Hi, As I said in an earlier post I have been a customer with Amazon since 1999. I *used* to be a Premium customer with all that entailed and though I mainly used it for "next day delivery" I had bought and used the Fire TV apparatus, 2 x Kindle Fire tablets, and so far, 4 x different editions of Kindle e-book readers. I have used a few e-book reader systems/machines and I do consider that Amazon Kindle are the best for electronic book reading.

*HOWEVER*, about a year ago I bought a watch wrist strap made by a very well known firm though the order was fulfilled by Amazon and there began my troubles. When the strap arrived it was not only the wrong colour, it was also the wrong size to fit the watch. On examining the package, it had obviously been a customer return and had then been re-labelled - the old label was still visible under the new one! *BUT* the wrong new label was affixed to the item, so I got the completely wrong product.

Customer services - no joy. Absolutely no joy and I posted about my dissatisfaction about this using the customer review system. To my utter surprise, within a few hours I had a reply from the actual maker of the watchstrap inviting me to get in direct touch with them. I did this and this manufacturer solved my problem immediately by sending me the correct strap to fit my watch *and* they included a free extra strap too.

Amazon UK meantime did not want to know about anything at all.

Well, fair enough. Following that poor example of "customer relations", I immediately cancelled my many years long subscription to Amazon Premium. I never really missed the TV or music service as I did not use them much at all.
I have also found out that not having a Premium "next day" delivery service available, I no longer make impulse buys like, "get it tomorrow". I also find that *MANY* items, which used to be "cheap as chips" on Amazon are now priced beyond belief on their site. (I'm talking some Deli items which I bought for years and have now gone through the roof.)

All in all, Amazon is NOT what it was or used to be. The company seems to believe that they have "cornered the online shopping market" and can now do what they like. Do not believe it.

Since cancelling my Premium subscription I still buy a few things from Amazon UK, simply adding stuff into my basket (if the price is right!) until the minimum buy is passed. I also save nearly £10 per month, or even £120 per year, which can pay for a few "next day deliveries" should I ever really need one.

Thanks for listening.

Hi again Claire,
I'm just re-reading your post and my original reply and I realise that my reply does not really help you at all.


I honestly do not know what to recommend. For so many things in life Amazon is very, very handy, but as you say they are very draconian with their rules on age-related items. Once again in life, the baby is thrown out with the bathwater and the entirely innocent have to jump through hoops because of a few miscreants.


As retailers and "big companies" will always wanting to be covering their posteriors, there is little hope for the little people vto challenge them.


Nowadays, Claire, I am in the fortunate positions of being able to afford the many online supermarket alternatives to Amazon UK and I now deliberately avoid Amazon as much as possible.


At the end of the day, Amazon UK prices, especially with regards to "groceries" etc are rising by leaps and bounds, so all I can really suggest is to try and buy locally online from your nearest supermarket offering delivery and try to forget what was once the "GREAT" Amazon experience. It is all now very shallow.


Do take care, Claire. Best wishes.
Henry
(And I do hope there are no replies about "go out and do your shopping instead of online", for some people do not know of what they speak.)

I sent a nice bottle of whisky to my nephew for his 18th birthday. It arrived the day before and he was alone in the house.
The courier quite rightly refused to hand it over, the delivery was successful the next day. :-)

B

I'm quite surprised by this; in my experience Amazon have the best returns system of any online retailer i have used. I've had poor performing products and damaged products arrive and i have simply go on to the site and selected the return reason and they either send another one right away before i even sent the product back or give me a refund once it's posted and before they even receive it. This applies to both products supplied by Amazon and by third parties.

I've never even had to contact customer services at all.

Amazon do not offer anything called "Amazon Premium". They do offer Amazon Prime but that costs £7.99 a month or £79 a year so i'm not sure what your on about.

Does anyone have concerns about giving their DOB to someone (an unknown courier) who already has their name & DOB? Enough information for identity theft?

Don’t forget they ALSO have your address!

Best not shop online hey!

I for one will be joining the ranks of you who will be buying our sherry from the supermarket from now on...


Far, far easier to get in the car / bus, travel to said supermarket, find the items required, stand in a queue, make return journey than to go to all the trouble (and seconds wasted) to wap out I.D. & show the delivery driver.




This policy makes perfect sense - think how easy it would be for spotty teenagers under 18 to order booze from Amazon & get it delivered to their Gran telling her that its something else.


Some of the comments on here make me wonder if its just the younger generation that are snowflakes!

I am an Amazon delivery driver... Perhaps this will help some to understand the process.


Most Amazon deliveries are fulfilled by either Amazon Logistics, Royal Mail or DPD. They have complex mechanisms to decide which parcel is delivered by which mechanism. This month all of my Amazon deliveries have been DPD, last month most were RM.



Where a delivery is fulfilled by Amazon Logistics it either goes to van drivers who are self-employed but arranged by local agencies or to self-employed people using their own cars (Amazon Flex). Amazon Logistics delivery partners use a mobile phone app which insists a date of birth is entered for age restricted deliveries.



This is a new policy and drivers do indeed think it's daft. However Amazon employs algorithms to monitor, hire and fire drivers; any mistake will cost a driver their income source. Amazon routinely do test purchasing with numerous drivers having already received emails to say they've passed or been fired for failing! There is no appeals process and drivers can only email 'robots' who don't understand 'but he was clearly 63'. Since Amazon's drivers are all self-employed, there is no process to seek redress for dismissal etc.


In summary I don't think it's fair to say they're being jobsworths. They will literally get fired without warning, without notice and without right of appeal for not doing it.


I don't know how the process is implemented with DPD or RM so I assume this is why some are still seeing some inconsistencies. I also expect some drivers are willing to employ common sense and input a DOB without seeing ID; this will probably bite them though if the person happens to be a test purchaser.


Simple answer here - as others have said - if you don't like having to show ID, buy from a shop. Perhaps Amazon will re-think if it affects sales.

I had my first run in with Amazon age verification this weekend after ordering a nice bottle of gin as a black Friday deal. The first attempt at delivery went to my workplace (my usual delivery address) where Reception refused the package. Apparently there has been a kerfuffle about Amazon's Age verification and it has been declared an unaccepatble invasion of our reception staff's privacy (I have quite a lot of sympathy for that). HR & compliance have implemented a blanket ban on receiving any items that require age verification ... they just hadn't got around to telling the staff yet. The email doing that went out on Friday afternoon when I asked whether they were going to let people know.

I arranged for it to be redelivered to my home address yesterday. Originally Amazon showed it arriving in the morning, then changed that to the afternoon, and finally the evening. It never arrived. So my order has now been cancelled and I've complained to Amazon about my wasted day off waiting in for the driver who never came. But it looks like I will not be ordering any alcohol from them again due to the delivery problem - because of they age verification stuff I cannot get it sent to an Amazon locker instead.

Reading this thread reminded me of a delivery I had a just over a month ago. below is the item I ordered and had delivered but only after I showed my bus pass,even the delivery driver could not understand why ID was required.
Perhaps any of the posters on here could answer it I would be very happy.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B074J82JF7/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Well, they do have sharp edges and you could do someone a severe injury screwing one into them. But then books could be a bit risky on that score, the number of times I have cut myself on paper !

My mum got asked her age in Tesco the other week when buying a bottle of Baileys.

She's 88 - but does look young for her age

I bought 2 bottles of Irish whiskey from Amazon but didn’t have to show ID- it was delivered by Royal Mail though.

I often have alcohol in my pantry order and have never been asked for ID and the courier is happy to leave it in my safe place behind the bins

Yes, but no shop in the world would ask a 71 year old woman for proof of her age before they would sell her alcohol or any other age restricted item!

Oh, I did write to Amazon but they just sent a reply with a link to their Privacy Notice, which was no help at all. Furthermore, there was no way to reply to their stock reply!

My point is that anyone with even an ounce of sense can clearly tell that I am an elderly woman (71 years old) and should NOT have to ask me for proof of my age.

I think that Amazon itself should hold full details of their customers on file, including their date of birth. Then the customer could log into their account and request a pin number, which they could then give to the delivery agent - instead of having to divulge their full date of birth and full name to delivery agents, who already have their full address, which they could then SELL ON for some extra income!

It is a legal requirement that age related ID must be shown when buying alcohol in stores in Tennessee. I know this as when I first went there, I tried to buy some beer in a store and was refused as I didn't have any photo ID on me. (I was 48 at the time).

The store owners or servers won't get fined if they fail to ask for ID for from someone who is over 50, but failing to ask is still an offence.

So what evidence have you provided to your Amazon account that proves you are over 25?

1. Vermouth ??????????????????
2. from Amazon ?????????????????

Is this a "thing" now?

Seems I need to get out less.

You need to drink vodka martinis more! I wouldn't mix a £30+ vodka with cheap vermouth and Amazon do stock better brands such as Noilly Prat and Lillet which aren't available in most supermarkets.