The other day I'm browsing my book wishlist. I want to filter by type, but in the filter drop down menu I accidentally click "purchased".

Which I'd never do, given that it's a fairly recent list and I haven't gotten anything off of it. I generally only navigate to view by purchased when I want to submit a review, or get more of something. But to my surprise, there is Stephen King box set I added to my list a while back.

Wut.

I check the purchase date: May 4th.

Wut wut

Someone found my wishlist and got me something almost 3 months ago and never said a word? Holy shit. Someone out there thinks I'm a total and complete arse who's never heard of a thank you.

I called Amazon up (had to be transferred to their wishlist department) where they're checked and determined that yes, the package had mysteriously disappeared. For security reasons, they couldn't read me the message on the note, but they told me that when the package was resent it would contain another copy of it.

The box arrived today, so a very, very, very belated thank you to /u/natureschild79. I know you want pics for thank you posts, but the only camera I have is a super crappy flip phone cam and I couldn't get a picture that looked a quarter decent. So, officially speaking, this is a meta post, not a thank you post. But thanks a super duper tonne!!

So, given everything that happened, I asked about the possibility of beig notified if someone gets you something, but Amazon said no. The best you can do is turn "don't spoil my surprise" off. That way, when an item is purchased, it goes from the unpurchased section to the purchased section.

My takeaway from the situation: surprise gifts are not the greatest idea. If you have a list, you might want to check the purchased view every so often just in case, or keep track of the number of items that are supposed to be in the list. Givers, if you do choose to surprise your giftee, make sure they get the present. Check the tracking! If you haven't heard anything from the person by the end of the estimated delivery time, you might want to reach out to them, make sure they received it.

If you give anonymously and the person doesn't make a thank you post here, you can always create a throwaway and PM them, just to make sure they got it. That way you can keep a gift anonymous, but still make sure that the person actually got the gift.