Amazon - Unwilling and exploitative

I had 3-4 hours of my time wasted by the most unhelpful, incompetent, unwilling, rude, and downright unsavory Amazon associates over the most simple issue I couldve come to any company with. Out and about online, I saw on a few websites giving tips on holiday savings that if you signed up for the save and subscribe feature (among one or two other very meets or conditions), saying that you would receive 15% of the purchase these said items were applied to.

So, the entire purchase. Seeing as I had an almost $400 cart, a roughly $60 discount was very welcome and I happily obliged. After making sure I was was qualified, I went to checkout, only to see the discount hadnt been applied. Thinking I messed up, I looked my order up and down a few times, and then went to the customer support chat when I couldnt find anything wrong.

I was engaged by somebody for a few minutes, spent some time trying to explain my situation, which I was very clear about, and then ghosted. Another employee would take the ghosts place, erasing any progress I made in the previous chat and making me start over. After having this happen multiple times, I just decided to call instead. What ensued was the most frustrating chain of calls I had ever been in.

I thought my tongue was becoming formed to the words of the 3 sentences I repeated for more than one phone call. I defeatedly kept citing what the promotion I shouldnt have to be explaining to any Amazon employee or literate person said and entailed. The language barrier was a bit harder to permeate than expected, so I understood the slow movement there. At first, anyways.

After a while, it became apparent that them not understanding my accent and me not understanding theirs was not the only contributor to the nonexistent progress I had spent so much time making. I eventually told the employee (not the first one I was on the phone with) after, over half an hour, possibly over an hour even, to please just transfer me to her boss, wanting to just lay my case to rest and get the goddarn 15% that I wouldve given up on long ago had I know everyone would be this useless. The manager/supervisor is the most unpleasant and unaware one I didnt know existed until now. After doing the by now, though just choreographed by me that night, very familiar dance; giving her the 10-20 minute intro and handholding session (not that any part took that long, just that it took that long to make any information stick or move her along), I finally got her to check my cart.

To put me on hold more times than I could count, just so she could return with absolutely nothing. I should add this segment she was granted the same initial patience Id given everyone so far. She told me that the policy had been misquoted. That the discount only applied to the subscribe and save items, and not the entire purchase.

HOURS LATER. I had asked my first question 3-4 HOURS ago. Somehow, between an entire chain of employees, some willing, some unwilling, all completely and thoroughly incompetent, a simple promotion couldnt be communicated to me. Had this been told to me in the first 15 minutes, I would have understood and left.

Well, this in addition to the promotion being totally honest and straightforward, but it was deceitful. Very intentionally misleading, it purposely doesnt specify what the discount is applied to (not even in a completely separate informational page detailing the text further), and worded in way that would logically lead anyone to assume this meant a 15% base discount. Several websites had also confirmed this to be true, and with the subscribe and save only saving you around 5% on relatively cheap items, with the discount usually amounting to less than a dollar, a 15% discount off of a $5-$6 item isnt at all enticing, and wouldnt be assumed to be the focus. If it had been adequately outlined, nobody would be interested in this deal, which is why Amazon has to trick any participants through this.

Not only THOSE, but most majorly, through my phone calls, I had been just agreed with; told it was weird I wasnt receiving my 15% overall discount even after adhering to the terms, and being given a handbooks worth of useless, stupid, going nowhere instructions and suggestions. Through multiple employees. (Only one was willing and patient, though just as ineffectual. I bear no ill will towards her; I just wish I had been connected to somebody else.) They didnt even know the policy.

The people whose literal JOB it is to be informed and/or be able to use their resources to get the customer to someone who can say the right things or be even remotely helpful. Having long lost track of my patience by this time (I think I left it around the 1 hour mark? Maybe 2 hour mark? Somewhere along the part of the timeline where it is preposterous to not have answered the simplest clarification questions), I told her she needed to honor what I had been told, to at least make up for my wasted time, which was taken away by a team effort of unwillingness and inability to which she claimed leadership and (unholy amounts of) contribution, and hold her company and employees accountable.

She refused. She *** refused. Rude even before this, constantly cutting me off, regurgitating information Id already read or heard, she became somehow even more unpleasant. She also refused to let me speak to somebody who actually could resolve my now saga of an issue, claiming she didnt have a boss; she was the highest authority.

Im calling bs, there is no way somebody with such poor social skill and inability in regards to their supposed expertise would have made it to the top somewhere as competitive as Amazon. She (I never got a name, and looking back, given how she handled my case, Im positive she knows she treats customers horribly and does not give anything they could trace her back with) then hung up on me. 4 hours of my life just gone, and not even to get a discount I shouldnt have had to waste any of my time receiving. I am empty handed, even though I had hung on as long as I did so largely on principle; I am pissed I was strung along for so long and treated so poorly for having a question.

I dont know what to do now. I am so angry, it felt like she enjoyed hearing me get frustrated and beg her to just help me because it was almost 4 in the morning and I just wanted to figure out whats been dragged out for hours so I could please sleep. My already nasty and worn thin experience was further flattened by her, and I cannot imagine how many other inquirers as unlucky and unhelped as me there must be fuming at this exact same problem. I just want to get what I was promised, and for serious evaluation and moderation to be done to the staffing there; why tf should I have to go through the worst people and time wasters just to pay the same amount as everyone else who didnt get afflicted with them?

Somebody please help, I dont know where to go from here but I am so upset and cant just let it go like this. I will appreciate any help