Thursday, July 12, 2007

Amazon.com guarantees your Harry Potter fix

Guaranteed Release-Date Delivery (Saturday, July 21) of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows"!

"We will deliver Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on its Saturday, July 21 release date to eligible customers who pre-ordered from Amazon.com and chose standard, Two-Day, or One-Day shipping when placing their order. (Amazon Prime customers will receive it on the day of release at no additional charge. Learn more about joining Amazon Prime.) If you qualified for guaranteed Release-Date Delivery, in the unlikely event that you don't receive it on Saturday, July 21, we'll refund the cost of the book." [Emphasis mine]

Okay, this is wild! I've never pre-ordered a book before; do they go this crazy for all books? Doubtful, but what about all the Harry Potter books? Has anyone done this before?

There's a little bit of fine-print on that delivery guarantee, though:

"Most deliveries will be made by UPS or the U.S. Postal Service, either with your regular mail delivery or in a special, later delivery. All copies that qualified for Release-Date Delivery should be delivered by 7:00 p.m. in your time zone. If you have not yet received your copy, please wait until 7:00 p.m. on July 21 before contacting Customer Service."

First off, leave us alone until the mailman has completed his or her appointed rounds.
2. If you're one of those freaks who has to start reading as soon as legally permitted, go to one of those Midnight Potter Parties and don't order from us. We're not delivering you books on Friday with some kind of charm that makes them unopenable until the stroke of midnight on the 21st, or anything.

Amazon might be cool, but they are still Muggles in that regard.

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