Amazon Prime Streaming with Commercials

[JoeWras]

I just figured out what BFD means (I think)

Don't look up JAFO.

 

[JoeWras]

I’m getting pissed at Amazon lately.
Two day shipping isn’t two days anymore. The only other thing we really use is the movies and photo storage. I’m not sure if Alexa is tied in.

But now when you need to return something the only free returns are at Staples! Well we have no staples! Closest UPS store is at least a half hour away and you have to pay $1.

I have to call and beg for a UPS label so I can drop a return off at the CVS access point as I have done for many years. Today it took 3 phone calls to get this accomplished.

This makes me not want to order things through Amazon if I’m going to have this hassle returning things.

Now this ad thing. They don’t have that great of movies anyway.

So I am going to consider ditching Prime and maybe getting Netflix.

I've been reading the r/amazonprime subreddit lately and people are completely unhinged because of the advertising. Between the noise, however, there's a subgroup of posts pointing out how returns have recently changed. There's no doubt about it, something has changed.

There's a few theories: 1) Amazon is A/B testing new returns, 2) Depends on where you live.

I think it is a bit of both. Clearly people are getting different direction as to where they can return things. Another set of people are getting hard-line instructions on returns, requiring payment. Apparently it is buried deep in the fine print that not everything is "free returns," and people are finding that out.

It is funny how a change like this causes people to evaluate the entire relationship a consumer has with a corporation. That happens a lot. Sometimes a corporation will poison a brand and try to direct people to related brands. It only partially works, people evaluate the entire corporation. In the case of the Amazon Prime advertising, it appears a good number of people are evaluating their relationship with Amazon corporation.

I don't know where I am on this. I've had no problems until last week. Bad timing! I bought a 4-pack of transmission oil and only 1 bottle came. Explaining this to the bot and then to the alleged human was futile. They just didn't understand because I ordered "1". Yes, of a 4-pack! After I wore them down, they gave me a no-return refund. But I am not about to order that again because the label on the bottle says "4-pack" on the ONE bottle. It is probably all mislabeled in the warehouse that way and the next order will be a mess too.

Quality has gone down in many respects.

As for original streaming content: we're past peak streaming. The rush to produce content flooded the market with low quality dreck. Everyone needs to retrench. A lot of marginal actors and producers are going to lose their job. Too bad.

 

[meleana]

The thing is why suddenly have they not made UPS return labels available as they’ve done for years? There’s no UPS store or Staples where we live. I have no issue with putting the order back in the package it came from and printing and slapping a label on it.

Why can’t we just use a UPS drop box or access points like CVS or Michael’s like always in the past? What has made them change?

Funny- my neighbor had been complaining about this all year and I couldn't understand it as it never was an issue for me with my returns until the past two months. ��

 

[JoeWras]

The thing is why suddenly have they not made UPS return labels available as they’ve done for years?

Because:
1) Andy Jassy (CEO) is not Jeff Bezos
2) The board of directors is demanding profit
3) The days of operating at a loss to gain market share is over
4) Non-amazon shipping has increased in price, this is real costs to Amazon. See #2 above.

 

[meleana]

I've been reading the r/amazonprime subreddit lately and people are completely unhinged because of the advertising. Between the noise, however, there's a subgroup of posts pointing out how returns have recently changed. There's no doubt about it, something has changed.

There's a few theories: 1) Amazon is A/B testing new returns, 2) Depends on where you live.

I think it is a bit of both. Clearly people are getting different direction as to where they can return things. Another set of people are getting hard-line instructions on returns, requiring payment. Apparently it is buried deep in the fine print that not everything is "free returns," and people are finding that out.

It is funny how a change like this causes people to evaluate the entire relationship a consumer has with a corporation. That happens a lot. Sometimes a corporation will poison a brand and try to direct people to related brands. It only partially works, people evaluate the entire corporation. In the case of the Amazon Prime advertising, it appears a good number of people are evaluating their relationship with Amazon corporation.

I don't know where I am on this. I've had no problems until last week. Bad timing! I bought a 4-pack of transmission oil and only 1 bottle came. Explaining this to the bot and then to the alleged human was futile. They just didn't understand because I ordered "1". Yes, of a 4-pack! After I wore them down, they gave me a no-return refund. But I am not about to order that again because the label on the bottle says "4-pack" on the ONE bottle. It is probably all mislabeled in the warehouse that way and the next order will be a mess too.

Amazon has gone down hill since they started their music division and no longer allowed people to download their own music onto ALEXA. Plus their free library book search tool was horrible and I gave up on it for Kindle. Haven’t used my kindle paperwhite or Fire in years.

Little things over time ad up. Subscriptions for this and subscriptions that.

Who really needs any of it?

Then Their prices went up and now I’m
finding a lot of better prices at Walmart. I can order on line and drive 10 minutes there and stay in my car to pick up for free.

 

[meleana]

Because:
1) Andy Jassy (CEO) is not Jeff Bezos
2) The board of directors is demanding profit
3) The days of operating at a loss to gain market share is over
4) Non-amazon shipping has increased in price, this is real costs to Amazon. See #2 above.

But why would me printing a UPS label from Amazon and packing up the return myself cost them more money than me going to a UPS store with an Amazon supplied QR code and Amazon paying them to pack it up and ship it back?

 

[JoeWras]

But why would me printing a UPS label from Amazon and packing up the return myself cost them more money than me going to a UPS store with an Amazon supplied QR code and Amazon paying them to pack it up and ship it back?

Because their volume contract with UPS Store is still likely cheaper for them.

Now that Amazon has gotten their market share, they don't have to be as friendly to you, Just Another Customer.

 

[folivier]

And from what I understand UPS store or Whole Foods will pack a bunch of returns into one box and ship that. Remember lots of amazon items come in a too large box.

 

[aja8888]

Amazon has gone down hill since they started their music division and no longer allowed people to download their own music onto ALEXA. Plus their free library book search tool was horrible and I gave up on it for Kindle. Haven’t used my kindle paperwhite or Fire in years.

Little things over time ad up. Subscriptions for this and subscriptions that.

Who really needs any of it?

Then Their prices went up and now I’m
finding a lot of better prices at Walmart. I can order on line and drive 10 minutes there and stay in my car to pick up for free.

I have gone from well over 100 Amazon orders per year (member since they were an auction site like eBay) down to a handful. I buy most of my stuff at Walmart anymore. I really don't need Amazon and have found suitable replacements. Costco purchases have been increasing too. I'll be giving up Prime this year.

 

[JoeWras]

And from what I understand UPS store or Whole Foods will pack a bunch of returns into one box and ship that. Remember lots of amazon items come in a too large box.

Excellent point. I've only returned once to Whole Foods. Behind the counter they had these bins. After they labeled my tiny item, they threw it into a bin with a load of other tiny items, all labeled with bar codes so they can be sorted out any time. These will all clearly go in one box.

 

[Venturer]

I now watch carefully up in the right corner of the purchase discripsion on products. Not all of them say free returns now. My DW ordered some item for our DGD for Christmas that was wrong color ,so she went to return it and was going to be charged return shipping. She was livid but I went to the order site and saw that it was one of the "delivered by Amazon" so you had to get approval from the seller for returns. It didn't say free returns but only that it was returnable, so when she tried it was going to cost.

 

[ERD50]

Question about AMZN returns

I'll put it here rather than start a new thread.

I bought an 'anti-fatigue' mat DW put in the cart, nothing wrong with the product, it just turns out it we really needed something larger for that space. Found something at the local Menards that works better for us, and is cheaper.

So I started the return process, as it was ~ $35, and we really can't use it anywhere else. So, it's not Amazon's fault, the product is as advertised, we just decided it wasn't a good fit for our use once we got a chance to try it out.

So it looks like Amazon will only credit us for 80% of the purchase price. I don't have a problem with that, they incurred a cost, I just wondered if that's typical, and/or something new.

-ERD50

 

[meleana]

Because their volume contract with UPS Store is still likely cheaper for them.

Now that Amazon has gotten their market share, they don't have to be as friendly to you, Just Another Customer.

So I just brought the package to CVS. I ask for a text receipt above always received instantly. She says they don’t go through later. Asks for my email which is very long. As of right now have not received it.

So now I have no proof that I sent it. One thing I know I will not pay for this item one way or another if they claim they never got it back. I will dispute the charge- which of course is on an Amazon credit card.

 

[Sunset]

$36 per year to avoid commercials doesn't interest me. I'll skip for now, and circle back at a later date to evaluate.

It seems that all of the streaming services are conspiring to consume more of our income and wealth.

I used to think that way, that I'll take the commercials to save $10 or whatever the difference was from our streaming.

Then I calculated it out. We watch a lot of streaming, about 3 hours minimum per night.

3 hrs x (5 minutes per hour of commercials in show) x (30 days in month) = 450 minutes of commercials.

450 minutes is 7.5 hours of time spent watching the commercials.

My life is worth the extra Cost to avoid the commercials as it's only $1 or $2 in my example to save 1 hour of watching commercials. That's cheap considering I pay my lawn service $30 to save myself 1 hour of mowing.

 

[11522914]

I'll put it here rather than start a new thread.

I bought an 'anti-fatigue' mat DW put in the cart, nothing wrong with the product, it just turns out it we really needed something larger for that space. Found something at the local Menards that works better for us, and is cheaper.

So I started the return process, as it was ~ $35, and we really can't use it anywhere else. So, it's not Amazon's fault, the product is as advertised, we just decided it wasn't a good fit for our use once we got a chance to try it out.

So it looks like Amazon will only credit us for 80% of the purchase price. I don't have a problem with that, they incurred a cost, I just wondered if that's typical, and/or something new.

-ERD50

I have never seen that happen on the few items I have returned.

 

[JoeWras]

I'll put it here rather than start a new thread.

I bought an 'anti-fatigue' mat DW put in the cart, nothing wrong with the product, it just turns out it we really needed something larger for that space. Found something at the local Menards that works better for us, and is cheaper.

So I started the return process, as it was ~ $35, and we really can't use it anywhere else. So, it's not Amazon's fault, the product is as advertised, we just decided it wasn't a good fit for our use once we got a chance to try it out.

So it looks like Amazon will only credit us for 80% of the purchase price. I don't have a problem with that, they incurred a cost, I just wondered if that's typical, and/or something new.

-ERD50

It isn't typical if it was fulfilled by AMZN or is not electronics.

Imma gonna guess that your product was tagged with a "restocking fee." This is something they do on certain electronics now. Maybe also on something like mats, which show usage?

The important point is that Amazon is changing the return process frequently. This is not the Amazon returns of 5 years ago. Expect something different, including forcing you to go to a store to return it, $1 fee, restocking fee, and so on. Or maybe they'll refund your money and tell you to keep the item. It is like a lottery of sorts.

Some articles on it below:

Everything about AMZN returns. This article does explain about everything. meleana should read it because it has a "hack" to get them to print a return label for you: https://www.rather-be-shopping.com/blog/amazon-return-policy/

From April last year, when big changes occurred: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-just-changed-return-policy-152255966.html

 

[jollystomper]

Can you record Prime on a VCR?
Record the show and then fast-forward through the commercials?
We've been doing that for years on regular TV, if we have to watch live then we hit the mute button and talk about the weather during the commercials.
Not perfect but gives us the satisfaction of ignoring the commercial idiocy.

One can do this with OBS Studio, an open source software product, to capture Prime content playing on a PC. Or, with a fire TV stick, you can use an inexpensive HDMI video capture device to connect it to a PC and use OBS studio to record the content. This make the PC an "independent" DVR device to be played at your leisure, and fast forward (or with skills and other software, edit out the commercials) to one's hearts delight .

 

[11522914]

Prime Video cannot be cancelled, only Prime can be cancelled, so Amazon is exploiting this. In my case they don’t have enough programming to justify paying an additional $3.00. It may lead to people binging Prime Video content and paying the extra cost for one month.

The era of great streaming options with lots of ad-free content and a low price are coming to an end.

+1

For the last 4 years I paid the Prime student discount of $69 because of my daughter going to school. It's now $139 per year and with commercials on Prime Video the value is no longer there. Will be cancelling. On my personal account it seems every 6 months they give me one month of Prime free. So that's when I will binge movies if they continue to do that.

 

[ERD50]

....

So it looks like Amazon will only credit us for 80% of the purchase price. I don't have a problem with that, they incurred a cost, I just wondered if that's typical, and/or something new.

-ERD50

Thanks for previous replies, I *may* have figured this out. I looked at the item, and the price has dropped (but even lower than the figure they show now, maybe that 80% figure was the price when I first clicked the 'return' link?).

Hmmm, but I thought stores only did that when you didn't have a receipt?

Ahhh, looking at my invoice, I see this was a 'Supplied/Sold by' a 3rd party, so I guess they set the rules for returns. Again, my fault (well, actually DW's fault, but we won't go there ) for not researching the size more carefully, so I don't really have a problem with an 80% refund, I was just curious of this is typical now.

I did a bit more searching, and the only reference I could find to 80% was for a restocking fee if outside the return window (and this is still in the window).

-ERD50

 

[JoeWras]

Ahhh, looking at my invoice, I see this was a 'Supplied/Sold by' a 3rd party, so I guess they set the rules for returns. Again, my fault (well, actually DW's fault, but we won't go there ) for not researching the size more carefully, so I don't really have a problem with an 80% refund, I was just curious of this is typical now.

-ERD50

Yeah, I should dump on the "Pet Peeve" thread that Amazon has made it difficult to tell from whom you are buying things these days. Sometimes Amazon direct. Sometimes Amazon who fulfills for a 3rd party, and sometimes Amazon as a fake storefront for a 3rd party who pulls all the strings and sets all the policies.

 

[audreyh1]

Yeah, I watch who is selling and who is shipping like a hawk. It’s right up there near the price. I also pay attention to the returns policy. If it doesn’t say free returns by X date up there near the price and shipping info I know there is likely a charge. I also very rarely buy from a non-Amazon shipper.

I used to think that way, that I'll take the commercials to save $10 or whatever the difference was from our streaming.

Then I calculated it out. We watch a lot of streaming, about 3 hours minimum per night.

3 hrs x (5 minutes per hour of commercials in show) x (30 days in month) = 450 minutes of commercials.

450 minutes is 7.5 hours of time spent watching the commercials.

My life is worth the extra Cost to avoid the commercials as it's only $1 or $2 in my example to save 1 hour of watching commercials. That's cheap considering I pay my lawn service $30 to save myself 1 hour of mowing.

Makes sense - very much depends on individual streaming habits. If something good to watch comes up we may occasionally try to use digital credits to cut the commercials. But at the moment we watch very little on Prime Video.

 

[GenXguy]

Yeah, I should dump on the "Pet Peeve" thread that Amazon has made it difficult to tell from whom you are buying things these days. Sometimes Amazon direct. Sometimes Amazon who fulfills for a 3rd party, and sometimes Amazon as a fake storefront for a 3rd party who pulls all the strings and sets all the policies.

I don't recall ever having that issue. It shows sold by / shipped by.

 

[Sojourner]

One can do this with OBS Studio, an open source software product, to capture Prime content playing on a PC. Or, with a fire TV stick, you can use an inexpensive HDMI video capture device to connect it to a PC and use OBS studio to record the content. This make the PC an "independent" DVR device to be played at your leisure, and fast forward (or with skills and other software, edit out the commercials) to one's hearts delight .

Hmm, interesting idea. I'm familiar with OBS but didn't realize it had built-in DVR functionality. I just searched on YouTube and couldn't find anything about how to set this up (or, at least, how to set it up like a traditional Tivo-like DVR).

 

[JoeWras]

I don't recall ever having that issue. It shows sold by / shipped by.

That's because you are smart and look for it. One has to directly look to the right and down, below the "add cart" stuff. Then when you get to the cart, the info is gone. Perhaps that's my peeve.

They don't make it obvious for idiots like me.

 

[jollystomper]

Hmm, interesting idea. I'm familiar with OBS but didn't realize it had built-in DVR functionality. I just searched on YouTube and couldn't find anything about how to set this up (or, at least, how to set it up like a traditional Tivo-like DVR).

Sorry, I was not clear. My "DVR" comment was that the PC now has DVR functionality in that it has stored the program and you can choose to play it back at any time, with whatever built-in media player is on the platform, or other media player software of your choice. OBS is just used to capture and create the media file.