How To Get Credit When Your Amazon Order Is Late
Have you noticed an issue with Amazon Prime shipping over the past few months? I know I have. If you live near a distribution center then you are probably fine. But if you are not near one you probably have experienced some shipping delays. If your order is late then have no fear, I will show you how to get credit when your Amazon order is late.
Update 8/6/20
Amazon was denying compensation during the peak of the pandemic but they are back to giving credit if you ask. You may have to push a bit but myself and Shawn were able to get $10 in Amazon credit for cancelled or late shipments.
Details
Whenever I have had an issue with multiple packages missing the delivery date I contact Amazon via Amazon Chat. The key here is to look at the date they say the package should arrive by when ordering. Sometimes they will play games with the 2 day delivery window in order to deny compensation.
Once you have confirmed a package is behind schedule, like so many packages have been of late, open up a chat on the items in question. Be sure to have the order numbers for all late shipments, even ones that have already been delivered but were late. You then list them off to the support agent and tell them you are unsatisfied with their service.
They will most likely apologize for the delays and give you updates on the orders still in transit. They will not proactively offer a credit, at least most of the time. Once they ask if there is anything else they can do be sure to say that you would like compensation for the tardy deliveries. Amazon will usually give an Amazon credit of $5 per missed delivery date. I was able to get $25 in credits from late deliveries in 2018.
RELATED: List of Amazon Freebies & Promotions Available To All
How To Get Credit When Your Amazon Order Is Late – Final Thoughts
I think a lot of these issues stem from them using 3rd party delivery services and people delivering packages in their car etc. One such delivery person stole a Snapple from my groceries that were by the garage door waiting to be taken in. Yeah they opened a case and took one, no joke! My deliveries delivered by USPS seem to always make it on time though.
You may think this is petty but Amazon has been consistently raising the rate for Amazon Prime while the service has been getting worse. I even pondered if we should be getting an Amazon Prime bailout. Benjy simply cancelled the service for a variety of reasons. It is worth the few minutes of effort for me, if I am paying for a service then I am going to hold them accountable for it.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is the old king of travel rewards cards. Right now
bonus_miles_full
Learn more about this card and its features!
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
If we want to get Amazon to pay attention, we, the customer, needed to cancel our prime (wait till renewal if you want) and look to order elsewhere. And let Amazon know why. If thousands of people cancel, Amazon will start to notice. If terms of thousands cancel, Amazon will start to change. I know this would be easier for some than others. I don’t order a ton from Amazon, but I know folks who get multiple packages each day. Amazon has done a great job of convincing us that we need to order from them. It’s time to convince them otherwise.
Speaking with your wallet is the best way to get things done for sure.
I don’t have Prime, I cancelled earlier this year. It’s very easy to get free shipping anyway, provided you don’t need stuff in 2 days. However, my shipments are consistently late as well relative to initial delivery estimates. Even in stock items don’t ship out until 1-2 weeks after I order. Amazon has become too big and powerful. Time to diversify your spend across other retailers.
I have been having issues with Target and Walmart too – it seems like none of the major providers can keep up. Difference is they don’t charge a fee for it like Amazon does I guess.
Thank you sir. I have been up in arms since they went to “day labor” – It’s funny because now when I “complain” I seem to get a computer system answer on the late or not delivered issue (which is almost guaranteed to be at least late if not delivered when it’s amazon prime) they don’t even ask any questions. It just gets reshipped without question. Almost feels like they don’t ship some things and hope you don’t notice.
I agree with the comment that stated “They’ll get away with it until some class action lawsuit claws back their Amazon Prime fees. ” this will happen and we will all get .002 cent in the dollar on our prime subscriptions and the lawyers will get richer. Gotta love the govt of lawyers that make the rules that make the lawyers richer at our expense.
Glad I could help some Scott. It is very annoying that they keep increasing the fee while cutting the service.
I feel your Pain sir. I just informed Amazon that I will not be renewing my Amazon Prime (which ironically has gone up since the last time I renewed). It’s just not worth the cost to get packages late (and often delivered to an address that isn’t mine, or even my neighborhood). When Prime first arrived on the scene, we were thrilled to death with it. The joke around the house was if you placed an order, walk outside in 20 mins and it’s probably there. Now I am actually shocked if an item arrives or is one day late. To be fair, it’s only when it tracks as Amazon Logistics – If its USPS or UPS or FedEx, it rarely has a delay.
If Amazon Logistics deliveries ever end, i may consider going back. But for now, i’m just gonna take everything slow boat and pay for it if I need it quick.
Great article. Thanks for putting this out there. Amazon can be great again. Oh yeah, or bring back the Prime extensions. Made it at least tolerable when something did not show or was late.
I agree – when my package is delivered via regular routes it is always on time.
Easiest to use Paribus and let it automate an email on your behalf. It’ll monitor your shipments. Best of all it doesn’t cost anything. They don’t offer a referral program so it’s probably not widely known. Over the holidays I received 3-4 credits of $5 each.
Thanks Anthony I will have to check that out
Paribus no longer does the late delivery monitoring due to policy change with Amazon
The other weird thing I’m seeing is that the delivery is noted “Your package was handed off directly.” It was NOT, thank you very much. It was left on my front steps with no human interaction.
I have noticed that as well.
What annoys me is when the quoted prime delivery date is more than 2 days before I even order. I was buying over $35 anyhow and got the same stuff from jet.com with actual 2 day delivery
Yeah with Walmart and others offering 2 day shipping for free and it comes in time I think more and more may be leaving Prime.
Be careful with Jet.com I was ordering dog food from them and didn’t realize that is was really close to expiration time. I checked with manufacturer and they said from time of packaging and tagging with expiration date to the date is about 18 months. The stuff I was getting from jet had expiration dates of about 2-3 months. Not happy. Switched to Amazon.
Wow that is pretty shady
Thx Mark, been hit hard with delays as wwll. Great tip!
My pleasure Pam
Your $5/$25 credit is prob. only for orders sold & shipped by Amazon making it difficult to use.
I believe it was. Not too difficult for me since it works on 3rd party gift cards and all of their food items so I was able to use it pretty quickly.
You can also ask that they extend your prime membership. They only do this 2 times in my experience. It’s worth more than $5. Two-day shipping is not an option for Hawaii and I don’t have that many late deliveries, but I always use the reason that I’m paying the same rate as continental US residents and Amazon’s delivery estimate is already up to 10 days. I’ll be contacting them Sunday because I have an order that they estimated would arrive tomorrow (2 weeks from when I placed the order) and it doesn’t look like it will arrive until Jan. 2 or later.
I have mentioned the prime extension a few times after hearing about that and they always brush it off and give me the credit. I would rather get the extension but I’ll take what I can get I guess.
Hopefully they give you something good!
I am chatting with Amazon CS right this moment. They have informed me that Amazon no longer offers Prime extensions as compensation. I have a four-day-late package, and they have offered me a $5 credit. I have replied, “Please do pass along the feedback that raising Prime fees and then reducing Amazon’s options to compensate us for problems is a bad move. I think people will be surprised by Amazon’s new policy decision. No trillion-dollar company that pays $0 taxes should be withholding service options like Prime extension from customers in these situations. That makes Amazon seem stingy.”
Glad you were able to get something but I agree most people would prefer an extension instead. They must have had a lot of people asking for it to pull it as an option.
No, it’s their desire to play monopoly and use their own delivery company. UPS had some compensation for late delivery in their contract. Amazon’s own local delivery force is day laborers – unreliable but dirt cheap. Amazon realized that cheap was getting expensive so they simply breached their Prime 2 day delivery contract. They’ll get away with it until some class action lawsuit claws back their Amazon Prime fees. Umm… in case you’re wondering. They give away Prime Music and Prime Video to be able to argue that reneging on 2 day delivery didn’t breech their contract.
I doubt front line CSRs in India have a direct line to Bezos. Your feedback will fall on deaf ears. The only feedback Amazon will understand is loss of market share.