It began in August. I bought a TiVo from Amazon. It was my first. I was very excited. There had just been a $50 manufacturer price break, Amazon was offering an additional 10% vendor discount as well as a $50 Gift Certificate for any purchase over $200 from their Electronics store. To top all of this, there was also a $50 mail-in rebate from TiVo. Pretty good, right?

A few months later, I decided to use that $50 Gift Certificate. I ordered a 53 piece set of silverware that was on discount for $43. In an effort to spend the rest of my $50 all at once, I also ordered a $10 rice cooker. Free shipping. All set. Rice cooker came in a week. Silverware never did. Several weeks ago I received an email from Amazon saying that the silverware set was no longer an item they carried and that they had not charged me. I tried to call Amazon to find out exactly where my credit was, but, as many of you have undoubtedly discovered, Amazon does not make public their customer service phone number.

A quick Google search returned several private web sites who took it upon themselves to make this number public, and chastize Amazon for not doing so themselves. Once I called up, I was put in touch with a very helpful woman who told me that she sees that I still have the credit in my account, and that the credit will show itself as a method of payment when I place my next order. Sounds good.

This past Sunday was my friend Meghan’s birthday. I knew just what I was going to give her and I went to Amazon to order it. Low and behold, only $20 of my credit turned up when I hit the checkout button. I called that customer service number only to find it had been disconnected. So I called the main Amazon Corporate phone number, hoping that the operator would give me the new customer service number. That number was also disconnected. So was the Investor Relations line.

I went to the web page and searched for another number or an email address, but I found none. So I sent an email through their standard email contact form. That email was bounced back to me undelivered.

Amazon has disappeared and the have taken my money with them.