[jimr-pdx]

Shortly before Christmas Amazon showed a great price drop on the 50-200wr, as mentioned here - $120 for a brand new copy, a great deal! Just in case of a super deal, I wandered the used section, where generally fall proportionally with the new-item price. Sure enough, a $75 copy in Used-Good condition, with caps and hood (which implies a DA and not a hood-less DAL). I cheerfully ordered it and awaited its 12/20 arrival. I had sold off my weather-resistant gear and this deal prompted me to watch the Marketplace for a K200d (now in hand).

Now I'm not a pixel-peeper but I am a devoted shipment-watcher so I put the tracking data in my 'ship' folder of bookmarks. It sat in Virginia for several days and missed its 12/20 date. After it sat in Virginia a few more days I finally checked in with Amazon.

The response was surprising: it seemed the package was "lost in the mail" and they were refunding my money. Curious. Amazon would also send me a voucher for free fast shipping when I bought the $200 new version - umm no thanks. The next day I received another note - package was Undeliverable and returned to the seller. No surprise there, as Longview WA is NOT IN VIRGINIA! On a hunch I returned to the Amazon site, and there it was, same seller and still $75 even though the new price had gone up $50 or so. I ordered it again, this time with 2-day shipping, hoping that would change its luck.

Soon I had a new tracking number and found it in Kentucky - with a delivery date well over a week off. Hmm, even the holiday for New Years doesn't make a 2-day shipment take over a week so I contacted Amazon again. They apologized and took the $12 surcharge away so I'm back to standard shipping.

Today I checked the UPS site and found it "Out For Delivery" with original arrival of 1/7 revised to 1/2 - again curious, yet in a good way! It's now here, looks nearly new (other than scuff marks to show it's been mounted a few times) and is in fact a DA 50-200 WR with Pentax caps and hood. While I feel bad about the shipping refund, let's recall this should have been in my hands two weeks sooner.

Wish I knew its complete story, but my story about it will have to do!

[sergysergy]

well, at least it arrived. time to enjoy it!

[mee]

I have a couple items still 'In transit' from Amazon 2 day Prime. One from July and the other from September (IIRC). The former arrived within 2 days on time and the latter never arrived so they shipped another one (which did arrive on time). I'm hoping one day the lost shipment arrives.. that would be hilarious to me (as it is a large, laser printer). haha