When Caroline and I recently exchanged seasonal gifts we discovered that we’d given each other the same CD. So I set out to return one of them on Amazon, which involves going to the site, finding the order, and printing out a mailing label and then shipping it back for a refund net of shipping costs. Or at least, it usually does.
Not this time:
The economics of this boggle the mind. Meanwhile I have a nice CD to regift to someone.
Do the math. What does the CD cost Amazon? Maybe $5. What is the hassle cost of dealing with it back at the warehouse? Even with Amazon’s lousy wages, it’s got to be $2-$3, what with the labor, overhead, shipping room space and so on. Having you return the CD is just not worth the few dollars it would cost them. Hey, you’re a good customer. They’ll comp you a disk.
P.S. This is one of the perks of being in the upper middle class. If you screw up on a bill, they’ll apologize to you and take your word that the check is coming in. If you’re some working class guy, or worse, actually poor, they’ll legally seize your kidneys and have you tased and thrown in jail while you’re counting out the cash you owe.
P.S. If you were really wealthy, you wouldn’t have had to buy the CD in the first place. The band would have put a copy in your bling bag.
Which is, more or less, how I ended up with a six-volume hardback set of Gibbon’s Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire. Or rather, how a friend ended up with two sets.