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Recto Verso by Zaz

Amazon France

May 27th, 2014

I thought it might be fun to order some CDs from Amazon while I’m here in France. I opened an account on amazon.fr and I used my French credit card. I found some CDs that were on special, buy three for 15€, which is about $6.82 each, a good deal any way you look at it. At home in the US we have Amazon Prime where we pay a yearly fee and get, among other things, free two day shipping. Amazon France offered me 30 days of Amazon Prime free so I went ahead and signed up for it so I could get the free shipping (supposedly one day here in France). I just need to remember to cancel it before the 30 day free period is up so I don’t end up paying for the full year.

I ordered the following:

Et Puis Juin by Rose
Recto Verso by Zaz
Love Songs by Vanessa Paradis

I have several albums by Vanessa Paradis and one other by Rose. Zaz is new to me, but based on the reviews on Amazon it seems like an album I will like.

I ordered the CDs late on Tuesday, May 20th, so they were set to be delivered on Thursday. Well, Thursday came and went with no delivery. I looked in my account on Amazon and they said there was a problem with the delivery. I then contacted the delivery service they used, TNT. Their website said, as near as I could tell, that since my name was not on the mailbox for the apartment, they couldn’t deliver the package. Alright, I emailed them back, explained that I was renting the apartment for a month and put my name on the mailbox to prevent this from happening again. And then I waited.

On Monday I got another email saying the package would be delivered on Tuesday, so I made plans to just stay home all day and wait for it. There is no way for a delivery person to get in the door to the mailboxes, so if I’m not here to answer the bell they won’t be able to leave it. Nothing. Around 5:00 I got an email saying that the package was left at a shop down the street (that appears to be their local representative for packages that can’t be delivered) since “no one was home.” Two things: 1. I was definitely here and 2. why didn’t they just leave the package at the shop down the street last week and save us all a lot of trouble?

So, overall, not the best experience. But, I got the CDs and now that my name is on the mailbox, in the future if I order anything else, hopefully the will leave them at the shop down the street if I am not here.

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