Items aren't inspected deeply when they arrive. Fakes can get in.
Items that are misplaced and later found are presumed to be good- no quality checks opening the package. If the barcode scans, the system just adds it.
The picker, sorter, packer all do a quick quality check to see if the box is broken. They sure aren't opening it to see what's inside.
All that's left is the weight check as the package leaves the building. The putty the scammers use weighs exactly the right amount.
The only time the item might be checked for being correct is when it's returned. And they do that because a lot of scammers buy the real item and then send back a box full of putty.
My guess? Someone didn't do a complete check on a previous return- hey, associates have to make rate or they'll be fired, corners get cut. The fake got restowed, resold, and then the second time it was returned someone did a real check.
But rather, that at a very high level: Amazon knows perfectly well that a certain percentage of its customers are getting screwed over, just as it knows it could probably do a lot more internally to prevent this kind of stuff from happening. But having sat down and done a "rational" cost-benefit analysis -- it has calmly decided that it plainly doesn't care, as long as it thinks it can get away with it.
That's just the way the company is - from the highest levels down.
Wonder if there is a way to make them (CEO, CFO, someone high) to say that on the record? No one asks such questions in investor calls I guess (haven't attended myself btw) so the only other forums appear to be legal or congressional.
Why buy something there if the odds are higher retailer is scamming you, not the other way around?
I think stores like Walmart do the same thing for returns, most of the time I believe they just trust the customer, don't know what happens after though if they simply put it back in the isle if the packaging looks good.
Well the large bag was spotless, and the inside two were slightly scuffed with airline baggage tags still on them! Some enterprising person(s) had used Costco's generous return policy to take a trip and then return the baggage afterwards.
A thorough check, unfortunately, found no contraband or jewels left in the bags by their previous owners.
While it's true that they don't always have the best prices on everything, that's pretty much the exact opposite of my main gripe with Amazon. They pivoted into being a shitty bazaar.
Such a great way to put it. Amazon doesn’t care about the quality or reputation of the stuff they (through random foreign listings) sell. Unless you know ahead of time exactly what item you want, shopping on Amazon is just paying a premium to sift through the bargain bin.
I would definitely argue that you have to be more careful making purchases, but the retailer is clearly labeled. My complaint is that Amazon hides 3rd party ratings multiple steps past the original product listing.
I find it far less stressful shopping on sites with curated lists of products.
As much as I doubt it is very efficient, but it does seem efficient at bringing the brand value down (Amazon's, that is), if you turn it into a glorified eBay
If I compare to other stores, it depends on the deal you can find. I got lucky for getting a close out model of an AVR at Electronic Express that works perfectly.
I wish that could be the case with me, but I mostly order very specific items that I can't source locally (even in a large city) and need them ASAP. Amazon does that VERY well. I can order a weird camera accessory at 4pm and have it at my door at 7am the next day.
My experience has been largely the opposite. Amazon has pivoted to selling junk that now ships more slowly.
I still buy a lot of stuff from them, but am increasingly looking to competitors who actually curate their items.
Ordered some LEGO for Christmas. On arrival someone had opened the box, removed the LEGO, replaced it with other random LEGO pieces (to make up the weight?) and re-sealed it. This then, I suspect, got sent back out to a new customer without Amazon tracking that it was a previous return (or there is some other issue with their supply-chain).
Either way hurts confidence with Amazon, and if Amazon are going to accuse the next victim of return-fraud, that isn't ok. Amazon needs to start tracking previously returned items that get sent out again, so they can see the origin of the fraud.
Not that this necessarily helps this particular family which is in Canada. But that’s the way to deal with this kind of thing. The article appears to say that Amazon simply shrugged.
It is touching that the father says that they have been loyal customers. Like most big companies, Amazon doesn’t care about that, with their customers nor employees.
[1] https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/dealing-with-customers...
edit: Correct, but I found that the EU has a nice form to find the correct way to solve disputes, both national and cross-border: https://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr/main/?event=main.home.sel...
If any EU lawyers know, why is Denmark excluded? Have they opt-out of this?
Edit: even UK has this procedure (before their exit), so probably an explicit opt-out.
https://kahanelaw.com/alberta-provincial-court-process-under...
That is one possible way to respond.
Another useful response is getting the media to publish a story and give AMZN a little public shame. It helps pressure the company to "do the right thing."
Best of all, people don't need to choose only one!
> . . . loyal customers . . . Amazon doesn't care about that . . .
Makes for an even better bad publicity story, though, doesn't it?
This took place in Alberta so - https://albertacourts.ca/pc/areas-of-law/civil/claims
Why? Where I live Amazon has way better availability of products. The local stores might have a single model of anything I want while Amazon has dozens. If I'm looking for the best product that matches my requirements, I never check local stores because it's always a disappointment.
Maybe if it's a recurring purchase and the local store has a decent price (it doesn't need to be extremely better), I'll switch to buying from them. But that's rare.
They have dozens of low quality knock offs. If that's what you're looking for just buy direct from from ali or banngood.
It's sufficient for most things.
I tried to use it and everything idles for a week before shipping so I’ll probably stop buying even the basics from Amazon.
And something I’ve discovered: many many other stores have caught right up. Buying from Walmart or Canadian Tire or Home Depot is just as easy.
I’m so glad that blacklisting Amazon isn’t actually a sacrifice I thought it might be. Tells me that competition is still somewhat healthy.
This might be OP, or someone got the same exact fake card.
https://linustechtips.com/topic/1435830-did-i-receive-a-fake...
I've had 1 or 2 issues before (things late, wrong things etc) and all of them were handled nearly instantly and pleasantly, where I got the benefit of the doubt and left deeply satisfied.
Fast-forward to a week or so ago. I had a shipment coming in, paid extra for 2-day delivery. It was late, but I really needed it by a certain date because I was traveling after. First rep I got said they'd pull some strings to get it routed earlier, offered some refunded shipping etc. Awesome service like I was used to.
I looked later and the updated shipping wasn't shown, so I wasn't sure it went through. So I contacted again the next day and got... slightly less good service. They actually said the rerouting might happen, and maybe I could get a pickup, but to check again the next day if it moved. I contacted them a third time the next day and this was the worst service I had ever gotten. The rep said there was nothing to be done... no discount for inconvenience, no expedited shipping, no early pickup options, literally nothing. They actually even kept the chat open after we were done talking so I couldn't leave negative feedback. I was floored. After years of amazing service I couldn't believe it... it didn't even feel like the same company.
In the end, it did come early (looks like the first rep did what they promised, just took a while to show up) but in the meantime, contacting them several times about the same issue downgraded me to "not worth helping" customer status.
I've noticed (like others mentioned) that the quality of goods available on Amazon has downgraded significantly recently, so I suspect that means more people contact more frequently with issues.
Rather than interpreting it as a quality-of-goods problem, I suspect they've interpreted it as a quality-of-customer problem; that is, they've decided more and more customers have downgraded themselves from "generally good customer we should keep happy" to "customer who will complain about anything -- not worth keeping happy".
Let's hope they fix their algorithm.
Maybe I'll end up on Amazon, maybe not - they all can deliver quite fast and they all have to adhere to european minium return policy standards. So the handling of returns isn't something most customers ever have to think about.
Just to give an example here's the price comparison for a current AMD CPU: https://geizhals.de/amd-ryzen-7-7700x-100-100000591wof-a2801...
Don't you have anything similar over there?
B&H is the "new Newegg" for me, since Newegg decided to jump into the flea market business after Amazon.
Probably the last company you'd think of, but they have excellent service and return policy and you can trust them to be selling real stuff.
Not to mention the fact they're one of the only places that will sell you unlocked phones.
An iPhone, two iPads, a pixel 6 and an rtx3060 all ordered from them within the last 2 years.
(the marketplace model fundamentally fails for high end good that are easily faked and hard to verify... insurance (and self-insurance) can help somewhat but ultimately the math leads to "buyer beware"... e.g. eBay, etsy, etc. For this reason, we're seeing the rise of "hand verified" e-commerce for high end categories like collectible sneakers)
Look at Alexa as an example.. It has racked up substantial losses yet "Amazon" is profitable.
I've often heard that Amazon's retail devision isn't a big money maker?
I think people are seeing actions Amazon is taking to shore-up its retail side (less generous return policy, their "Free for all " market place, commingling inventory..).
But make no mistake, it's still record profit after record profit each year.
But I guess having this year's record profit be only slightly larger than last year's record profit means we need layoffs.
Where do you think all those organized shoplifters sell their inventory of stolen perfumes and deodorant?
Amazon!
I don't have prime anymore. Why would I?
It was absolutely destroyed in shipment. They accepted the return, but what a waste of my time, and now I can't trust anything remotely fragile to be shipped successfully from them.
This poor customer is actually paying the price of a scam played by someone earlier. You buy an expensive product, Amazon ships it noting the weight, then you replace the product with clay and "return" it back to Amazon who is none the wiser.
Then when this customer cries foul, Amazon has no way of knowing for certain whether this customer is the scammer, or whether it was a prior individual! So many crazy downstream implications of their "free" return policy, and of course it's usually the customer that foots the bill in the end.
[0] http://coryklein.com/2016/06/20/scammers-replacing-iphones-w...
I had to email ‘Jeff’ and threaten to sue Amazon as well, sent them an email with a mountain of evidence showing that I was obviously correct and explained that I would easily win at small claims court. I got my money back the next day with no further communication at all.
Not sure how many others have gone through that thought process or if the average consumer thinks about it even. With most stores offer instore/curbside pickup I wonder if it will eventually eat into any of Amazon's marketshare.
Amazon seems to be "leaning into" being a souk for counterfeit and scam merchandisers. They make a lot of money from it, and it appears as if they have not received enough brand damage to stop it.
I've had a couple of issues with receiving fake (or gray market) stuff from them, to the point, where I no longer go to Amazon for many purchases, and, instead, go directly to the manufacturer's sites (they may route me through their own Amazon store, though). I don't really care, if I spend a bit more. At least, I'll get what I paid for.
Now that I think about it, the same thing happened to me with some modular dewalt storage bins. The yellow dewalt logos are a different color on two of them and they are a little off in fit spec.
What a fascinating problem.
It is happening to so many people at the moment in the UK so stay away from Amazon. See here:
https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/23150437.uea-students-macbook-a...
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/man-ordered-569-i...
I’m never using them again after this experience. It has been an absolute nightmare. Joke of a company.
The reason for this was their bait and witch regarding their privacy policy and since then I have never bought anything from them.
This decision seems to be better by the day.
It wasn’t broken in an obvious way but when it maxed out the PC would just freeze every single time. Asked for a return handed it over to a random shop drop off point and they refunded $1000 right away before the item even went back.
When it arrived i realized what had taken place and tried to return it. Amazon charged me $20 for return shipping.
It was my mistake, exacerbated by amazon removing the item from my cart and offering a similar named item. I've used amazon for many years and only returned like 3 things in 10+ years and amazon always supplied a return shipping label.
Now they charge for it?
Adding insult to injury I ordered a replacement on Nov 24 and it wont get here until Dec 6 (originally Dec 12).
I could and should have just went to the local store, gotten the correct product which they have in stock for the same price and saved myself $20 and 2 weeks??
Without a clear contract regarding warranties, returns, etc., the buyer is subject to the whims of the seller.
(Modulo any consumer protection laws that weren't waived during sign up.)
They don’t do this anymore. I recently bought a hard drive and found the anti static bag was opened. When I returned it Amazon made it clear I would not get a refund until it was back at the warehouse. I dropped it at a Whole Foods return desk and got my refund days later.
If they're going to be fussy about it then I'd seriously consider elsewhere as I doubt their customer service is personal enough that it could resolve many issues.
Electronics + "product wasn't sealed" claim -> red flags for counterfeit washing.
Seems like a very heavy GPU, GeForce 4090 RTX, I suppose?
Reality for me has always been that Amazon is rather flawless on return policy (in the UK anyway!)
Amazon has a bad process for these cases and seems not interested in fixing it.
Worst off you email jeff@ or jassy@ and some executive assistant eventually picks it up.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/lawsuit-amazon-s...
I bought an iPhone 14 a while back and they 'lost' the first two times. Third attempt it finally arrived but they appeared to use a different delivery service
In the U.S., it is illegal for a retailer to send an unsolicited item and demand payment. This is not that case; you requested an item, they just sent the wrong one.
https://legalbeagle.com/13357033-law-regarding-receiving-a-s...
Here's a link for the U.S. state of Georgia but I would expect it to be the same in any state:
"When you receive promotional merchandise that you did not order, you have the right to keep it as a free gift. ..It is a different matter if the mailing you received was due to a mistake by the company. In these circumstances, Georgia law regarding “unjust enrichment” obligates you to return the item paid for by another customer. The company, however, will have to pay postage and handling or make arrangements to pick it up."
https://consumer.georgia.gov/consumer-topics/unordered-merch...
Amazon is being flooded with the cheapest of the cheapest stuff from China and alike. Either with ripoffs of well-known products or just 25 items which look the same but are from different "brands". Finding "good stuff" for a topic you don't know about is getting harder and harder.
Those items also aren't cheap though, I've found better quality items at a local store for nearly the same price. Lazyness just made me buy it quickly on Amazon, because I thought it was the easiest (as in "cheapest + fastest") way.
You also don't whether those items are good after all. Reviews are 50/50 mixed with people who were paid by the manufacturer for a positive review or by competitors who want to make a product look bad. My personal favorite for the last time probably was a "is this any good?" question where somebody responded with "I've made you a quick video" and posted a hiqh quality, advertisement video. These reviews and answers are so blatantly fake but there's no way to report them. Amazon doesn't care after all, too. So, the trust is gone.
Ok, but we'll receive the items quick and be able to judge them by ourselves then? No. Prime regularly takes 3-5 working days for me now. I don't know what thei problems is, but does anybody remember the times when you received a month of Prime for free if your item was not delivered on time? That's long gone.
Prime, at this point, is just "free shipping", nothing more.
2) by checking returns before reselling them.
Easy-peasy.
I remember buying a Google Nexus phone way back, having it delivered to my home. Only to find an empty box, someone had stolen it in transit.
All I did was report the theft to the police so I got a case number, then sent the case number to the vendor and a new phone was in my hands within a week. That's how socialist sweden works.
Always buy electronics from a reputable retailer like B&H Photo or Target. Amazon or NewEgg are not trustworthy.
That has everything to do with whether it was Amazon themselves denying the return, or the seller themselves.
When dealing with things shipped directly from the seller, you're going to have to deal with them directly for returns. I almost never buy like this because I like having Amazon's return policy to fall back on. If they start denying me, I'll definitely start looking for another store to buy from that has a better policy.
Source (German): https://www.mydealz.de/diskussion/betrug-bei-amazon-2012851
https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/business-gui...
Search for "unordered merchandise" on that page. Also see "Substitutions"
As I said, I am not a lawyer, but I've always took that to mean if I order X and receive Y then I received Y for free. The company that sent me Y still owes me X and I have zero obligation to return Y. I never asked for Y, it's unordered merchandise.
So, if I ordered a PS5 and the send me a PS4 I get to keep the PS4, they still owe me a PS5. I ordered a 256gig iPhone and they send me a 128gig iPhone they still owe me a 256gig iPhone and the 128gig iPhone is mine to keep.
Now of course if I don't return the item, at their expense, they may refuse to do business with me in the future but at least as far as I can tell the wrong item is not what I ordered, therefore it is an unordered item. They still have the obligation to provide the item ordered or refund the money, and I have zero obligaton to return the unordered item.
I am also not a lawyer, but I am pretty sure it does not apply when you do order something and there is just a mistake about the details.
