[gui-talk] The Frustrations and Hassles of Shopping On Amazon.com

[Gerald Levy]

About two weeks ago, I ordered some merchandise from Amazon.com using the accessible site supposedly optimized for screen readers.  This order qualified for free shipping, and I was able to select it by clicking on the appropriate radio button on the Select Shipping Option page, and successfully place the order.  This morning, I tried to place another order on Amazon.com using the accessible site with very different results.  Using Firefox 29 as my browser with JAWS 13, I added 4 items to my shopping cart and noted that the order qualified for free shipping.  But when I reached the Select Shipping Option page, there were no longer any radio buttons,check boxes or other apparent means of selecting the desired shipping option.  Free shipping was the first option on the list, but when I clicked on it to select it, nothing happened.  I turned off the virtual PC cursor, but still could not select free shipping.  I switched to the latest version of NVDA, but still no luck.  Finally, I gave up and proceeded to the Place Your Order page to review my order.  Sure enough, free shipping had not been applied,but instead, the default standard shipping option  had been applied, and I was charged a shipping fee of $20.55.  I clicked on the Place Your Order button anyway, and successfully placed the order.  When I received my email order confirmation a few minutes later, of course,I noticed that I had been charged $20.55 for shipping, which is what I expected.  So I immediately called Amazon.com customer service at 866-216-1072 and explained to the agent, who spoke with a heavy foreign accent that I was a blind customer using the Amazon site to place an order, but that I had been charged for shipping because I could not select the free shipping option due to the fact that  there was no apparent way to do so.  The guy apparently didn't understand my problem and connected me with a supervisor, who also spoke with a foreign accent, but was easier for me to understand.  I explained my problem once again, and she apologized and assured me that she would adjust my order to remove the $20.55 shipping fee.  After waiting on hold for about ten minutes, she returned to the phone and confirmed that she had successfully adjusted my order and removed the $20.55 shipping fee.  What a hassle!  I don't understand why the radio buttons to select shipping option have been removed from the accessible site.  As I mentioned previously, the radio buttons were still displayed when I placed my last order two weeks ago.  I guess Amazon has been tinkering with its site yet again, much to the detriment of its blind customers.  Am I going to have to contact customer service every time I want to place and order that qualifies for free shipping?  Wasn't Target sued because its web site was not very blind friendly?  I'm really upset over this shopping experience, and it will be a long time before I shop on Amazon.com again. 

Gerald