We rarely order expensive stuff from Japan - like this Narumi Bone China sushi dish - and Amazon shipping delivers this, sadly. To obtain a refund, we were supposed to spend serious money to send this broken pottery back to Japan!

But after much messing about, we finally got thru to an actual Amazon agent in Japan - after we were quoted $176.00 (Cdn) by DHL, to ship the broken dish back to Japan. At that price, we were going to just keep the broken dish and assumed we would be charged for the second shipment (the replacements). Each shipment contained two plates, and so we have ended up with three (really nice bone-china sushi dishes - and we eat a lot of sushi...)

We suggested in our email, that rather than shipping the damaged shipment back to Japan (at the really silly cost of $176!), Amazon should just bill us for an extra dish. It seems they simply waived the requirement to return the broken-dish shipment. We were not charged for the replacement shipment, and now we feel guilty we have scored an extra Narumi dish. But not that guilty, given the time we spent finding out how to actually email a live Amazon person.

But in the end, Amazon did the right thing - replacing the damaged shipment, and not requiring us to spend $176 for DHL shipping costs to send broken dishes across the Pacific Ocean, which my frugal Scots nature could simply not agree to! :)

Key fact: It will take some time, navigating the Amazon web-pages - but once you do reach a live person, Amazon are fair & good about putting right a damaged shipment. In these curious and dangerous times, we have been buying a lot of small, useful items using Amazon. They are fair traders, so I felt I must note this.

PS: We like our new sushi dishes. It's a silly luxury, but it enhances the quality of domestic life. Small things matter, in curiously not-small ways. :D