I recently purchased a 1.25 gallon refill of Roundup through Amazon.com, because it was about $8 cheaper than at the local big box stores.

The mailman delivered it today, and I opened the door to be greeted with a soggy cardboard Amazon Prime box dripping weed killer in a puddle. The cap on the bottle came loose during shipping, and slightly less than half the liquid spilled out as it was bouncing its way across the country to my doorstep. They had stuck the bottle inside a plastic bag, but the bag was open on one side, so it did nothing to slow down the leak.

So I get on Amazon to find a resolution to my issue. It's been a number of years since my last issue with Amazon, and you used to be able to resolve this kind of stuff through a quick online chat with an actual human being. Apparently, no longer. Now returns/refunds are automated, and my only option seems to be to take this leaking half-full bottle of poison down to UPS and have it shipped back to Amazon, and upon receipt of my leaking half-full bottle of poison, they'll either ship me another bottle to leak in transit, or credit my account.

That's seriously stupid right there.

I guess I'll just drain what remains of it into my other nearly empty Roundup bottle, and chalk it up as a lesson learned to never order liquids from Amazon again.

email to Jeff@amazon.com

He has a small army of people monitoring this email address. They will take care of you.

At the very least, ask them to issue a Call Tag, UPS will pick it up from you. But they probably won't want it returned.

I’ve ordered bug killer refills from Amazon and haven’t had issues. Of course, those came UPS.

But especially don't order a bottle of liquid and a book at the same time.

Call them. It will be resolved. No reason to be angered, it isn't your fault it was packaged incorrectly.

Agreed - a call will resolve this.

Otherwise empty the bottle and ship it back empty.

My girlfriend has resolved problems with Amazon on the phone several times, as recently as a couple days ago.

When you call, I guess they tell you a wait time and ask if they can call you back. She always gets a call from them within a short few minutes.

RogueJSK,

Amazon CHAT is still available to resolve issues.
1) go to Help at the bottom of their page

2) select "Need More Help?" "Contact Us"

Yeah, I got it sorted out.

The first time I tried to use that chat option, it just put me through to an automated chatbot that simply redirected me back to the normal automated Return/Refund page, where they wanted me to start an automated return and schlep the soggy bottle down to UPS to get shipped back.

But on the second attempt, I eventually gave the correct responses to be able to get in touch with an actual human customer service rep through chat, and got a refund issued with no hassles.

So it's not as straightforward as it used to be, but still possible. Seems like they're trying to weed out the low-hanging fruit of typical returns through various automated systems now, rather than directly connecting you to actual human customer service rep right off the bat.

I was skeptical when I ordered peanut oil, but it arrived unscathed.

quote:

Originally posted by arcwelder76:
I was skeptical when I ordered peanut oil, but it arrived unscathed.

I’ve had the same issue. A gallon of Simple Green arrived yesterday...unscathed as well.

You're right, it would be stupid to have it leak going back.

First find out who pays the return shipping charges. If Amazon will pay, empty the bottle then ship back the damaged container back saying it was damaged in transit and leaked out.

Wow! That would be terrible. Midway sent me some sale dog shampoo that spilled on my P220 or P226 recoil springs. The bags on the springs look like they should have kept it out, but they internationally have holes in them, and the shampoo got in on the springs.

Anyway, it was a mess, and less than 1/4 of the shampoo had leaked. They apologized and offered a refund when I emailed them, but I said I didn't want a refund as I was just letting them know so they could crank on the lid a bit and the next customers didn't have it occur to them. I could see it being real bad depending on what was in the shipping box (Optics, electronic things etc).

Had quite a mess with Red Wing boot oil myself

I ordered a gallon of Boeshield T9 from Amazon. Arrived without an issue. There's nowhere locally where I could get a gallon of T9, and if I could, I doubt it would only be a dollar an ounce.

Hmmm. I better hold off on that Prime deal for liquid metallic sodium to cool the reactor in my volcano lair.

quote:

Originally posted by MitchbSC:
Hmmm. I better hold off on that Prime deal for liquid metallic sodium to cool the reactor in my volcano lair.

It won't be a problem if they don't send it in an insulated bottle that leaks. Or don't order it with a bottle of water.

I guess that order of the megga box of baking soda plus the 5 gallons of vinegar is a bad idea.

Note to self: don't order Mentos and Coke.

I think no matter who the vendor or shipper, there is some risk in ordering any kind of liquid.

If a phone number can not be found quickly on a web site, just Google it!

https://www.google.com/search?...=amazon+phone+number