Amazon.com...A real let down!

Amazon.com, they say is the one of the best online shopping portals. I thought so too until a couple of incidents, rather the only two incidents, that I have tried to shop on Amazon.com

Incident One: Winter of 2004 – Melbourne, Australia:
I placed an order on Amazon for a book – “A Corner of a Foreign Field: The Indian History of a British Sport" by Ramachandra Guha.

Estimated time of delivery to Melbourne – A maximum of 2 months.
I waited for three months! Still no sign of the book or an email from Amazon.
I mailed them, and got an immediate reply saying:

Our quality assurance process has indicated that although our system shows your item has shipped, when in fact is hasn't. We immediately contacted our sources in an effort to locate a replacement copy, but were unable to do so. As a result we are unable to fulfill your order. We have initiated a refund and you should receive confirmation via email within the next 1-3 business days.

Though frustrated, I didn’t bother, coz they had apologized sincerely in the mail.

Anyways, I got the refund after a week or so, when they had promised 1-3 days! Needless to say that I lost a few dollars in transaction fees. I dismissed it as a case of bad luck.

Incident Two: Summer of 2007 - India.
I asked my friend Hemant, in Buffalo,USA to get me a DVD- "Metal – A Headbanger’s Journey" from the US. Yeah, he ordered it online from Amazon.

Estimated time of Delivery to Buffalo : 3- 5 business days.

It so happened that me mate was returning to India in 10 days and the DVD was not shipped to him by that time. Which he said was strange coz all the stuff that he had bought on Amazon was delivered to him within a maximum of 5 days....Okay, didn’t matter, coz one of his friend was flying back the next week. Well after a few days, his friend, informed us that the Amazon guys had come but since he was not home, they didn’t deliver the DVD and instead kept a note saying they were at his place that day.
What was more annoying was the fact that they normally keep all the missed deliveries at the Community Center. This one, for some reason, was not kept at the Community Center and there was no communication from Amazon.com till date.
Yesterday, I told Hemant, to cancel the order.....

I wouldn’t recommend people not to buy from Amazon.com just because of these two incidents. Although, I would advise them to be cautious when shopping with Amazon.
And I know that these might just be cases of pure bad luck…But as they say-“ First impression counts” or “ The first impression is the last impression”....For me, the first two were bad! So I wouldn't even waste time thinking for the third one....(Jeffrey, Are you listening?!) ... I know what I am gonna do next… stick to my favorite and familiar online shopping portal-Ebay!