses, Luke, John, Solomon, David, Paul”? None of those answers would give the girl what she was looking for. So he just said, “There isn’t an author on the cover of the book.” “Well sir,” said FedEx lady, “I can’t send you your books unless I know the author.” Brent proceeded to give her a very brief lesson on Bible history and 2 Timothy 3:16, trying his best to help her understand that although God is the author of the Bible, the front cover does not say “by God”. A book with no byline??? Not possible! Brent gave her every piece of information she would need other than an author to help her identify the correct Bible. The conversation concluded that we weren’t getting our books because there was no author and FedEx didn’t want to send us something we didn’t order.
Two days later, Brent gets a call from the same lady saying that our items have been found and should be arriving that day. Sure enough, I get home from work and there are 2 FedEx boxes on our front porch. Excited to finally have our gifts, I open the boxes…
Box 1: 2 of the other books we ordered (so far, so good)
Box 2: The ESV study Bible (check), another book like those above that we didn’t order and looks like it’s been eaten by a dog (so they sent us one too many, not a big deal), and THIRTY-FIVE Spanish Bible study books on Revelation…and I just start LOLing for real!
How in the world did “ESV Study Bible” or “ESV thinline leather Bible” translate into 35 study books in Spanish???
Brent gets back on the phone with FedEx and they instruct us to tape up the unwanted items to be picked up the next day. He then calls Amazon and explains the whole thing to them. They say they are going to send the items we never received, unfortunately one of them is now out of stock.
We found it somewhere else for more money and had to pay for shipping…but oh well…this mess is over!
I just have to laugh at these situations. There was plenty of reason to get irritated, but hello!…we ordered Bibles. How would that look? An irritated Christian to someone who doesn’t even know that God wrote the Bible. The people at FedEx were very nice and helpful, so I do not want to discourage you from using them. We will still order from Amazon, just not as often. Our club membership is almost expired. I’m hoping the lady at FedEx is at least a little curious about the Bible and will get her hands on one and read it. If she looks hard enough, she’ll probably find one of ours sitting around somewhere.
A Merry Heart 