We contacted the gas board, who said, 'Look, this has nothing whatsoever to do with us.'

So last night I ordered a very, very cheap DVD off Amazon, actually it was a guilty pleasure movie Flight of the Navigator, the one with the spaceship full of muppets and Sarah Jessica Parker with 80s hair and the kid who I had a huge crush on as a prepubescent. And then I told them to dispatch it to an address in Brighton where I've not lived since, gosh, August 2004, I should think. Balls, balls, balls.

I went to Amazon's 'Help Me, I've Really Fucked Up My Order' page, find that, not only has it 'entered processing' and can't be stopped or changed - making it sound like some kind of vast automated process involving lots of tubes is going on, when in reality it's a bloke in a warehouse with a clipboard somewhere near Milton Keynes, so then I checked the FAQs and 'Shipping to the Wrong Address OMGNO!!' is not an eventuality they seem to have considered ever happening. So it looks like I am going to have to send lots of emails and get very shirty with them if I'm to have any hope of getting the transaction cancelled or my money back. If only That's Life was still on the air I could set Esther Rantzen on them.

What really bugs me is that some transient in a Brighton fleapit is going to get not only my property, but my invoice with my actual address and details.

Small victory in the consumer wars!

I emailed Amazon and got a reply saying there was nothing they could possibly do to help me given that the package had already entered the dispatch process, and that all I could possibly do would be to contact the Post Office in Brighton and plead for them to hold it for me or redirect it, something the indescribably unhelpful people at Royal Mail* flat out refused to do for me. So at the end of my tether I phoned Amazon, and I spoke to a very pleasant Kiwi boy with the most wonderful accent - seriously, I was crushing over the phone - who told me it was no problem for them to cancel the order and reissue it with my correct address on it ... and despite the fact that it was blatantly my own stupid fault, they have even refunded my postage to make up for the inconvenience. So I like Amazon again, and considering it was only a four quid DVD in the first place, I'm feeling a little pleased.

Moral, always try and speak to a human. No matter what the automated service says, there is always something that can be done. The machines haven't taken over just yet.

* And how come, incidentally, that Royal Mail deliver the post, but the United States Postal Service delivers the mail?