That’s right Cristiano. I — like many — buy from Amazon all the time and have had some returns over the years (and 3 or 4 this year actually —including a dead hard-drive).

Every time they are great — maybe the odd tiny thing — but when they make the experience so great, it’s easy for the smallest thing to unfairly seem bad when actually overall it’s a great experience.

A case in point. I had to return a Gorilla Pod (the flexible camera stand) because it snapped after just a couple of months. They sent out a new one before I sent the old one back.

In fact, I still haven’t sent it back — the last month has seen its fair share of issues including a family death. When I explained this to Amazon — otherwise they would have charged me for the replacement, fair enough — they gave me another month to return it (I now have 10 days left — I MUST do it!).

But I was annoyed — and I think fairly to be honest — that they sent the replacement by a very slow service and it took 2 weeks to arrive. I could have bought it online from them and had it the next day. That was a bit annoying. But…

The item was a kit — the legs that broken, but also a ball head which is fine. Knowing the chances of the ball head going in the bin or sold for pennies in a pallet of returns, and with my replacement taking so long, I explained this and politely asked them on chat if they’d mind if I kept the ballhead and just sent back the legs.

No, was the answer. I said ok, thanks, bye, and ‘have a nice day/evening wherever you are’ — but I was a bit pissed off! There’s not many companies that offer such great service, you could find yourself pissed off that they don’t give you something like that!

Apple don’t even register on this scale.