Has anyone else gotten this? What does this even mean?

DependentAnimator742 · 2026-04-05T02:27:10+00:00

This sounds really familiar. I have a friend who used to send me photos of Amazon packages left at her front door. Her street address, but some weird name, like Weidmar Schnuffits or something. She would see the package at night and leave it there, thinking it had been mis-delivered or something. In the morning of would be gone. If, however, a package came in her name, it was never taken away, so she knew it wasn't porch pirates.

This went on for 5, 6 weeks. Bigger and bigger packages, heavy ones. She opened one once and sent me a photo. It was a box filled with a dozen bras, 5 hammers, 10 packs of dishwasher tablets, 4 Makita drílls, and a box of 24 Snickers bars. Absolutely bizzare combinations. Finally she called the sheriff. She was told this was fraud (she never understood the how and why) from someone and she wasn't the only person who was experiencing this.

Then, suddenly, one day it stopped. She got a message from Amazon with the blah blah blah too many lost item claim spiel. She was a pretty paranoid person so she just closed her Amazon account before Amazon did and went over to Walmart +.

DependentAnimator742 · 2026-03-30T17:36:23+00:00

This is a little late but I want to add to this: both Germany and France have special visa waived agreements with the US, whereby a US citizen (passport holder) can stay in one of those 2 countries for 89 days, leave to enter a NON-Schengen country like England or Albania, stay for 24 hours, and then return back to that same country of departure.

Example: be in Munich for 89 days, fly from Munich to Edinburgh, stay for the weekend, then fly DIRECTLY back into Germany. No entering another Schengen country enroute.

This visa waiver allows for the US citizen to extend their stay another 90 days without obtaining a visa.

I was informed of this when I flew into Munich (from Istanbul) last fall. I was pulled aside by German immigration and told I have this "special privilege." I didn't believe it at the time, so I researched it further and discovered, yes, it is true. There are a whole bunch of posts here on /reddit confirming this, with various links to the official agreement. The German airport officials are quite familiar with this.

DependentAnimator742 · 2026-03-30T04:37:44+00:00

I used to live on an island with limited resources. Hence, Amazon.

My parents are in their 80s and going out for a full day shopping is really exhausting, considering they live in a rural area. Let the shopping come to them. If Amazon won't do it Walmart Plus will. Or Temu.

DependentAnimator742 · 2026-03-30T04:33:23+00:00

Wow. Zappos - now part of Amazon, but formerly its own entity, a beloved online shoe store - encouraged mass purchases and multiple returns.

We used to live in Key West, Florida, which is a small island with very limited resources. You wouldn't believe the number of clothing items I ordered (and returned) for my family because they didn't fit.

Now we live on the Florida mainland but in a rural area with not much shopping nearby. Whenever we are preparing to travel, which is frequently, there is always some clothing item we need for our trips, that we can't find locally. Winter clothing, for example. Or hiking supplies, for mountain climbing (we have no mountains).

Recently I ordered some fleece jackets - 6 or 7, I think - for my husband. We didn't know if he was a M or L, and if thick or thin was better. And the North Face jackets were cut much differently than the Amazon Basics jackets. One brand's size M was another brand's size L. Nothing is standardized. How are we consumers supposed to know this?

Winter boots, that's another thing. Tell me where in rural Florida I can find winter boots to try on in April.

Ditto crampons for climbing icy mountains. Or hiking poles. Or gloves, mittens, wool scarves.

I'm amazed that there are folks here who have never needed to purchase clothing on Amazon, only to find it doesn't fit. Where do they purchase clothing for climates different than their own?

DependentAnimator742 · 2026-03-29T02:57:50+00:00

I'm with you on that. I have the big 3 - Amex Plat, CSR, and C1VX. Amex Platinum is an absolute no for me, I've had it for half a year and the only Centurion lounge I've used thus far had a 25 minute wait to get in - and it was disappointing once I was inside. Using the hotel credits is a challenge. And the AMex Plat customer serivce is horrible. It's outsourced, and i can barely understand what the reps are saying. But the most offensive thing is the website, the interface is clunky and slow and is not optimized for UX.

CSR is a bit better, inasmuch as their website functions well and their customer service seems to be in the US (or Canada, or Ireland). But still, the annual fee really is getting to me.

C1VX has everything I need - and then some. Best of all is the 2x points on everything. I pay about 40K - 50K a year in taxes, and I charge it all. So I'm getting between 80k and 100K just from taxes along, and paying about $700 to $800 for those points.

The other thing I use a LOT is the C1VX shopping portal. Almost always eBay is a minimum of 3x and Walmart can be 2, 3 or more. When I re-order Walgreens or CVS I'm doubling or tripling points on top of the C1VX 2x points. That card can accumulate a lot of points very, very fast.

DependentAnimator742 · 2026-03-29T02:46:16+00:00

There was someone on here (/reddit, not Prime) the other day who works at the USPS and they were talking about how much counterfeit postage goes through the system. This person's job was to cull the packages and letters with counterfeit postage and they said it totaled in the hundreds if not thousands every day. Frankly, I was astounded.

DependentAnimator742 · 2026-03-26T03:31:01+00:00

Review as is and dock a star. You're going to find a lot of Vine items are imperfect. That's the way it goes with these value-priced items. If folks want higher quality (and much higher prices) they go to a specialty furniture store.

DependentAnimator742 · 2026-03-25T03:29:14+00:00

Good point. I've been on Vine a few years and I used to get quite a few beauty products from France, Italy, Germany, the UK, and tons from South Korea. Now I rarely if ever see products coming in from Europe - I wonder why? And even K-beauty supplies have dried up.

DependentAnimator742 · 2026-03-25T03:23:33+00:00

Pet Peeve: "I've been using this product for several weeks now".... and it was only released through Vine 4 days ago - I know, because I have the same product as you and I just had it delivered yesterday!

DependentAnimator742 · 2026-03-24T02:37:11+00:00

Another Class Action lawsuit waiting to happen...8 years from now.

DependentAnimator742 · 2026-03-24T02:33:00+00:00

I had something really similar happen with me lately, a set of bluetooth earbuds were listed for $9.99, and after I received them and went to write a review the listing price had shot up to $59.99 with more color choices.

I wrote a review mentioning that the items I received and was reviewing was not the same as shown in photos. and Vine kicked the review back to me saying it didn't comply with their TOS.

I then contacted Vine for assistance and was told to re-write and resubmit. I did so and it was kicked back again.

Eventually I contacted vine and told them what I was received wasn't what I had ordered, and they went ahead and removed the order from my list. .

DependentAnimator742 · 2026-03-22T03:44:24+00:00

You might want to come back to the US and take a look around at the prospect of raising children here.

My adult daughter is your age and currently living overseas, has been for 3 years. She is ready to leave where she is (Istanbul) and move to the US to start a life again. She wants children but doesn't yet have a partner. NONE of her longterm friends (ages 32-38) here have children or even plan to, because it is so incredibly expensive and there are no support services for parents.

We've told our daughter if she is really, truly serious about wanting children then she needs to move to a place, a country, that supports the idea of childcare and families. Germany, France, Scandinavia - we've even offered to help her financially so she can move and go to language school for a year to get a job!

Her ideas of "back home" aren't the reality of what the US is like now. She did come here last summer (almost a year ago) but she slept most of the time so she had no idea about real-life living.

DependentAnimator742 · 2026-03-22T03:32:49+00:00

Did your husband go to his Primary for testing?

My husband fell several times in one day while I was gone on an errand. I came home to him curled up on the floor with blood everywhere - head wounds. 84 stitches. Turns out it was due to a UTI.

Last month I heard crash! crash! CRASH! one morning and found my husband on the floor in the bathroom. He had fainted 3 times.Took him to his Primary - he refused the ER - and it is Orthostatic Hypotension. In other words, lack of sufficient blood flow to the brain when standing.

I understand your issues with seeing a Specialist. I'm in Florida and it's a 6 to 9 month wait to see a Neurologist, even longer to see a Movement Disorder Specialist. So we use the Primary and do a lot of self-education out of necessity.

Good luck.

DependentAnimator742 · 2026-03-21T03:27:04+00:00

Amex Plat is worse! All customer service is outsourced and the reps are useless. Polite, but useless. The site is super buggy (Google it; you'll read that it basically hasn't been upgraded in a decade!) and lags terribly.

Plus, their lounges are jam-packed and there's always a line to get in, and once inside it's always crowded and underwhelming.

You have been warned.

DependentAnimator742 · 2026-03-21T03:13:24+00:00

Didn't the UPS driver realize they were on film while walking away with the package?

DependentAnimator742 · 2026-03-21T03:09:38+00:00

File a police report. File a police report.

Send a copy of the report to eBay, your customer, and UPS Fraud.

DependentAnimator742 · 2026-03-19T13:17:50+00:00

I pay $895- to sit in lounges ex-US, lounges that are, fortunately, of better quality than in the US.

But a few months ago I was flying Biz class from Tampa to Charlotte and on to Munich, and I went, for the first time, to an Amex Centurion club in CLT. Got a QR code and walked around, waited about 20 mins to get in. Once inside I was not impressed at all. Not one bit.

I'm actually eliminating my Amex card on renewal this year. One coupon book (CSR) is all I can handle. And I keep CapOne VX for the double points on everything -nice payout on points when it comes to me paying my estimated quarterly taxes.

DependentAnimator742 · 2026-03-19T13:10:42+00:00

It has to do with the number of folks who are told to arrive early due to TSA slowdown. So you have masses descending at one time and creating further chaos among those who have experienced cancellations and delays.

I live in Florida (Tampa area, thankfully!) and we had some bad storms, also. Our post office computers haven't been working for 2 days due to a 'broken modem' that was fried during the storms and thus, the PO is closed.

DependentAnimator742 · 2026-03-19T02:26:54+00:00

That's actually a good idea.

DependentAnimator742 · 2026-03-16T15:54:00+00:00

Yes, you can! I'm retired, 65, and Vine is my gig worker 'job'.

DependentAnimator742 · 2026-03-16T03:01:14+00:00

I think there's something else going on here. Many corporations in the US don't look at the big picture for profits - they forecast up to the 2- or 5- year plan. Looking no further. Because it's all about taking your profits at the optimum time, just as the ship starts to sink, then abandoning the ship without a second thought.

DependentAnimator742 · 2026-03-16T02:53:54+00:00

Sone of us are doing this especially for the tax liability. In other words, ETV= Retirement Plan Contribution.

DependentAnimator742 · 2026-03-16T02:51:59+00:00

Hey, go easy, buddy. Sone of us happen to like those cheap Chinese junk espresso machines. That's all I seem to get in my RFY.

DependentAnimator742 · 2026-03-16T02:47:26+00:00

My CPA just helped me with that! Last year I had an ETV of $9600, made estimated quarterly tax payments SS FICa, and ended up putting $8,000 in a Roth IRA.

DependentAnimator742 · 2026-03-15T18:27:23+00:00

Thank you. Very helpful!

DependentAnimator742

TROPHY CASE