How the inefficient Amazon India turned my simple shopping into hell

This is my recent experience as to how Amazon India turned my simple shopping into a hellish experience and it proves the fact that it is one website which doesn’t listen to its customers despite placing misleading ad about being a customer centric company. The issues were very simple- only 2 of them but the 3rd grade attitude by Amazon turned it into a complex snowball of issues and I grappled with them for 10 days with multiple calls, tweets and mails.

The first issue which I have been telling Amazon India since very long, five years back at Delhi and from the past 8 to 9 months in Lucknow which they don’t listen and take no action is that their delivery guys while handing over the products to the customers don’t give the smart phone to the customer to sign it post delivery for the signature. They fraudulently sign on behalf of the customer. If you’re not vigilant enough they won’t hand you the smart phone or either park their vehicle a few houses away from your home, and over the package to you and by the time used to look up from the package they would have sped off. I had complained about the same to Amazon India 'N' number of times and all I got every time was the bloody “We’re sorry sir this won’t happen again” which had no meaning to it because it happened again the next time. Well I’m no loyal customer to any website because I go by the line which says that “Don’t love your company too much, you never know when it stops loving you”. So I had placed orders for products around Diwali and Amazon automatically created 3 different order numbers for the same. On the next day after Diwali I received a delivery of two products and the guys who came to deliver the product handed me the package and when I asked them about the signature they said “Sir no need” and by the corner of my eye I could see that he had scribbled something on the phone. Due to it had been a festive atmosphere and didn’t wanted to make a scene I let it go but immediately I contacted Amazon India through phone and chat support and re scheduled all my undelivered 4 products to the next Saturday instead of the coming Monday and Thursday. All I wanted to take the delivery of the products myself and check whether they do the same thing. I had also warned Amazon that in case on the next delivery if I find the delivery guys doing the same trick I would hand over their guys to the police and register a complaint against them for making fraudulent deliveries.

I was given the go-ahead from both phone and chat saying that all deliveries had been rescheduled to the next Saturday i.e. 7 days from then. The next shocker came when on Monday morning I got a message that my products are out for delivery. Shocked at the drama going on I again contacted Amazon, gave them an earful, they said rescheduling has done and no delivery would be attempted but the guys attempted delivery irrespective of that . I had already warned my family to turn the guys back saying that rescheduling had been done well in advance. They did so and for the whole day there was a stream of attempted deliveries and we had to turn all of them away. This was a Monday and after talking to customer care again Tuesday passed peacefully but the problem started again on Wednesday when some Monday items were again rescheduled for delivery on the day. Again I had to go through the whole drama but nothing happened except for numerous customer care calls. On Thursday morning when I received the notification that one of my product was out for delivery I immediately called up the delivery guy and told him that the product had been already rescheduled and no need to go. He made me talk with his senior who after listening to all that had been going on with me, suggested that he mark that product as delivered, will keep it with him because due to some issues he can’t keep a product more than two days with him, after that the system would lodge it to be returned back. He gave me his personal number and told me that only after talking to me on Saturday would the delivery be made. I did not want it to go into another hassle so I said yes and this thing was final.

In all this meantime drama, one delivery guy instead of rescheduling it for Saturday had marked the product as “customer refused, return to seller” instead of “customer refused, delivery rescheduled” and what that did was to mark my products as being returned back. When in the next 72 hours hours I had to start getting the delivery I was getting confused by this new development so I contacted customer care. The lady on the phone understood or try to understood, God knows what she understood and  initiated a dummy return request so that I refuse the guy who comes to pick up the product as a replacement and the same product which has not been delivered to me in the first place is delivered finally. Problem started the next day when the guy came to pick up the product which was not there in the first place, he started calling and pressurizing me to cancel the order so that God knows what happens? When I opened my Amazon account I saw that another replacement had already been shipped for 2 of the same products and here is one guy who was telling me to cancel it and I was confused that which to cancel and which to let it come? Finally I did nothing and frustrated by the fact that nobody at Amazon India (I call them deaf, blind and idiots) was listening and all I was made to do was make rounds of customer care executives who were not even patching me up with their higher management in the first place when they clearly understood that my problem is well above their pay scale.

Frustrated, angry I sent my whole email transcript which had been going on with the social media escalation team to Jeff Bezos at Amazon US (with no hope of any reply ever). To my surprise by the evening I got a call from Amazon India, the person into the executive customer relations team which they term as the highest level of escalation. I was so angry that explaining the whole matter again I minced no words with Amazon and how a simple thing had turned into a nightmare for me. He said that he would be looking into it and he admitted the fact that customer care people messed it up in the very first place from the very beginning. Next day another person from the same team called because as I replied to the mail that all Amazon India deserves is a negative rating and I won’t rate my experience ever with them. I gave him my peace of mind too and although he said that the dummy transaction and the promise by that executive to personally deliver were both against Amazon SOP. I don’t care what is within the rules and what’s against… All happened with me was just pure crap. The delivery senior did keep his promise and he was well before time at my home personally delivering the package. While talking he told me that that’s the problem with Amazon that energy scheduling information is never updated to the local delivery hubs.

Just 6 simple items due to one serious issue of not making deliveries properly lead to rescheduling which in turn was so screwed up that it created a lot of problems in between. After all the drama that you have read being unfolded, here is my observation and complaints regarding Amazon India-

1. Do make sure that either you or any of your family member does sign after taking delivery, don’t leave it to those guys, in order to save time they might forge signatures names.

2. Don’t fall into the trap of “we’re sorry sir this won’t happen again or I personally make sure sure that you receive the product on time” lines spoken by customer care executives.

3. Be careful while rescheduling your deliveries because the centralised servers would be updated but you’ll have problems with the local delivery hubs.

4. Amazon India does not have a proper escalation, nodal or appellate authority where you might escalate your complaint. The customer care executives would try to act as if they know everything but in reality they know "Ghantaa".

5. All you would ever get is copy pasted responses on either email or Twitter. The alarm bells did not ring up in Amazon when they clearly knew that I was in touch via calls, tweets, mails simultaneously. The escalation team did not try to look into the picture even then.

6. The very top level of Amazon India management seems like people who are sleeping because I have doubt whether or not they actually even know that what’s going on.

7. In the extreme case you are frustrated just like me with Amazon India and no resolution in sight I suggest you to kindly drop your correspondence email to Jeff Bezos at Amazon US (just Google his email ID and you’ll get it). His team at US would forward it to the concerned people here in India and then somebody from the higher-level escalation team might call you up and discuss your issue.

8. Even after so many years of Indian operations, Amazon India behaves as a whatever is happening with you is happening for the first time, they are part bunch of totally ignorant people who have no clue with the problems faced by the customers.

9. Even when the issue was urgent, the social media escalation team was sending me standard replies that it would take 3 to 4 days to come up with an update and I was like “the war will get over the next three hours and I will wait for 3 days??

10. Expecting them to help you out with your issue??? Forget it...

That’s the reality of the so-called customer centric company in India.

My experience guide into the world of DSLR with the Nikon D5200

There are a lot of guides on the Internet regarding the usage of DSLR cameras and all but more or less there are technical in language and not easy to understand for a first timer so here is my guide into the world of DSLRs in a very simple language. Please note that I’m no expert in DSLR so what ever I have written here is as per my hands on knowledge and this post might be updated in the future. You may or may not agree with my views. 

I have the Nikon D5200 with me and whatever I would be telling would be the basis of this blog post, it might/might not be applicable to your camera as well. 

· Please don’t shoot a DSLR with the mentality of a point-and-shoot camera. Even the auto mode in a DSLR is a bit complex than your point-and-shoot with a tons of buttons and functions so it would take you time to actually get used to the camera. 

· This is one expensive piece of equipment and subsequently of expensive piece of hobby as apart from the camera body in the future all your investments would be in the lenses so please bear in mind that as you go forward to new lenses according to your interests or requirements, be prepared to spend money. 

· In order to save money I have never purchased lenses either from third companies or compatible ones. Whatever lenses I have are all original Nikons. 

· It would take you time to develop your interest and requirement of lenses. It’s up to you whether you want to switch to a new lens after you have mastered an existing one or you want to have a variety of lenses and then try out your full shooting potential and likes and dislikes. I got the standard 18-55 kit lens with the camera and over the course of one year while shooting I realised the fact that I needed to go beyond the standard lens because it was restricting what I wanted to really shoot. It could not shoot a wide canvas into a single frame nor it could zoom very much. During my planned vacation to Malaysia and Bali I realised that I needed a wide-angle lens to capture as much of a landscape as possible in a single frame and I bought it before I ventured out. Similarly, before the Diwali of 2018 started I had decided that I needed a zoom lens to capture close-up shots at night or even in the day. Both these lenses have cost me a bomb but I don’t mind it now that they fulfil its purpose. 

· As a newbie its okay to use the screen to point-and-shoot but as you get slowly familiar with your camera, you would slowly switch to the standard view by the camera. 

· As you handle a DSLR, be prepared to use your mind on different things all at once. The learning never stops with this camera. You’ll be adjusting the zoom, while working out with the ISO, shutter speed and various things if you’re operating that in manual mode or the subsequent not automatic modes. 

· It would take you time to actually develop your most favourite mode. It can be the manual mode, aperture priority, shutter speed. As you go deep into the automatic mode you will actually realise that what is the limitation of each of the preset automatic modes and how much creativity can those manual modes give you. 

· Depending on the space in the memory card keep the image quality in the setting as normal, image size depends on you but medium is okay, I haven’t used the high dynamic range is in yet so I keep it off, same with active de-lighting. 

· A lot of people get confused with ISO, in technical terms too its might seem a bit confusing so here it is in simple language. It’s a setting which determines how much sunlight is exposed to the sensor to develop that frame finally which are taking. If you’re shooting in very bright sunlight then ISO 100 or 200 is more than enough. The brighter the sunlight or artificial light in the day the lesser ISO is good, otherwise as the light fades you need to notch up the ISO counter to compensate for the drop in sunlight or light available. 

· White balance is all about giving the balance of white light in the picture. Prefer to keep it on auto but you can tinker around with it to give a creative feel to your pictures instantly depending on the position of the subject. For example I shot a bird which was in sunlight, I was in the shade and I chose white balance as shade and click the picture, the resulting picture was this the bird in a brown shade background. 

· Keep the focus mode as autofocus automatic if you’re not sure about the movement of your subject, let the camera decide. Choose autofocus S if the subject is a still, C or continuous if it’s a moving subject and manual focus if you want to determine yourself that what you’re going to do. This manual focus mode is good when you want to take that bookeh effect and want to focus each and everything and not let the camera interfere. 

· Exposure compensation is used when the need to make the frame light or dark according to the light available. You would use this mostly as you get used to the manual modes and feel the need to control the exposure of light. 

· Capturing those moving objects in a still frame is every person’s interest and that is achieved by a either the sports mode in automatic or the shutter mode in manual. Capturing moving objects with a fast shutter speed would capture the subject in a single frame and it would appear as if the subject has stopped, capturing the same in a slow shutter speed or would leave a trail of either your subject or its lights if you’re shooting at night. So choose what you want to shoot and then adjust the shutter accordingly. 

· There is nothing definite setting wise to know that what is the perfect setting and it takes a few test shots to get everything perfect for the click. Don’t be afraid to experiment or practice. 

· The camera views colours a bit differently than what human eyes can see so if you love the dark monsoon clouds the camera would shoot it quite a lot darker than what it is actually. Factor in mind that you need a contrast of colours to make the frame beautiful. If you’re taking a shot of a hill then try taking a green tree in the frame to highlight the object and the colour. Same colour background and foreground would come out terrible in the final shot. 

· With the more advanced entry-level DSLR from Nikon, the new AF - P lenses might be your answer to cheaper affordable lenses. Majority of these lenses are compatible with the D 5200 also in the regards that they don’t come with the automatic/manual focus and vibration reduction switch on the lens itself. These settings would have to be controlled from the camera itself. These are fully compatible with the D 5300 onwards and so models. For the compatibility, check out the Nikon website. 

· If possible invest in neutral colour filters as well to protect your camera lens from dust and all sort of things while shooting outdoors. 

· Enroll yourself with Nikon workshops to understand the working of the cameras and to be more familiar with them 

The investment in DSLRs and the learning, both never stop.