Amazon's Customer Service

I ordered two books from Amazon.com on October 13th. By my count, that is exactly 14 days ago. One of the books was in stock and promptly shipped. The second is "unavailable" right now. I guess that means back ordered. Or the truck carrying the books drove off a bridge or something. This is not a big deal.

What IS A big deal: In the 14 days since I ordered the book, I've received 10 emails from Amazon about the book. At least half of them required me to log into Amazon's site and approve a change in the delivery day.

We need you to approve the new delivery day by October 25 2007, or we will cancel the item(s) from your order if they have not shipped by then. Please visit the Order Update page in Your Account at the address below to approve the delay for the unavailable item(s)

The part that kills me: "...or we will cancel the items(s) from your order" I'm sorry, what?
Now, I appreciate that they feel bad about the delay, and want to offer me the chance to cancel it and get the item from another vendor. But just cancel it if I choose to say nothing? I've had to log in five separate times over the past week to approve the shipping delay. There is no option for "Ship whenever it's available" or "I don't give a crap when it arrives, just ship it when you can."

This is so frustrating that I actually called Amazon (somewhat tricky, they keep their phone number hidden behind about six separate links). A nice woman answered and promised to pass this along and "personally follow up," whatever that means.

Ten seconds after I got off the phone with them, I got another email.

We always strive to provide a high level of service, and we would appreciate your feedback. Please let us know if we resolved your inquiry. If yes, click here, if not, click here.

Unbelievable.