AmiAmi has TERRIBLE Customer Service...

This is the 4th time I have had problems with AmiAmi. You can contact them about your problem, but by the time they get back to you, it will be too late. And when they do get back to you, they never offer any solutions. They are also very short, they don't address your questions...terrible customer service.
Strike #1.
I ordered two items and chose the least expensive shipping option. The other shipping options are expensive. When my items arrived in stock, they sent me an invoice. For double shipping. They had decided that it was too heavy (two small soft items!) to be sent via unregistered SAL small packet and had upgraded my shipping to where I was paying more for shipping than for the damn items! Are you f*(#ing kidding me? Almost $30 to ship two tiny things??

Subtotal: 2,620 JPY
Shipping: 2,930 JPY
Grand total: 5,550 JPY

Of course, I went in to try and separate the order. If I shipped separately, it would be anywhere from $5 to $8 each and $10-$16 is a LOT less than $30. But alas, since the order was due, it would not let me change it. So I e-mailed AmiAmi. I heard nothing. I tried again. It bounced back undeliverable. I tried again on the 12th.

Reply:
Please note that the Payment Period for all orders at AmiAmi is 7 days from the date the original Payment Request was issued. Your order has already gone past this initial payment deadline and is currently past due for payment. We are unable to add items, remove items, split orders, or combine orders together for past due orders. These orders can only be sent in their current configuration. 
Please note that if your order goes past the final due date noted in your Payment Past Due Notice mail it will be automatically canceled by our systems. Items canceled from orders cannot be re-ordered, and any such orders will be canceled. 
Thank you for your understanding and cooperation with regards to our store's payment policies.
Best regards,

AmiAmi

To which I replied asking that if I could not change my order once it was past due (which is STUPID because you can't change it even before it's "past due" because I TRIED) if I could cancel and re-order the same items and then have them sent separately via SAL unregistered small packet. I was running out of time before the due date and they took 2 1/2 days to get back to me, but they managed to send me a reminder of payment due before that just fine!
My response:
Hello,

If the order is canceled, can I then re-order and split it in two it since you will have one of each item still for sale? If the order is going to be in stick anyways, I don't see why it couldn't be held and re-ordered, then split so that shipping isn't a ridiculously high amount.. 

I also received an e-mail from you about a previous order instead of getting a reply on this one for 2 days. My first reply came back as undeliverable through some sort of error. I am very unhappy about these circumstances, and feel that an exception could be made in order policy in this case.

Their short response that ignored what I said:
Unfortunately, we cannot make any changes to your current order as the initial payment deadline has already been due.

Canceled items may not be reordered.

So I let them cancel my order. Fuck you AmiAmi. You know what I discovered a month later? My items that could not be re-ordered, that were sold out on the website? They get orders for so many, and then they order those. So they had my two items as extras and I should have been able to re-order? 
The items that I had ordered and that hey told me that they couldn't let me re-order were up on ebay for TWICE as much as retail price by...you guessed it! AmiAmi's ebay account.
I have a screenshot.

Strike #2:
Fed up with AmiAmi, but realizing that sites like JBox charge twice the retail price and HLJ does't always carry it...I had to order again from them. I ordered two items that were due to be released the same month and requested they be shipped together. Only to get a message a month before release date stating that:


An item in your order has had its release date changed and has been automatically updated for customers using the Automatic Monthly Combine setting. For customers not using the automatic combine setting, your item has been separated to a new order as seen below. If you would like to make any changes, please do so through your My Account page.

So I go to my account page, and surprise surprise...I cannot change it. Because once they e-mail you to let you know your order is in, you CANNOT CHANGE IT. So why tell you to go to your account to make any changes??

In addition:
Another 2 people ordered a whole box set of blind figures. And when they arrived, the majority were damaged. One was so bad it was completely missing paint. AmiAmi's response? Send it all back at your cost and we will send a new one. Okay. So return all of them, spend a ton of money on shipping, and THEN...that's bad business

Strike #3:

I had a fraud charge to dispute on my debit card. Once you do that, you can't just dispute one charge and have the company blocked the way you can with a credit card. No, they cancel your whole card and send you a new one in "5-7 days". Or you know...10. During that time, I had a due payment for item #2. I waited on my card which never arrived. I went into my account and tried to change the payment option from Paypal to credit card which I HATE to use due to the insane interest charges they tack on monthly... and huge surprise....AmiAmi says you can change your payment method and mailing address...but you CANNOT. What if I'm in the situation I am in? What if I moved? Finally I e-mailed AmiAmi in the wee hours of early morning.

Message: I have tried numerous times to change my shipping/payment info in order to complete my payment and I keep getting an error. This is not the first time I have had problems like these with AmiAmi and I am very displeased. Please advise on how to change my payment information. My payment is due today. I am searching for a way to borrow a paypal as my debit card was canceled due to a fraud alert and the new one has not arrived yet so I cannot use my own. 

They sent an auto response rating it could take them days to reply. So desperate, I found that I could send payment via unregistered paypal as a guest with my dreaded credit card. Which I did. And at 11:20 that night I received a useless response from AmiAmi:

Thank you for mailing us.

As noted on our website and in our emails, orders past due for payment cannot be modified through our website. It looks like payment has already been sent for this order however.

Thanks AmiAmi for the completely USELESS response that came far too late to matter, and offered NO solution.

Animal Planet Is Irresponsible

I'm not a fan of Animal Planet, but some shows just display how ignorant the channel is.
On a show, they feature a older couple looking for a puppy as a surprise gift for the man's elderly mother whose husband died. The couple goes to two different backyard breeders with puppy mixes to adopt.
Problem #1: They are buying a puppy from a breeder instead of rescuing, which would be bad enough, but these puppies are mixes from a backyard breeder. Nothing says "Hey irresponsible people- why don't you mate your dog with another kind of dog for fun and then sell them?" "Legitimate" breeders - and that's a questionable statement as many sell animals to just anyone who has the money, don't bother to spay/neuter them, and if the animals are born weaker or sickly- they don't bother with care, just dispose of them- only breed animals from other licensed and registered breeders. The point of it of it is to show them in animal shows and win awards for being the most perfect example of the breed. Then when they have awards, they can have puppies/kittens with other animals with awards, and the puppies/kittens can either show or be sold for higher amounts of money as "breed standard". Which is stupid when you think of ALL the animals in the world sitting on death row in animal controls and "humane" societies, on the streets, or being poorly cared for by bad owners. All it takes is one person to dump that animal or decide to breed it for fun or to make money. Legitimate breeders spay/neuter the animals before they go, and they screen the homes before they go. Mixed dogs do not do dog shows. Mixed dogs are the product of accidents, people who were either "accidently" irresponsible, people experimenting to create "new breeds", people wanting to make cash selling puppies like a factory, and people trying to scam other people with "designer breeds". That doesn't exist. Mutts are great, but mixes are just that. Labradoodles. Mutts. Puggles. Mutts. They have no monetary value to be peddled out like toys in a factory. Just naive people that believe they do.

Problem #2: giving an animal as a gift is COMPLETELY IRRESPONSIBLE, never advised, and reputable rescues will not allow it. How do you know the person will or CAN take care of the pet physically, monetarily, and responsibility wise. Do they have the time or want to train them? Puppies and kittens destroy furniture and the house, eat everything. They need supervision and training. One eaten blanket and you are looking at a $600 and up surgery. Other people accept the gift and then realize they can't handle the needs of a puppy or kitten. The energy. The costs. And the animal is given away or dumped outside or at a animal control or "humane" society. Craigslist is full of people changing their minds about pet ownership.

Problem #3: A senior citizen should NEVER be given (see #2) or adopt a puppy or kitten. What happens in a few years when they have a stroke, need a walker, or have to move into a nursing home that doesn't allow pets? Or die? Anyone who has worked in rescue knows the answer to that. They dump them fast or the family dumps them. If seniors would only adopt senior animals...

Bottom line is that Animal Planet is irresponsibly advocating backyard breeding of mixes, buying from backyard breeders, gifting animals, and gifting baby animals to the elderly.
You would THINK they would know better having shows like My Cat From Hell, and the terrible Animal Cops that shows a tiny glimpse of just how many homeless animals are out there BUT where the death trap that is the Houston SPCA kills all pit bull type dogs and mixes they come across as policy, and instead of bothering to rehabilitate animals, they kill them if they are hit in the face with a rubber hand and dare to bite that hand. Where an animal must be "perfect" to be worthy of life.

I'm disgusted with Animal Planet and you should be too. I encourage you to write to them to tell them that this is NOT what their viewers want to see. Me? I'm no longer a viewer.

Scams on Ebay: Nothing New. Seller ATMP sells fake dresses and tries blackmail to keep you from leaving negative feedback...Ebay doesn't care.

I bought a dress on Ebay, and it was more expensive than the others I had seen, and it was coming from China.
Weeks later it arrived, and when I opened it, I realized that it was not the same dress. The material looked different and the beading in the photo was a beautiful purple that matched the dress. These were clear/white and gaudy. And differently shaped.
I messaged the seller who took days to reply and he said that he could refund or send a new one out. I replied that I needed it before a specific date, so could only do the refund.
Then he messaged back saying that all the dresses "in the warehouse" were identical and that I must have taken the photo wrong.
At this point I opened a case for item not as described. He replied to me via the resolution center and separately, promising a partial refund in 3 days. It never arrived and i had to contact him again. This time I enclosed a new photo of the dress in the auction side by side with the one sent to me. Again he promised a refund. That never came. I finally replied yet again saying that if I did not get a refund, I was escalating the case and leaving negative feedback. No reply, so I looked at the dress again and realized: the reason it doesn't look like the photo: IT'S A FAKE. Of course. China. Fake. The dress was Angel De Pon. This was Yifun. I called ebay and I talked to what I thought was a girl and turned out to be a guy. I asked them to change the case from "not as described" to "bootleg item". he agreed that the dresses in the photo were not the same dress, and he added that the dress itself didn't even look the same. He confirmed that the seller had promised a refund twice and never done it. He offered a $10 ebay coupon (ebay makes millions off people who sell their items for a few dollars and pay them fees to sell and fees at the end based on the amount, and then fees again to receive payment via paypal, what do they care?) He said I could still escalate the case as well. He said bay's response would be to send it back for a full refund. This would cost $34 to send to China with the required tracking, which was more than twice what the item cost and more than 4 times what it was worth as a fake. he told me to sell it myself, to which I replied- "isn't it illegal to sell a fake?" "umm..." I ask isn't there anything I can do, or ebay can do if he is scamming buyers? "No, just leaving negative feedback." "And escalating the case will be on his monthly record..."
Then the seller messages me the next day,again in the middle of the night as usual saying he will fully refund me if and only if I close the case and leave him positive feedback and 5 stars. if not, he will do nothing for me. Which is blackmail. This guy has sold me a fake dress, and now he is blackmailing me. Nice. I reply that he has promised a refund twice and lied each time, and to please refund. He replies saying that the reason he never refunded is because I never replied to him. Which is a lie because as you can see I clearly relied each time, and then he said the refund would come in 3 days.
Very disappointed in Ebay, a place where scammers from China can sell you a fake that you can't send back, and then black-mail you into positive feedback.

Screenshots: