I test out the new Amazon Glow device, and also completely destroy it via my incompetence.

I purchased a Pyle PCO875 Power Sequencer simply to make a video about it, because I didn’t believe all of its claims.

Though it does appear to be a somewhat-competently made power sequencer, the manufacturer’s statements about power conditioning, surge protection, spike suppression, filtering and so forth are all false.

In the video I covered the Amazon listing’s specs for the device, but the specs are much the same on Pyle’s own website so it was no mistake in importing it over to Amazon. I’ll some screenshots here for posterity, because hopefully they’ll eventually correct their “mistakes”, and I want to have a record of what statements they were making at the time this video was created:

I did manage to throw 2650W-ish (around 24 Amps) through the device without it bursting into flames, and I’d say it would be fine at its 13A rating (or 2000W rating; They don’t make that clear at all). However, its lack of over-current protection (nope, not even a fuse or circuit breaker to be found) means that it could easily be called upon to conduct 20A or 2400W when plugged into an average commercial or home branch circuit. It would get a little warm under that condition, but my unit handled it OK.

A small manufacturing defect like a bad solder joint? That could have rendered my test to be much more exciting.

Just to be clear, there is absolutely nothing in the way of power conditioning, filtering, surge/spike suppression, EMI protection (except I guess the steel case?) or anything of the sort inside this device. The mains input connects directly to a pair of “bus bars” in the form of PCB traces, and those buses connect to the relays which then connect to the outlets. (In the case of the “always on” front receptacles it’s the same deal except no relays — they connect directly to the mains.)

There isn’t so much as a ferrite ring choke on the supply cord.

From a protection standpoint, you’d probably be better off with a cheap power strip, because at least those usually have over-current protection in the form of a wee push button breaker.

If this object were sold merely as a power sequencer with a USB port, I wouldn’t be nearly so hard on it, but even ignoring the marketing materials it did have some failings of its own:

• No strain relief on the plug.
• A mains power cord falsely labelled as being 6.2mm2 (~10 AWG), when in fact it was more like 4mm2 (~12 AWG).
• Close clearances between live/neutral and live/ground (i.e. the chassis) of around 2-3mm throughout.
• 18AWG wiring to the front receptacles that, while practically functional, is undersized.
• International multi-plug style receptacles which are inherently unsafe.*
• A USB port that is borderline useless.

*I didn’t talk about it in detail in the video, but that type of universal receptacle is dangerous. Full stop. I’m pretty sure they don’t meet North American or British standards, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re outside of regulations in other countries as well.

They’ll easily accept a 1/8″ phone plug or the tip of an RCA plug into the live pin of the socket, as well as even generously-sized screwdrivers. IMHO this is particularly hazardous in a rack. I’ve had the experience of working in the ass-end of dark and densely packed racks, and it’s all too easy to miss and hit the wrong hole with the wrong thing. Usually it’s only as bad as hooking a video output to another output or some such, but on a bad day without enough coffee, who knows?

Anyways, I’m not saying don’t buy the thing. If it’s suitable for your purposes given all the information here, who am I to stop you? It held up better than expected in testing, and at least the case is bonded to ground and made of thicker steel than I expected in case the worst happens.

I do wish Pyle would represent this product’s features (or lack thereof) accurately in its product description and marketing materials, however.

Dear “New Media” Companies,

Two years ago I decided to take the plunge and purchase a UHD TV.

But I thought twice about it, deciding that I would hold off until there was adequate 4K content available. At that time the 4K market was weak. UHD Blu-rays had yet to be released, and other than some YouTube content and perhaps a few shows from your companies, there wasn’t much available.

Finally at the cusp of 2018 I decided to make the move. There’s much streaming media currently available in UHD (as you’re obviously aware), as well as a plethora of UHD Blu-rays.

So I now have a very nice Sony OLED hooked up to my HTPC.

But the sad part of the story is that you lost me at “HTPC”.

I’ve used a computer to consume my “TV” media since the heady days of 2003, when I needed component cables to hook it up to a rear-projection 720p monstrosity of a television. It was a more flexible DVR than the TiVo, it was a DVD player, a streaming media player, an MP3 player, a gaming platform, and yet more!

A computer has, is, and will most likely remain the best tool to hook up to one’s television.

So it was that I excitedly loaded up the Netflix website and started watching a video. The contrast and color of the OLED TV made it look fantastic! Only… It wasn’t all that sharp. So I investigated, and I can say without irony that I was shocked to learn that Netflix intentionally doesn’t allow its customers to stream 4K content to their computers. And then my surprise was doubled when I learned that neither does Amazon.

This, despite the web browser being the first (and at the time, only) vehicle on which your content could be viewed. The web browser was your stepping stone into the streaming world, and your raison d’être in that space. (Or more accurately your capacité à être.)

Yet for reasons that seem to have more to do with protecting your intellectual property than providing your loyal customers with cutting-edge content, Ultra HD video is not available in the browser. Hell, Netflix doesn’t even go above 720p (welcome back to 2003) on anything but the dreaded Edge.*

I’ll get to why that’s ridiculous and self-defeatist in a moment.

First I’d like to point out that I am indeed a loyal customer. I’ve been using Netflix since the DVDs-by-mail of the late 90s, I’ve been a regular Amazon customer since around that same time, and a Prime customer since it was first offered. You both have shows that, in my opinion, are some of the best available from old media and new media alike.

Speaking of the 1990s, I was one of the first users of that new-fangled MP3 format. The first album in my collection was Tool’s Undertow, ripped by me from my very own CD sometime in 1995.

I had a portable MP3 player before the iPod even existed, and watched with a heavy heart as Apple and the RIAA tricked millions of consumers into jumping down a deep pit of DRM-protected music. A pit from which some still haven’t clawed their way out.

It’s important for you to know that I’m not a pirate. I believe that people should pay a fair price for the work of others, and in that spirit I don’t participate in peer-to-peer (nor other) file sharing arrangements. I have a large collection of music and videos on my file server, all of which were purchased (or recorded from TV) by myself over many years, solely for my own consumption.

Yet I have a great interest in — and some sympathy for — the people that illegally share and copy media. Whether you like it or not, those pirates have shaped the current media landscape, and I take a great deal of schadenfreude from the consternation they’ve given to media conglomerates. Their actions are, in large part, due to those media companies not giving customers what they want and deserve.

You see, I have a special hatred for DRM.

Digital rights management has never worked. It has done little to nothing in protecting the rights and revenues of corporations, yet it has done a great deal of damage to the law-abiding consumer.

In an age where almost every person has a smartphone, smart speaker, smart TV, plus a tablet and computer (or tablet computer), it can make for a frustrating and confusing landscape. Yes, one can login to Netflix or Amazon on all of those devices and stream your shows.

But are your apps stable and fully functional on all of those platforms? Do all of those apps and platforms have a unified user experience? Is the media downloadable and portable across all those devices? Do you guarantee that users will be able to go back and watch episodes of their favorite shows ten years from now?

You already know that the answer is “no” to all. Those questions are the height of rhetoric, yet they shouldn’t be! An affirmative answer to each of those questions would benefit the consumer: Your customer, your reason for being, and the source of your revenue.

Yet you confuse and frustrate your customers in the name of “digital rights”.

Are any of you old enough to remember the days of the Betamax/VHS wars? That’s when TV and movie studio executives in starched shirts chomped on cigars and worried over the impending downfall of their industries, wrought by the boogyman of recorded video.

Yet their old-media empires wore on.

I’ve already mentioned the era when the RIAA wrung its hands in disgust at the possibility of people actually bringing their entire collection of music with them wherever they went, and how their gross restrictions wrangled a generation into proprietary and perpetual music licenses. I remember that a certain colossal “new media” company began selling DRM-free MP3s on their website. Do you remember that, Amazon?

Yet the recording industry is alive and well, even without DRM.

The irony is that the internet allows budding artists to bring their music directly to their fans. As of late, I’ve spent more money on Bandcamp than on Amazon for MP3s (well, FLAC, which Amazon fails to provide). Artists can enjoy nearly 100% of the revenues without the spectre of stuffed shirts pilfering “their share”. Artists have done more damage to the recording industry over the past few years than pirates ever have.

It’s been a similar thing lately for the video industry on YouTube. In fact, some weeks I consume more well-produced YouTube shows than content from either of your companies.

And surely you’ve heard the tale of the horrid illegal number. I won’t bore you with that one. Yet DVDs still sold by the millions.

In fact, your companies did more damage to physical media sales than any internet pirate ever could.

And despite your being founded by (and full of) fresh young faces who have Wikipedia at their beck and call to dredge up all this history, you insist on strangling your customers with encryption, proprietary apps, sub-par hardware platforms, and other useless nonsense.

“It’s certainly not useless! It protects muh rights!”

I can hear you right now. And no, it doesn’t.

Every single Netflix and Amazon original show is available right now on The Pirate Bay (and likely elsewhere). Every single one. Your hamstringing of customers and your willful disregard for history (even for your very own histories!) is plain baffling.

It doesn’t matter how clever your teams of DRM engineers might be. They are hapless compared to the thousands upon thousands of worldwide “hackers” that can crack any scheme you might invent. I don’t say that as a pirate. I say it as an observer of history.

I pay for your services. I enjoy your shows and products. I am a loyal customer. Yet I cannot watch the 4K content of which you are so proud.

The built-in software and interface on my high-end, brand-new Sony “smart” TV is feckless, slow, and difficult to navigate. Can you imagine how awful it will be in five years, when the rest of the world has moved on but my TV remains staunchly bolted to my wall? Yet it’s one of the few only devices I own that can play your 4K videos.

Yes, I can buy one of Amazon’s Fire products and watch your shows in UHD. I in fact have a Fire box, and it’s not all that bad! (For Amazon content.)

But Plex runs like shit on it. It can’t stream Netflix UHD content, and the Netflix app isn’t very good. Why would it be? They’re a competitor.

Yes, there are Rokus and a plethora of other streaming devices, many of which may or may not be able to play your content in UHD. Some cannot stream both your companies’ content in UHD, however. It’s a quagmire for the average consumer.

My HTPC is a fairly old HP Z420 workstation. It cost about three-hundred bucks on eBay, has an E5-1620 processor, 16GB of RAM, a Samsung Pro SSD, a GTX1060 video card, optical audio out to a proper surround sound system, and a 10GbE fiber connection to my file server. Overkill? Perhaps. But there’s simply no way a tiny little box with a purposefully low-powered Atom or ARM processor can compete. Oh, and it can play PC games (are there any other kind?) at high resolutions and reasonable framerates.

It’s also the best possible platform on which to consume every provider’s content.

Just not in Ultra HD. (And, again, sometimes not even in plain ol’ FHD.)

Yet some of your shows are available on Torrent sites right now, in 2160p quality. All are available at 1080p.

So I, as one of your loyal customers have no way to legally watch your content in 4K. Yet I could easily watch it, were I to participate in your nemesis, P2P file sharing.

Do you realize how stupid that sounds? That illegal downloads are of a higher quality than what your paying customers can access on your own websites? Do you really think that slightly-lower-resolution torrents are going to cause people to give up on pirating your content?

That’s “old media” thinking.

Don’t punish your fond and loyal customers for the misdeeds of others.

Strip out your DRM and let us breathe.

I’d even pay you a couple of more bucks a month for the privilege.

Sincerely,

Scott

* Netflix does not make it obvious at what resolution a customer’s video is streaming. In fact, the only way to find out is to hit Ctrl+Shift+Alt+D: An intuitive key combination that surely any layperson would know! I’d be willing to wager that you, Netflix, have customers paying for your “4K” plan who aren’t even aware that they’re viewing 720p or 1080p video on their computer (and possibly on other devices). It’s deceitful and it borders on a scam. You need to make it plainly obvious to consumers when they’re not getting what they paid for.

Contrast that to free YouTube, wherein which they put a plainly visible icon in the lower-right corner showing the streaming quality. They also let the viewer explicitly change resolutions. It’s shameful that you don’t give your paying customers the very same.

Amazon’s player does explicitly provide the resolution, but doesn’t allow it to be changed. That’s fine for me, because I have an unmetered internet connection. Others may actually want the option for a lower-quality feed, if not because their connection is metered but because they don’t want to interfere with other network activity. I’d rather explicitly set it to 2160p in perpetuity, which obviously I cannot.

PS (for those pedants out there):

• I understand the difference between DCI spec 4K and UHD. I use the terms interchangeably here for variety, and because they are regularly bunged together in marketing and hence in the mind of the average consumer.
• Before anyone strings me up for mentioning TPB or torrenting in general, I seriously doubt that this is revelatory to Amazon and Netflix. If somehow they didn’t know about it, they really do need to hear it from me so that they can get their heads out of their respective asses.
• All dates are approximate and off the top of my head. My point remains, even if the dates are slightly changed.
• I’m sure XYZ Company makes ABC Box which can be re-imaged with GHI Open-Source-Magic-Software, and it will play everything in perfect UHD from every content provider and also make your shits smell like flowers. The purity of a standard Intel/AMD computer with a decent video card cannot be beaten. I don’t care about small and low power consumption. I want a big fuck-off piece of hardware that’ll last me 8 years and won’t get lost in the couch cushions.
• Netflix will let you stream UHD content on a PC. Providing that you have an i7 Kaby Lake CPU (presumably for DRM-related extensions), Windows 10 with the latest Creator’s Update (whatever the hell that means), and that you use the Edge browser (the most hated browser in the world). While I embarrassingly do use Windows 10 for my HTPC**, I think a bleeding-edge i7 machine is needlessly expensive for the purpose. It’s a ridiculous requirement, and barely worth mentioning.
• **Sigh. If you think I’m complaining now, how about the history of trying to view legal DRM-protected content in Linux? There’s also the gaming market. Those are rants for another day. FWIW I run about 35 Linux machines (many virtualized) plus a couple of FreeBSD boxes in my house. I use Windows for many desktops for mainstream compatibility reasons. The right tool for the right job. E.g. I hate my dishwasher because it’s a poorly-engineered worthless piece of LG trash, but I still use it because at the end of the day it does wash dishes (with some cajoling).
• I was being somewhat facetious about my “PC master race” gaming comment. I don’t care all that much. But my arguments against proprietary gaming consoles are similar to my arguments against proprietary streaming hardware/software.

PPS (for every company that makes a remote-controlled “smart” device):

Look up the Gyration Air Music Remote.

They don’t make it any more, and you can get one on eBay but not the necessary USB receiver dongle. Aside from a touchscreen and/or full keyboard and mouse, it’s hands-down the best way to navigate “smart TV”-style platforms. It’s also the best way to navigate around an HTPC from the couch. It basically lets you wave your remote around, and a mouse cursor follows your hand movements on screen. It uses a simple accelerometer (AFAIK).

Someone needs to rip off their design. Simplify it. Take off 80% of the buttons. Leave the volume buttons, a few programmable keys, a home button and probably a couple of others. Needless to say also leave the accelerometer-driven pointing capability and the right- and left-click “mouse” buttons. Make it interface via Bluetooth rather than some proprietary crap.

It takes a little while to get accustomed to using it, but it’s fantastic once you do.

Make that the interface device for a Fire TV, Roku, smart TV, or whatever-the-fuck and I might actually consider using one.

Arrow keys are a bullshit way to navigate any menu system and voice commands make you look like a fool in your own home.

The Echo Look

I’m working on a full review-type-thing of the Look, but who really cares about that? I’m sure people will want to see the insides of it, though.

The most interesting two things on it are an Intel RealSense SR300 module (minus its visible light camera), and what’s basically a full Intel PC motherboard. In fact, here are the main specs:

• Intel Atom x5-Z8350 (SR2KT) @ 1.44Ghz (1.91Ghz burst)
• 8GB Samsung eMMC Flash NAND Storage
• 8GB Elpida LPDDR3 RAM
• Broadcom 802.11ac + 802.11b/g/a/n + Bluetooth (Not sure of the version)

The hardware is fantastically made and well put together, and overall is very clever considering they stuffed all of it into a diminutive cylinder!

The Reassembly

I did put the Look back together after all was said and done. And I think there were only like 2 screws left over! :]

Unfortunately it didn’t work for very long, nor very reliably. Something about hacking off all the shielding and generally manhandling all the components maybe had something to do with it.

But if you wanted to see a Look’s boot-up and camera sequence with its proverbial shirt off (the LEDs being the only real aspect of interest), then here’s your chance! Yay.

IC List

This is by no means comprehensive, but it covers all the major stuff with applicable part numbers:

• Intel Atom x5-Z8350 (SR2KT)
• Samsung 8GB Flash NAND (KLM8G1GEME)
• Elpida 8GB LPDDR3 (F8164A3MA-GD-F)
• TI PMIC (SND9039A2)
• Winbond 16mbit Flash Memory (25Q16FW1Q)
• Intel RealSense (SR300)
• Broadcom WLAN + BT (BCM43570KFFB8)
• Dual Diaphragm Speaker (?)
• Camera – 1080p? (?)
• Discrete microphones x 4 (?)

Closeups

Here are some shots of the components. I’m warning you, the linked files are fairly hi-res, so beware if you’re on a low-power mobile device. But hey, at least you’ll get some good detail.

If you’re curious as to the relative scale of each component, the full-size photos were all shot using the same camera setup and position. This means that there’s pretty much a 1:1 correspondence in scale between the various images. (Not true for the thumbnails, tho.)

Also of interest:

• The “flash” illumination LEDs consist of 4 pairs of warm and cool white. As such, the Look can output light at varying color temperatures, probably in the area of 2700K – 5000K (that’s just a guess). From looking at high frame rate video, it appears that they are PWM-controlled, so the 4 LEDs of each temperature could be set to varying degrees of apparent brightness.
• The blue “Echo ring” LED packages have red, green, and blue chips (sorta your standard RGB dealies). There are only 6 of them, but they do a very good job of making a convincingly smooth chasing effect when viewed through the front cover.
• The WiFi (and possibly BT) antennae are at the bottom of the unit.

Stay Tuned

As I get questions and/or investigate further on my own impetus, I’ll update this page. And as I said, there’s a forthcoming “full” review of the Look. Don’t forget to subscribe and yadda yadda yadda follow blech burp social media blah blah. (Just google ScottDotDot if you really want to.)

Here’s the thing: I don’t need to contact Amazon’s customer service often, but when I do they’ve always been responsive and extremely helpful. So I’m not going to lambaste Amazon in this post, but I do want to tell a story of a horrible customer service experience that’s not just a result of a bad rep but is indicative of a deeper problem.

The Toilet

In an incident that was far less dramatic than you’d hope, my toilet tank cracked and was leaking slowly onto the floor.

Obviously the ideal solution would be a new tank, but I had an Eljer triangle toilet that’s discontinued, and there aren’t a ton of options for a triangular corner toilet.

Needing to have a working crapper, I ran out to Home Depot and bought a relatively cheap standard toilet as a temporary solution. It works fine, but the placement isn’t quite as nice as that of a corner toilet. Hence I went to my favorite online retailer and found an American Standard Cadet 3 Triangle Toilet that looked like it would fit the bill.

Amazon’s product photo of the toilet. Looks like an elongated bowl, right?

It turned out to be the wrong toilet for me. I’m not exactly a small guy at 6’4″ and 220lbs. I constantly have problems at hotels where my .. carriage .. doesn’t fit inside a toilet without .. dipping and/or touching the front. (I’m trying to be polite, which is hard to do when talking about why a toilet doesn’t suit my needs. Not that you really needed to know, but whatever.)

The point is that I hate round bowl toilets because there’s not enough space front-to-back for my taste.

The full name of the toilet on Amazon is American Standard 270BD001.020 Cadet 3 Right Height Round Front Two-Piece Triangle Toilet with 12-Inch Rough-In, White. When I read “round front”, I thought that meant the front was rounded for aesthetic reasons as opposed to another hypothetical model which might have a more squared-off front. I’m no expert on toilet styles. Besides, “round front” sounds different than “round bowl”.

And to be fair it’s also the wrong picture of the toilet on Amazon’s product page. But to be super duper fair to Amazon, it’s probably American Standard’s fault because they have the wrong photo on their website. Check out this side-by-side of the “Round” version versus the “Elongated” version:

It’s rather hard to read, but you can click on the image for the full-size version.

Both of these pictures look the freaking same, and both look like elongated bowls. The point of my telling you all of this is that I don’t think it was 100% my fault that I ordered the wrong thing. But because I felt somewhat foolish at misunderstanding the “round” terminology, when it came to giving a reason for the return I put something like “I no longer need this item”. At any rate, I indicated that the return was my fault and so I was charged around $40 for shipping (which is pretty reasonable for a heavy, bulky, two-package order).

Lord of the Toilets: The Two Packages

I was issued a pre-paid UPS label for return because I’d opted to drop the toilet off at my local UPS Store. Pickup was quite a bit more expensive, even though I thought that it would be way easier.

But there’s the crux of the problem: I was issued one label for two packages. That didn’t seem right to me, so some communication ensued:

July 30

Hi,

I’m trying to return order [order number redacted], and the return was approved and a UPS label issued. However, the item (toilet) is split into 2 packages, so I need two return labels. (Unless I can use the same one twice, but I don’t believe UPS allows that.)

Thanks & regards,

Scott

Amazon replied promptly with the following:

July 30

Hello,

Thanks for contacting us.

I understand that you want to return the item and the item was split in to two packages.

In this case, you can use the same return mailing label twice on the both packages and you can return the item. There is no need to concern. UPS will accept the package.

If you want free UPS pick up to return the item, please let us know using the below link. We’ll create free UPS pick to return the item. So that UPS will pick up the item from your shipping address.

Please visit the following link to provide the information we requested:

http://www.amazon.com/rsvp-mi?c=[redacted]&q=o2r

We look forward to seeing you again.

We’d appreciate your feedback. Please use the links below to tell us about your experience today.

Best regards,
Reshmi [redacted].

The link provided in that last message was some kind of generic feedback form. It’s not valid anymore and so I can’t get a screenshot, but it basically asked for information that was redundant to what Amazon should already have in relation to this return. It had a comments field where I explained that I’d like to change from a drop-off to a pick-up on that order.

Then I waited. And waited. And waited some more. After 10 days with no response, I contacted Amazon customer service again:

August 9, 2016

Hi,

I used the link provided in your email, filled out the form, and requested a UPS pickup. But I haven’t heard anything back yet. This item is pretty bulky, so I’d much prefer a pick-up rather than having to drop it off at a UPS Store. If it’s not going to happen, please let me know before the return window is over.

Thanks & regards,
Scott

Amazon responded to that message right away with the following: (You don’t have to read the whole thing, just look at the bold bits.)

August 9

Hello,

Thank you for taking out time and writing back to us.

To make this right for you, I have arranged a UPS Pick-up for the item “American Standard 270BD001.020 Cadet 3 Right Height Round Front Two-Piece Triangle Toilet with 12-Inch Rough-In, White”.

UPS’s first attempt is typically made the first business day after a request is made, but it can take up to three business days for them to receive the pickup request. UPS will attempt the pickup at the address where the items were shipped. They’ll make three attempts to pick up your return if you aren’t available when they arrive.

When you request a UPS pickup for your return, the UPS driver will bring a pre-addressed, authorized return label. If the package has been opened, please repack it in a way similar to when it arrived.

Don’t worry; packing slips aren’t required to make a return.

UPS does not provide unattended pickup. You can contact UPS to see if they can give you more specific information about the timing of the pickup; their phone number is 1-800-PICK-UPS (1-800-742-5877).

Please reference this tracking number if you call them: [redacted]

We greatly appreciate your patience and understanding.

We look forward to seeing you again soon.

We’d appreciate your feedback. Please use the links below to tell us about your experience today.

Best regards,
Divya K

I was quite grateful that they finally arranged the pick-up, but was still a bit concerned that they were still talking about “a” return label. I figured that wasn’t really my problem (yet). I was a bit bummed that I’d have to be home, but fortunately my UPS driver usually comes between 6PM and 8PM.

But my next message to Amazon 6 days later sorta summarizes what happened in the meantime:

August 15

Hi,

This has turned into quite a problematic return process. I really do appreciate you arranging the UPS pick-up, because this is a bulky item and it saves me the hassle of bringing it to a UPS Store.

However, a couple of things: The instructions from Amazon said that I’d have to be home for the pickup. Unfortunately my UPS driver came at 5PM one day, 2PM the next, didn’t come at all the following day, and came today around 7PM. So it was difficult to coordinate. I contacted UPS on Twitter, and they said that I would NOT have to be home, and that I could leave the packages on my porch for pickup.

Today the UPS driver happened to come when I was just getting home from work, and he told me that he was only issued one return label — but this order came in 2 packages. If you look back in the history of this inquiry, you’ll see that I started off by asking if I could use the same UPS label for both packages. You guys said “yes”. The UPS driver says that cannot be done, and two separate labels with different tracking numbers would have to be issued.

He cancelled the pick-up in the meantime.

I really want to get this returned, so whatever help you can give me would be appreciated. Either I or the UPS driver would need to have 2 return labels issued.

Regards,
Scott

In my irritation, I also took to Facebook. I tagged UPS and Amazon, but they couldn’t be bothered:

But in the end Amazon really came through, offering to let me keep the toilet and the refund! It’s really generous, though I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do with the toilet. Also that’s not the end of the f$(*!ng story.

August 16

Hello Scott,

I am sorry to hear about the problem you had in returning the item “American Standard 270BD001.020 Cadet 3 Right Height Round Front Two-Piece Triangle Toilet with 12-Inch Rough-In, White “.

As you are our valuable customer I request you not to return the item back now as we do not want to cause you more trouble in returning this item to us. You’re welcome to keep donate dispose the item according to your choice.

Also you can see that already a refund is issued to you for this item.

Rest assured that you will not be charged for the same. Please do not sorry about the same.Your issue will be taken care of.

It is our privilege to have you as our valued customer and we want to make sure you are always taken care of.

If there is anything else you need help with, please feel free to contact us at any point of time. We are here 24 hours a day and 7 days a week for your assistance. Here’s a link to our Contact Us page:http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/contact-us/general-questions.html

Thank you for choosing Amazon. We appreciate your business and look forward to serving you again in the near future.

We’d appreciate your feedback. Please use the links below to tell us about your experience today.

Best regards,
aditi

Of course I responded with a very kind thank you note! I felt like that went above and beyond what I expected, and was a ridiculously good example of Amazon’s customer service.

But I don’t think it’ll take much imagination for you to guess what happened next, though it moves our story forward by almost a month:

September 16

Hi,

Again, I really appreciate the sentiment. But I was just re-charged for the purchase.

If you want me to send the toilet back, I’m still OK with that, but please let me know.

Regards,
Scott

The Refunded Refund

That’s right, Amazon unceremoniously pulled $270.74 out of my checking account a month after saying that the matter was settled.

The transactions related to all this nonsense.

Look, I’m not trying get one over on Amazon. I wanted to return the toilet. I really did. It’s been sitting in my living room for over 2 months, having not been pooped in at all.

But they offered to let me keep the it. That was their choice. But notice they kept the $39.04 for the return shipping. I mean, fair enough, because 40 bucks is a cheap price for a toilet. But for a toilet that I don’t want and will probably just donate to Habitat? Meh.

But they’ve now charged me $309.78 for an order that was originally $270.74. (Two $270.74 charges minus just $231.70 in the refund.)

The worst part is that their customer service has responded to my other emails in a matter of hours, yet it’s now been 4 days, and I’m starting to get worried.

I’ll update this saga when there’s some kind of resolution. I’m happy to return the toilet. I’m happy to donate the toilet. Whatever you want, Amazon. Just please let me know so I can put this to rest.

Here’s A Bullet List of Issues for People That Like Lists

• The photo on the Amazon product page was incorrect.
• Amazon only issued one shipping label for a two-package return.
• Amazon never responded to the feedback form that I was superfluously asked to fill out.
• Amazon insists that one shipping label can be duplicated onto many packages. UPS strongly disagrees.
• UPS says that I can leave return packages on my porch for unattended pickup. Amazon strongly disagrees.
• Amazon was quick to promise that I wouldn’t be charged for the toilet, but I was. A month later.
• Amazon still charged me the return fee of $40, even though I never returned it.
• This whole thing started with an order on July 4, and it’s now September 20.

I started off this post by saying that this indicates a deeper problem than just a bad rep or a one-off experience. Amazon really needs to get on the same page as UPS. I don’t know who’s right and who’s wrong, but I’m thinking that Amazon is wrong. If they’d issued two labels and let me leave the packages unattended for pick-up, this would have been resolved over a month ago with minimal fuss.

Then again, since I’m dealing in hypothetical “what if” scenarios: If they’d simply shipped the toilet pictured in the listing, I’d probably be pooping in the corner of the room like god intended instead of jammed up against the wall like an animal.

There’s a fundamental accounting problem if their system can bill me an extra $40 in this way. If this was my credit card and not my debit card, I might not have noticed the discrepancy because the transaction volume is higher and it would’ve spanned two statements.

And finally, I don’t think that the feedback form in question actually does anything. To this day I’ve received no acknowledgement of having sent a message, aside from the confirmation page on Amazon.com after I submitted it.

Some of This is My Fault

In fairness to Amazon, I did slow down this process a bit on my own. I didn’t unpack the toilet until a couple of weeks after delivery — I’d been waiting for a spare weekend to install it. In retrospect I should have taken it out to inspect it right away, but I didn’t.

I also took a while to get around to actually trying to bring the thing to the UPS Store. My car isn’t big enough for both packages, so it was going to take me two trips and over an hour. I procrastinated out of laziness, and I was really grateful for their offer of a free pick-up.

(Incidentally, I would have made the cutoff dates for the return despite my delay.)

My UPS guy also came at weird times when I was trying to give him the package. I couldn’t take a full day off of work just to facilitate this return, and though I did leave work early on those days, he came even earlier. It’s not his fault, of course, but it’s just one of those flukes of bad timing. I’ve seen him in my neighborhood after 7 PM quite a few times afterwards.

Also, I take some of the responsibility for ordering the wrong item. However, even though it said “round front”, the picture clearly shows an elongated bowl. It looks nothing like the actual item. American Standard’s site seemed to back up the fact that I was ordering an elongated bowl.

Your Feedback is Important to Us…

…and will be answered in the order received.

Seriously though, if you think I’m being an ass about this, let me know in the comments. And regardless of the long rant, I’m not all that worked up about it. I have confidence that Amazon will come through in the end.

Just for reference, here’s a screenshot of the Amazon listing with the incorrect picture. Looks like I bought at a good time, because it’s now $100 more expensive!

I get it. At this point you’re probably thinking “What the hell is this guy’s problem? Two videos??“

It’s not like I’m obsessed with Boost Oxygen. In fact, I’ve already moved on to my next fecal-laden product. But when I was shooting the Boost video I decided to go over some of the incoherent ramblings of idiots reviews on Amazon and Sports Authority that I found while doing research on this product. (Yes, I did a modicum of actual research believe it or not.)

The Amazon Dash Button: Stupid or Dumb?

If you’re not an avid Amazon shopper then you may have missed their latest foray into consumer electronics: The Amazon Dash Button. It’s basically less than you can imagine: You press a futuristic garage-door-opener-type-thing and Amazon orders some crap to your door.

I’m not exaggerating. It’s a small device with a single button, and its only purpose is to order a single product of a single brand. My comparison to a garage door opener is quite apt, except that instead of opening a door you’re spending an arbitrary amount of money. Maybe it’s more like a reverse raffle.

And hey! If you did already hear about the Dash Button, then maybe you want to know what makes it tick, eh? Well, here’s your chance because I cracked one open and showed you the gooey, creamy center.

Background

I should point out that I knew next to nothing about the Echo when I pre-ordered it. I knew next to nothing about it when it arrived. I figured I’d take the approach of someone that just got this thing as a gift or something.

Amazon Echo Unboxing

I unbox the Echo and spend some time setting it up. It did not go well.

Then I attempted to interact with Alexa. I suppose I’m just accustomed to Google, because I can ask it a variety of free-form questions and most of the time it comes up with the correct answer. Alexa seems to be far more finicky about phrasing and command syntax. Which is just what you want from a user-friendly tube that ominously glows at you from the center of your living room.

Then the Rest of the Review

I just don’t get the Echo. Fine, it can play music and it can control all of your lights a limited number of brands of lights.

For home automation though, I’d want something more discrete. Something integrated into the house, not an obvious cylinder that I have to explain to everyone.

For listening to music I’m fine with a Bluetooth speaker.

If I have extemporaneous questions for the internet I can always ask the Google that’s in my very pocket (or glued to my hand).

I am Hopeful

Amazon does publish an API for Alexa. After making the video I signed up for their developer program. It’s been about a week, and I still haven’t heard back.

However, I’m hoping that the community will come up with some killer apps, and that home automation compatibility will increase.

But in the meanwhile of my daily life, Alexa remains a novelty. My living room and my workstation in my basement already have better speakers than the Echo’s. So she doesn’t do me much good for music, and she still can’t answer questions better than my phone.

Newegg was, and still is, the best online retailer of computer components in the US.

I stand behind that statement. But they’re trying to be Amazon, and they’re not doing a very good job of it.

The Good

Just like Amazon, Newegg allows other merchants to list items for sale on their website. They take a cut of 8-15 percent of item sales and intermediate disputes between customers and third-party sellers.

But here’s the thing: I always shopped on Newegg because I liked Newegg. Especially when they opened their distribution center in Edison, NJ and my ground shipments started arriving in under 24 hours. I also liked the responsiveness of their customer service and the clarity of their search results. I particularly love their Power Search, a feature which Amazon sorely lacks when looking for things like memory, HDDs, or other hardware with very particular specifications.

There is, however, a tremendous difference between the two retailers: Amazon handles the logistics for a huge number of its third-party sellers whereas Newegg does not.

This means that Amazon offers a much broader selection of items backed by Amazon’s shipping, returns, and customer service. It also makes for far more Prime-eligible items versus Newegg’s Premiere program.

Newegg Premier: The Tangent

Hey Newegg: Now I’m really annoyed. In the interest of fair blog-journalism (oxymoron, I know) I decided to try out Newegg Premiere, your equivalent of Amazon Prime. After all, I should be comparing an apples-to-apples shopping experience. But I submitted my payment details for a 3-month Premiere membership about 10 minutes ago. I’m still not a Premiere member, and have yet to receive a confirmation email. Did you know that the same sort of thing is instantaneous on Amazon, right? You understand that it’s 2015 and digital orders should be delivered immediately? Oh, you don’t? That’s a shame.

Since the ten minutes have passed, in my account it now says the following:

Thank you for signing up for a Newegg Premier Membership. Your membership registration is being processed at this time. Please check this page again shortly. We appreciate your patience, and look forward to providing you with great service and savings through the Premier program.

Jeez Louise. What are you processing? I’ve been a customer for 11 years. I gave you my credit card. What more could you possibly need? A blood sample? A copy of the deed to my house?

Hallelujah! I’m now a Premiere member, and it only took 22 minutes to process!

Sorry for the tangent; Now back to the article at hand.

The Customer Service Difference

Perhaps the most important difference between the two online retail giants is the way in which they handle customer complaints and/or disputes with their third-party sellers.

I recently had my first experience ordering from the Newegg Marketplace. I was on a Prime hiatus for a couple of weeks and decided to give a NE Marketplace seller a try. Compared to Amazon, it was a complete disaster.

My order was for a two-pack of vitamins (two bottles), and the package arrived (undamaged and unopened) only containing one bottle. OK, that’s not Newegg’s fault. That’s the seller, Web Vitamins, Inc.‘s fault. And it shouldn’t be a big deal. I’ve had similar issues with Amazon over the years, and it works like this:

1. I contact Amazon to explain the issue.
2. In (usually) less than 2 hours they respond and issue a refund or re-ship as appropriate.

And that’s one of the reasons I love Amazon. I once had an issue with a freaking desk chair and shot off an email to them. In less than half an hour they emailed me back saying that a replacement chair was on its way and that they’d cover return shipping costs. Simple.

Newegg? As we’ve seen, they love processing. Here’s the process as I’ve seen it:

1. I contact the third-party merchant (via Newegg’s website) to explain the issue.
2. A week passes with no response.
3. I contact Newegg’s customer service to explain the issue, mentioning the previous step taken to resolve the issue*.
4. Three hours later a Newegg customer service rep responds to request more information about the issue.
5. Six minutes later I send back an email with the requested information (confirming shipping address, etc).
6. Forty-seven hours later a different Newegg customer service rep from their Seller Services side copies me on an email sent to the third-party seller asking them to follow up. The email includes instructions to me to wait forty-eight hours for a response before again following up with Newegg.
7. I waited 5 days, because Good Friday/Easter weekend fell in that time and I figured I’d give the merchant the benefit of the doubt on that.
8. Having received no response, I emailed Newegg to advise them of exactly that.
9. That was six eight hours ago, and I’m still waiting for a reply I guess I was too quick to post because I just got a reply promising a refund.
10. Four hours later the refund is processed and I receive an invoice as proof.

So far the delay on Newegg’s end is 62 hours, and I still have yet to hear back from them. It’s actually been 110 hours when you count the 48 hours they had me wait for a response from the seller, after I’d already given the seller a week to respond (which I’d told Newegg about in the first place).

The mot juste on on the etymologist’s turd sandwich? The refund was described in my invoice as a “Customer Courtesy”. I’m sorry for the foul language, but that’s quite the horse hockey.

I know that there’s no substantive difference between this refund and a refund by any other name, but in customer service parlance a “courtesy” refund is given simply to appease a customer that’s in the wrong but complaining loudly.

May I remind you that I received exactly half of my order? Refunding half of my money isn’t a freaking courtesy, it’s a necessity.

*And something else that really ground my gears about this whole thing is this: I couldn’t even fully describe the problem when contacting Newegg’s customer service people, because their contact form only allows for 300 characters.

“Yes, hello? Oh, hang on.” “Newegg! It’s for you! I have 1998 on the phone and they want their error message back!”

It’s further aggravating because they don’t tell you about the character limitation until after you try and submit the goddamb form!

So not only did I waste my time typing out two paragraphs which I was then forced to delete, but the information that I had to cut out was exactly the same information that the customer service rep asked for when he responded to my inquiry. They found two ways to waste my time in one simple contact form, a problem which could have been solved by a database that’s from the 21st century and a tiny bit of JavaScript.

Here’s the thing about the order itself: The screw-up with the merchandise was probably just a fluke. I’m not even mad about that. Everyone makes mistakes, sh1t happens, luck of the draw, [additional platitudes go here].

What provokes my ire is that the process I’ve described seems to be de rigueur for Newegg. Their customer-facing service people are disconnected from their seller-facing people, and the customer-facing people apparently have no authority nor ability to actually assist a customer. They also aren’t proactive about getting in between the seller and the customer to facilitate a resolution.

Their number one solution to any dispute seems to be to contact the seller and wait. I’m OK with that on eBay, because they are strictly a marketplace. Not so much on Newegg.

I’m sure that when seller is responsive this all works out fine, but when it’s a shitty one like WebVitamins, Inc. that both screws up orders and then ignores customers, Newegg should be right there behind me. It’s their name on the website, their name on the order confirmation email, their name on the tracking information email, their name on my credit card statement, and so it’s their name all over this post.

I shouldn’t have to deal with the third-party merchant at all. That’s in fact why I’d ordered from Newegg in the first place, rather than from webvitamins.com.

I also want to discuss a niggle that I’ve always had with Newegg: They do not process payments in real-time. In the vast majority of the instances this isn’t a problem, but recently I placed an order on Newegg and “accidentally” used an expired credit card stored in my account.

(I say “accidentally” because for some reason it wound up as the default card when I was placing my order. Besides, why would they let me submit the order with an expired card in the first place?)

If you’ve shopped on Newegg you know that they send at least four follow-up emails after you place an order. One confirming the order, one saying that your card has been charged, another with tracking information, and at least one more which is an invoice for some reason.

The point is that I’m so accustomed to seeing those emails that I don’t bother looking at them; That includes the one which said that my payment was declined.

For the love of god Newegg, process payments in real time (or at least validate the payment method in real time — if you want to hold the charge until shipment that’s OK with me). In 2002 this kind of thing was somewhat understandable, but it’s now 2015.

The Secret Prime Discount

One glaring difference between Prime and Premier is the pricing: An annual membership is $99 on Amazon, but only $49.99 on Newegg.

Besides the fact that I think that Prime is still a better deal, here’s a little something I figured out that can save you a few bucks:

Cancel your Prime membership.

No, I’m not being snarky. Cancel your Prime membership the day before it’s set to renew.

If you don’t have a Prime membership, then sign up for a free 30-day trial and cancel it on day 29.

Once you’ve cancelled, wait a week or two. You’ll get an email (or visit “Your Prime Membership” under “Your Account” when logged into Amazon) wherein they will offer a year of Prime to you at $49.

Once you go Prime they don’t want you to go back, and they’re willing to go down to half price to keep you in the fold.

I’ve done this for my initial membership and two renewals and it’s worked so far.

At least it’ll work until they catch on to my trick, so shhhhh.

Edit: So am I a Premier Member?

It’s been about a day since I signed up for Premier. In my account they acknowledge that I am, yet every page has a header entreating me to “try Premier“.

If I click on the “try Premier” graphic, it takes me to the signup page for the service. It invites me to sign in if I’m already a member… but I am signed in.

I know that this is probably just a bug. Some developer forgot to hide the banner at the top of the screen… I guess? And they forgot to put some tiny piece of code on the Premier signup screen that would detect if I’m logged in… I guess?

Those seem like pretty big things to miss. Given the slow process of membership approval, I’m kinda doubting whether or not I am a member. (Don’t worry, it turns out that I am. But I had to go into a shopping cart to check.) It’s just sloppy is all.

Edit: Enough with the Freaking Emails

15 emails. Fifteen emails to place and then fix a $10 order. That’s excessive by my measure.

Order confirmation: Fair enough. But how about charging me when the item ships and just sending one email instead of separate Payment Authorized, Payment Charged and Order Tracking Information emails?

Letting me describe my issue in your contact form and giving your customer-facing service personnel a modicum of authority would have eliminated another 3 emails.

And seriously, you could have combined the Refund and Invoice (for the refund) into one email. Or actually, how about not sending me invoices? I can log into my NE account and retrieve them, aside from the fact that I have no use for an invoice.

The straw that broke the camel’s back and made me lengthen my tirade is the email right at the top of the above screenshot: “Rate Your Recent Newegg Marketplace Shopping Experience!“

That would be reasonable were it not for the fact that I already fu¢king rated the seller hours ago.

Again, there’s more than a little sloppy coding going on over at the ‘Egg. I don’t know about other customers, but I hate to be nagged by my retailer… especially about something I’ve already done.

Speaking of sloppy work and a lack of attention to detail, look at my completely useless invoice, one of the three emails garnered by my signing up for Premier:

The image is really long, so open it in another tab or something if you want to follow along with my list below.

1. The “Shop Around” menu is inconsistent to the website: PC & Laptops links to the Computers & Tablets category, Home Theater to TV & Video, Cameras to Digital Cameras, and More to Newegg Specials.
2. The image at the top does not display (and note that the other images do appear — so it’s not being blocked by my email client, which customarily renders Newegg’s emails just fine).
3. Shipping information is irrelevantly shown for this, a digital order.
4. It says “1003” underneath my name for no conceivable reason (that number appears nowhere in my account settings nor address book).
5. There is no space between the comma after my city and the two-letter state abbreviation.
6. The invoice is dated 2:57:13 PM, but the time zone isn’t specified (it’s likely that it’s Pacific Daylight Time).
7. The invoice date is around 3 PM PDT. I didn’t receive it until 7 PM PDT (or 10 PM EDT as it says in my email’s heading). I checked the SMTP headers, and it wasn’t delayed. It took them 4 hours to generate and send a simple invoice.
8. THEY CALLED THEIR OWN PRODUCT "3 months’ the premier"!
9. Not only is the product not, to my knowledge, called “the premier”, their use of the apostrophe is baffling and they failed to capitalize the proper name of Premier.
10. They called my Mastercard a payment term. That’s not so absurd as 3 months’ the premier, but “term” in this context would mean a period of time. Payment terms implies a method and time frame of payment.
11. It simply says “Online Services” after the totals. I don’t know what they mean by that. It’s not the signature to the email, because it’s later signed by “Your Newegg Customer Service Team”. So without any context I’ll assume that it’s just there as a general declaration of Online Services.

I know that I’m nitpicking, but this 3 months’ the premier really got me going. Plus with almost $3 billion in revenue (2013), my expectations are high.

That’s all for now.

Edit: Some more emails (2015-04-28)

I just placed my first order since becoming a Premier member.

I bought two WD Elements 4TB USB 3.0 3.5″ External Hard Drives (WDBWLG0040HBK), each supposedly containing a WD40RZRX 3.5″ SATA drive.

While I was on NE’s site, I happened to take a look at a monitor that they were advertising. My actions garnered me a shocking eight email, plus the three regular promotional emails.

That’s a whopping eleven emails in a period of less than 24 hours. Even with my spam filter off I don’t get Viagra offers that frequently.

The thing is, I want to get their promotional newsletter. Sometimes they have really good deals on things that I actually need want.

Here’s the problem: There is insufficient granularity to their subscriptions. It’s kinda all or nothing. I’m not subscribed to everything. In fact, here are my settings as they’ve been for quite a while in My [Newegg] Account > Newegg Notifications:

Unfortunately, the Newegg Newsletter option actually subscribes me to far more than just the newsletter. If I want the newsletter, but don’t want “sweepstakes and giveaways from top brands” then I’m out of luck.

I don’t know where or when I gave them permission for the “Enjoying Your Recent Purchases?” emails. (By the way, those two “recent purchases” emails were separate for the two identical items that I purchased in one order. The second email is nothing but pointless spam.)

I also don’t know why I’m getting the “Shopping for …” emails. They’re not newsletters and they’re not product voting. They’re nothing.

For the love of all that is good and holy Newegg, I want to like you guys. But you’re making me feel like I’m friends with a Russian spammer.

Another Pet Peeve

OK, I’ll admit it. I jumped the gun a little bit. There is a link at the bottom of the “enjoying” and “shopping for” emails to unsubscribe.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still irked that they don’t allow me to manage that subscripition along with the others, and that it’s an opt-out mailing instead of an opt-in mailing. Frankly it’s BS that they snuck another type of email in on me without my consent.

But that’s not even the pet peeve that I was referring to in the header of this section. My pet peeve is right here:

That’s right, three business days for this change to be reflected in their system.

BULLSH1T.

You just want to weasel your way into sending me an extra few emails before I quit, in the hopes that I’ll come back like some desperate crack addict.

First off, assuming that it does take some time to process my removal from the list, computers work right through the fracking weekend.

Do you take your customers for idiots?

If you’re going to lie, at least lie convincingly: Why is it “business days”? I know why. It’s so that if someone unsubscribes after Wednesday at 5 PM you get to send them more spam all weekend. That averages out to a lot more marketing for ya, what with your millions of customers.

Unless your entire subscription system was coded by retarded gorillas chain smoking doobies, it should take no more than about 50ms to process an unsubscribe. If you tell me otherwise, you better also explain in grave detail why that’s the case or I will call you a liar. (Let your lawyers know that this is, of course, in my opinion.)

How do I know? I have actually coded more than 3 separate bulk email application suites in 3 different languages on two different OSes and two different database platforms. All of them were or are in production environments and have sent out millions of opt-in, non-spam emails. I’m not saying that to brag, only to make the point that this is my wheelhouse.

I have no tolerance for spam, and so I make my unsubscribe process a single click and immediate affair. As soon as the page is done loading, the person is unsubscribed. If there were already emails for them that had been previously queued up, they are unqueued.

Unless an email is stuck somewhere in MX limbo, the unsubscribe is immediate and absolute. (And SMTP servers also do not obey “business days”, so don’t say you’re hedging your bets against SMTP problems.)

Edit: Does nothing work??

It’s been a couple of weeks, but I just felt the need to reply to an “answer” on Newegg’s site.

Call me a jerk for picking on Ronald if you want, but he answered three questions in an objectively useless way.

Just like Home Depot (but unlike Amazon), Newegg’s customer Q&A section is powered by a third party. In this case it’s TurnTo.

The bothersome thing about the third party service is that there’s no single sign on mechanism. So I created a nice, fake account rather than providing TurnTo with permission to harvest my Facebook information or what have you.

Anyway, here’s the bug:

After submitting my comment, I was sent a link to confirm my email address. That’s great; I have no problem with it.

Aside from the subject ending in a question mark, Newegg calling themselves NewEgg (pick one), and their calling an address bar a “window”, this email looks perfectly normal. But let me ask you this: Where would you imagine that link would take me?

If you guessed “a page thanking you for confirming your address” then you’d be a veritable expert in web design. You’d also be completely wrong.

Of course! Why wouldn’t it take me to an obsolete Sony camera that’s no longer even sold by Newegg?

And that is not the product I was viewing when I submitted my comment. To each their own, but I wasn’t shopping for cheap PAS cameras from 2008. I’ve never viewed that listing (AFAIR), so why did they think I’d find it interesting?

I could see them linking me to some hot, new product as part of their marking efforts, but this is just baffling.

Edit: One of Us is Out of Time

Please, look at this screenshot. Take a moment to really soak it all in.

As usual, click for full size.

We’ve detected the time on your computer is out of sync with your time zone. Please update your clock settings to match with www.time.gov for optimum performance.

Wat?

There are a few reasons that I’ve taken the time, months later, to update this post:

• I’ve been using the good ol’ World Wide Web since it sprang forth to the public from the bowels of CERN. Never have I seen a website complain about this sort of thing, either correctly or incorrectly. Certificates and stuff like that, sure.
• Obviously they’re complaining incorrectly. By now you, dear reader, should know that I’m anal enough to ensure that my time is properly synced to a quality NTP server.
• The first sentence is technically (and I am, again, very anal retentive) incorrect as well as being grammatically flawed. The time on my computer could indeed be out of sync with the correct time for my time zone, but not out of sync with the time zone itself. That’s just a geographic area, and not a time.
• The second sentence is actually worse than the first. www.time.gov is not an NTP server. Nor does it even contain the address of an NTP server. For that you might want to go to http://tf.nist.gov/tf-cgi/servers.cgi.
• Further, I’m using a Windows 7 machine that’s a member of a domain. Without going into the registry I can’t update the NTP server in my clock settings. I’m the domain admin, sure, but there’s no way that they can know that.
• “[..] for optimum performance.” I cannot for the life of me figure out what that means. Will the website respond more slowly if the time on my computer is off by a millisecond? Even if my time were a month off the actual time, that shouldn’t effect the performance of my web browsing experience.
• The absolute best part of this is that the error message was likely produced because the time on one of their web servers is out of sync with their time zone. Perhaps they should consider updating their clock settings to match with time.nist.gov for optimum performance.

All of this is fairly irrelevant, seeing as I was able to login just fine. However I had the primal urge of complaining and felt obligated to make note of this remarkable message.

Edit: I’m back!

I’d forgotten to cancel my “3 months The Premier” membership, and just got billed today for another 3 months. I’m not complaining; It’s perfectly reasonable.

However they’ve managed to baffle me yet again during the cancellation process:

If Premier Membership benefits were not used during the period, then you will receive a full refund. If any Premier Membership benefits were used, then you may continue to take advantage of the program until your expiration date, but you will not be eligible to receive a full refund. Remember, if you change your mind, you can reactivate your membership.

YOUR MEMBERSHIP WILL END ON 10/06/2015
Your credit card will not be charged and you will no longer receive Premier benefits.

As usual, there are a few things wrong here.

First off, I’ve been a member since 4/6/2015, whereas they only show me as having been a member since today, 7/6/2015. Not a big deal, but again it’s sloppy coding on their part.

Secondly, I can’t believe that they’re batch processing this, too. I haven’t used my “Premier Membership benefits” in the 30 minutes since my membership was renewed. You, dear reader, would have no way of knowing that. But NewEgg’s server definitely should! I see no reason why this has to be a long, drawn out process based upon easily-verifiable conditionals.

Even though they’ve needlessly left the state of my refund up in the air, they seem to have decided that I will not receive a full refund, because they go on to say that my membership will be active for another 3 months — until 10/6/2015!

Newegg, Newegg, Newegg… Why, oh, why do you insist on yanking your customers’ chains and being completely passive-aggressive about everything? On the one hand you say that I will obtain a full refund (given that I haven’t used my Premier benefits today), and on the other hand you say that I won’t get any refund, and that my membership will continue for 3 months. WHICH ONE THE F&$K IS IT?????

Sorry, I got a little angry there. But surely you can see why: Right now I’m in limbo. I guess that would be fine if I were a criminal waiting on the deliberations of a jury, or if I was at the DMV. But you should not put your customers in a position where they’re comparing their experiences with your business to a court or motor vehicle office. You’re doing something wrong here.

And what I mean about “limbo” is that I don’t know the state of my account, and so I don’t know what to do next (other than complain publicly about it on the internet). If I will receive a full refund — as I should — then this matter is closed, and all is well. If my membership will indeed continue on to October, then I have to email your customer service and [slowly] get this resolved.

Finally (or maybe not), I’d like to take a quick look at Newegg Premier’s terms and conditions. (That’s a snapshot of their T&C as of today — Live version here).

There’s nothing that I find too objectionable about the terms and conditions, but there are some oddities and fishy smells:

We created Newegg Premier (“Premier”) so loyal Newegg.com customers can get the extra attention and benefits they deserve like free and fast shipping, free returns, no restocking fees and more.

Loyal customers, eh? Since the only condition for becoming a Premier member is a Newegg account and a credit card on file, loyalty really has nothing to do with it. For example, if someone had never used Newegg before, they may sign up for Premiere to place one order that would otherwise have had shipping charges greater than the cost of a membership. They could then never again use NewEgg. So this program has nothing to do with loyalty.

After you register for Premier, you will enjoy all membership benefits for a full year. Your membership will automatically renew on your annual membership renewal date, unless you tell us to cancel your membership.

Here’s where I play armchair lawyer: Their official “Terms & Conditions”, to which one must agree in order to become a Premier member, specifically and only discuss an annual membership term. It does not make mention of a shorter term (i.e. the 3 months for which I signed up).

Assuming that these terms and conditions form the basis of our mutual understanding, one of three things could be inferred from this (if I wanted to be a pain in the a$$ about it):

• My membership is void. Newegg violated its own Terms and Conditions by granting me anything other than an annual membership in the first place.
• My membership is overpriced. If the only term outlined in these T&C is an annual term, then my 3 months of membership should have been billed at the annual rate. That is to say one quarter of the annual price of $49.99 ($12.50), not the $19.99 that I’ve paid.
• I should be bound to an annual term. After all, I agreed to these terms and conditions, and they clearly spell out the fact that my membership term is an annual one. However, if that’s true then it’s a clear example of bait-and-switch advertising because Newegg suckered me in with a promise of a 3-month membership.

Like I said, I’m just playing an attorney for the sake of satire and point-making. However, it’s pretty clear to me, a layperson, that an attorney didn’t draft the language of the Premier T&C.

There’s one more thing about the T&C that’s actually a pretty big problem, and should prevent anyone from agreeing to it:

You can find information on the current Premier annual membership fee on the Premier FAQ page.

No big deal, except that the link doesn’t work. What’s the fee to which I’m agreeing? Oh, 404? That seems high.