this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2024

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355

I complained about an Australian website asking for tips, so they removed the tip function. (aussie.zone)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

26 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I pre-ordered a pair of Jennen shoes (elevator shoes, so I can be a big boy) from their online site (they no longer have the shopfront on Johnstone street) and got asked for a tip at the end. For basically changing a stock allocation assignment. I had a whinge on their contact forms, and they replied "the tip function is optional".

2 years later I emailed again, saying "I haven't bought a replacement pair of shoes, all because of the audacity to ask for a tip. I get that it's optional, but so is a cashier going 'hey give me that twenty from your wallet', and when the customer goes 'wtf??' the cashier replies 'oh lol it's optional'. You may have thought 'you know, a tip screen could give us free money! What's the harm?', and I guess this follow up email is proof of that harm. Don't bring tipping culture here please!"

I get this reply a day later, and can confirm the tip function is now gone. Loverly! Whinging may be one thing, but persistent whinging made the difference.

all 27 comments

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[–] [email protected] -2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

There's a lot of odd things that really grind my gears but I've got to admit, this isn't one of them.

Including a tip at a restaurant would bug me, but I couldn't care less about this.

Loads of restaurant receipts have a spot to write in a tip which everyone happily ignores.

You might even say, it's part of the cultural fibre of Australia to ignore tip requests.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

This dude eats shoes.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

Well done, this should be law and apps like Uber should have to turn off their tip screens to operate here.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 8 months ago

This is called consumer Nirvana. You have reached the highest form of consumerism and it has given you the power of a 1000 buyers.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago

Love when a good whinge gets results.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I was in the market for a docking station. There was a particular brand that was showing up in recommendations, was well-rated, and had the specs I was looking for. I found it on Amazon, but I avoid buying from that place as much as possible, so I checked the vendor's website directly.

They had the dock for sale on their own website, so I proceeded to purchase from there. However, when I was almost done with checking out, I saw that they were asking for / suggesting a tip. That's honestly despicable for an online store and way past the line for me. So, I did some more research, found a different brand of dock, and bought that instead.

Looking back, I should have done what you did and notify jsaux of their missed sale, but I honestly just assumed it was a pointless endeavor. Maybe one day I'll go back and see if it's still there on their checkout, and if so, let them know they've missed at least one sale.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

You can do it now

[–] [email protected] 39 points 8 months ago

Visit in Incognito mode to make sure they didn’t just A/B it off your “experience” lol

[–] [email protected] 124 points 8 months ago (1 children)

They did the math. How much have we made in tips. Guaranteed $0.

How much have we lost. At least this person's order.

Scrap tip.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 8 months ago (1 children)

They may have even already scrapped it, or were planning to, so this is an easy win.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Nonetheless, the complaint was an important factor here.

IMO not enough people complain. I’m ½ tempted to setup a system that mass prints postcards complaining about the countless enshitification of websites.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

Letter writing campaigns had to have worked on some things in the past! I’m all for it!

[+] [email protected] 57 points 8 months ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

[removed by mod]

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

True but Amazon would have done the math to begin with. So a complaint would not cause them to do extra math and complaints are probably unlikely to change their calculation.

I boycott Amazon already but if I were an Amazon customer I would not be motivated to help their business by giving them useful customer feedback.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Why do you host your list of dislikes for Amazon on a knockoff GitHub?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

https://git.sdf.org/humanacollaborator/humanacollabora/src/branch/master/github.md

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I don't really understand why you'd host that on GitHub or any knockoffs at all

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Probably because a lot of the free web hosting sites disappeared, and GitHub and knock-offs don’t place any requirements on licensing (unlike SourceForge, which requires you to use an OSI- or FSF-approved license and submit a project description for humans to review), so people abuse them as free hosting.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Amazon would not have replied, ...

That's because there's no way to contact Amazon in the first place.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

Disagree. I have used the online chat function (am in Australia) and chatted with a rep a couple of times. In both cases they quickly solved my problem. I would prefer to buy elsewhere, but in some cases Amazon is the only way to get items from overseas and not have a massive hassle if they get damaged en route.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (2 children)

....what?

Amazon sucks for a lot of reasons but all you have to do is click a couple of links and you can chat with a rep. 90%+ of the times I've complained about anything, they give me a partial if not full refund.

This is in America, if that matters. If they truly don't have customer service in Australia, that's insane.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

I had them "temporarily hold" my account for some vague reason about wanting to verify the name on my bank card, and they demanded a letter from my bank with my full name, phone number, and last 4 digits of my card on it (something my bank doesn't actually do - closest thing they do is proof of balance/ordinary statements. If your Amazon account is on "hold", you can't contact anybody. Not even a robot. You go to the contact page and it tells you your account is on hold and to send them the documents they demand first. If you log out, it won't give you a phone number, email, or even a chat window until you log in... Which you can't do because your account is on hold

I don't use Amazon because of that very reason. If they gave me somebody's contact info I'm sure I could've explained the situation and they would've verified me, but how automated and ridgid their policies are. So I just use local stores, who actually have fucking phone numbers

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago (2 children)

You mean chat with a robot?

I've had varied experiences with robots, sometimes they give you the refund, othertimes it's not refundable, even if they broke it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Nope never had a chat bot. Literally always a human.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Weird, lucky you.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

It might work differently in America but for years the only automated part of it was to route you to the right rep

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Hopefully it’s a chatbot, which can bring interesting opportunities for consumers. If you can trick a chatbot to make a favorable statement, it can be legally binding.