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Amazon is running a lot of deals today for Prime members, and one of them is this pair of binoculars: Vanguard 10x42 Sprit ED Binocular (Black)

Right now they are $119, and the deal is good for about another hour and twenty minutes from now or until they run out. These normally run $200 or more.

I have a pair of these in 8x42 (and they cost me more), but otherwise they are identical, and this is vary nice combination of quality and features.

Thought there might be some interest here.

No I don't have stock in Amazon, but I do like their service and prices, generally.

Grabbed a pair, thanks for posting!

george72 wrote:Grabbed a pair, thanks for posting!

Great, I'm glad this was useful to you.

As a fan of Leica and Pentax binoculars, how do they stack up against these brands?

Heck, I have an old pair of Nikon 10 X 50 binoculars that do a great job and they cost a mere $120.00 new compared to the Leica Trinovids 10 X 42 that cost $1100/1200 new - all bought 15 years or more ago.

I was a birding guide for many years so binoculars are something I know a little about...

Dissimilar but related, I was hoping I might find something on Prime Day for rifle scopes. However, 99% of what's offered is Barska, a brand I'm not interested in. And many at minimal savings, at that. My favorite in that category: Barska 3-9x50 Huntmaster 30/30 Riflescope, originally $54.98; on sale for Prime Day at only $54.97! Woo hoo!

There are also a couple of cheapo Simmons, but that's about it. Nothing to see here; move along...

Skiprr wrote:.... However, 99% of what's offered is Barska, ...

That's why the Vanguards jumped out at me. They seem to be a pretty decent brand, and that particular line uses some nice glass.

This is my go-to site for binoculars: http://www.bestbinocularsreviews.com/

and he gives a review of the 10x42 Vanguard Spirit ED here: http://www.bestbinocularsreviews.com/Va ... tED-71.htm

He thinks they give higher end binocs from Leica a pretty good run for the money, and rates them as very good value for the money -- and at the time he rated them, they were $300.

Skiprr wrote:Dissimilar but related, I was hoping I might find something on Prime Day for rifle scopes. However, 99% of what's offered is Barska, a brand I'm not interested in. And many at minimal savings, at that. My favorite in that category: Barska 3-9x50 Huntmaster 30/30 Riflescope, originally $54.98; on sale for Prime Day at only $54.97! Woo hoo!

There are also a couple of cheapo Simmons, but that's about it. Nothing to see here; move along...

Midway had a sale on Bushnell Trophy XLT 3-9X 40mm - $69 for duplex and $63 Mil Dot w/ free shipping. I don't know if it's still going or not. Although I use higher end scopes on my hunting rifles I look for deals like this for .22 and .22 mag rifles that I can no longer shoot with iron sights. I found some Bausch and Lomb Elite 3-9X 40mm a couple of years ago at Academy for $120. BTW I have way too many .22 rifles.

Well whaddya know? I sent a customer service complaint email to Amazon about the general uselessness of this Prime Day--citing some of the "deals" that were one cent off the regular price--and the response? Amazon cancelled my Prime account.

Thirty-eight purchases this year alone, but since I didn't spend tens of thousands of dollars, obviously they don't care. With friends like these, who needs enemies?

Skiprr wrote:Well whaddya know? I sent a customer service complaint email to Amazon about the general uselessness of this Prime Day--citing some of the "deals" that were one cent off the regular price--and the response? Amazon cancelled my Prime account.

Thirty-eight purchases this year alone, but since I didn't spend tens of thousands of dollars, obviously they don't care. With friends like these, who needs enemies?

I hope they rebated your membership fee.

Skiprr wrote:Well whaddya know? I sent a customer service complaint email to Amazon about the general uselessness of this Prime Day--citing some of the "deals" that were one cent off the regular price--and the response? Amazon cancelled my Prime account.

Thirty-eight purchases this year alone, but since I didn't spend tens of thousands of dollars, obviously they don't care. With friends like these, who needs enemies?

???

I have made a few complaints to Amazon along the way, and have always received outstanding responses -- they have never quibbled over anything, and frankly often gave me a better resolution than I thought the situation called for. I'm baffled.

ELB wrote:I have made a few complaints to Amazon along the way, and have always received outstanding responses -- they have never quibbled over anything, and frankly often gave me a better resolution than I thought the situation called for. I'm baffled.

I've made two complaints this year (including yesterday's)...the only two in recent memory; at least for four or five years. And both were bizarrely useless, as if the respondent spoke English as a second language (fully expected) and never bothered to listen to the phone calls or read the communications at all.

The first was about a product incorrectly received, one I didn't order, and the response was an RMA number and shipping instructions for a large and heavy item completely unrelated to the one I'd received in error. Another call to straighten that out, then a confirmation email...referencing yet a third product that was totally unrelated to either of the previous two.

Yesterday, after spending time watching Prime Day deals and searching the offers for things on my wish-list, I submitted a form expressing my dissatisfaction with the much-hyped Prime Day, and noting that although I buy regularly from Amazon, I found nothing to purchase in either 2015's or 2016's Prime Day. I can only assume that the customer service rep in Bangalore read that as dissatisfaction with my Prime membership (not just Prime Day) and cancelled it.

And, yep, they did credit my account with the pro rated membership fee.

Whatever. That Amazon account was opened in 2000, but I'm officially done with those idiots...other than needing to place one last order to use the pro rated Prime membership fee. I might drop jeff@amazon.com a note, though, explaining why he's lost a customer of 16 years. He might care.

</ThreadHijack>

Skippr
I am shocked that they terminated your account. I searched their agreement and they legally can terminate without warning.

"Termination by Us
We may terminate your Prime membership at our discretion without notice. If we do so, we will give you a prorated refund based on the number of full months remaining in your membership. However, we will not give any refund for termination related to conduct that we determine, in our discretion, violates these Terms or any applicable law, involves fraud or misuse of the Prime membership, or is harmful to our interests or another user. Our failure to insist upon or enforce your strict compliance with these Terms will not constitute a waiver of any of our rights."

It doesn't seem right that for your minimal complaint they would terminate. Why not send that email to Jeff and see if you can get an explanation. We use Amazon prime so much my wife would have a hissy-fit if we lost it.

Another thread hijack, but I need to follow-up about this:

rotor wrote:It doesn't seem right that for your minimal complaint they would terminate. Why not send that email to Jeff and see if you can get an explanation. We use Amazon prime so much my wife would have a hissy-fit if we lost it.

I did, and it does seem it was an ESL "failure to communicate":

Hello [Skiprr],

I’m A__________ of Amazon.com’s Executive Customer Relations. Jeff Bezos received your email and asked me to respond on his behalf.

I want to begin by apologizing for the experience you’ve had with customer service cancelling your Prime Membership. As a Prime member myself I can understand how that could be an unpleasant experience.

I’ve sent a one year membership of Amazon Prime as a gift to your email. Please feel free to use this membership as you please.

I’ve taken the information from your account as well as your email and reached out to a member of leadership to further investigate this matter.

Again, thank you for taking the time to bring this experience to our attention. I hope you have a wonderful week, [Skiprr].

A__________
Executive Customer Relations

That's much more like the customer service culture I'd come to expect of Amazon after 16 years. They've kept my business.

I guess with any organization as big Amazon you're going to occasionally hire somebody you shouldn't have, but sounds like they are correcting the situation.

Awhile back I was switching to a new computer from one that had crashed, and I was trying to figure out how to legally move the license for MS Office from the old machine to the new one. MS was not providing any updates for MS Office to my new machine because the license was tied to the old one. Microsoft was of course no help whatsoever. Just out of sheer desperation I called Amazon (from whom I had bought the software two or three years earlier) to see if they had any technical advice about how to switch the licenses.

The guy who answered the phone asked me to wait while he researched it. When he came back on he said he had nothing to help me with that, and therefore they would refund my full purchase price so I could buy a new package for the new machine! I was astounded, especially since this was a three-license deal, and I needed to move only one license (and the guy on the phone knew that).

I also had a case of pet food shipped recently, one of the cans was somehow damaged and leaked all over the inside of the box. After riding around in a hot UPS truck, it stunk to high heaven and had flies to boot. Ugh. Amazon shipped a replacement immediately, no quibbles, just apologized and got on it.

A used computer I purchased was shipped with a different operating system than advertised -- when I called, they credited me the price for the correct one (Win 7 then) and even put a new copy in my cart for me.

Examples like that are why I was so baffled when Skppr's account was cancelled. That is so far from the norm as to be outside our solar system.