At the end of checkout, I saw that no shipping charge had been applied, so I completed my order. There were, perhaps, 25 items. The following day items began to ship, each individually and each with a separate delivery charges. The lowest was the 6.95 that I was charged for a single Elmo book. Then more email notifications and more shipping charges. I calculate that if each item is shipped separately, the totally shipping bill will be $150 or more.

I was livid and called Amazon customer service. I explained what was happening and told them how unethical it was to list no shipping fees just to get me to click, purchase. The customer service representative started hem hawing around telling me there was nothing he could do because many of the items were from third party vendors. Well, duh, of course they are. Amazon is a broker, not a vendor. That being the case, how can Amazon offer free shipping ever?

Beyond Amazon's part, the vendors are shipping the items one at a time even though there were multiple items purchased from the seller. Using the 'not available until this date' explanation they too were able to fatten their pockets with shipping scams.

Amazon's rep offered me free shipping on my next order. I laughed. He then offered me a $30 Amazon credit. I told him where he could put that. Finally I ended the call with a terse 'Merry Christmas'. It appears that Amazon will do any despicable thing to increase their bottom line but I, for one, will not give them a second chance. I am finished with Amazon's lies and underhanded service practices.