7 ms·

Amazon shipped fake product, refuses refund until 'correct' item returned

251 points by liamk 4y ago

Alex3917 4y ago
Amazon did the same thing to me recently. They shipped me the wrong socks, and are refusing the refund the money unless I send back the ones they sent me, despite the fact that it's blatantly illegal in the U.S. for a company to force you to return something mailed to you that you didn't order.
- AzzieElbab 4y ago
  Out of curiosity, can you describe how that happened? I always get refunds from them as soon as items are shipped back, before amz actually receive them.
  - geodel 4y ago
    Well, this person is saying they do not want to return back received wrong item as it is not their mistake and want the correct product be shipped. So quite clearly different case from you.
    - AzzieElbab 4y ago
      My bad. I misread their post but honestly wouldn’t have imagined myself trying to keep both the item and the money
- nulbyte 4y ago
  If you placed the order, and the wrong item was sent to fulfill your order, you can be required to return it. That's not an unsolicited package. 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-shipment-that-was-not-ordered.html https://legalbeagle.com/13357033-law-regarding-receiving-a-s...
- 6LLvveMx2koXfwn 4y ago
  So to push this to absurd dimensions, if Amazon sent you a Tesla instead of a paper clip due to some erroneous internal process, you could keep the Tesla and still demand Amazon send you the paper clip?
- anotherman554 4y ago
  I doubt you are correct that you don't have to return it. If the item was sent to you by mistake then the law requires you to return it under the legal theory of unjust enrichment. You can only keep it if the unsolicited item was sent to you intentionally. 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-merchandise https://consumer.georgia.gov/consumer-topics/unordered-merch...
CaptainZapp 4y ago
I put Amazon on my eternal shit list a very long time ago, when they only sold books. 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.
LatteLazy 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago
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- jacquesm 4y ago
  Actually, there is. The idea here is that even though one party is immense that they should be able to get away with dishonest business practices is abhorrent and it serves a purpose to point this out in places where there are lots of eyeballs. For one it helps to warn people that this stuff could happen to their order too, for another it may help to bring together people that have had similar things happen to them so that they can take collective action, which stands a much better chances of being effective. Keep in mind that companies the size of Amazon are sensitive to their reputation and to statistics and as along as you are an isolated case they will not change their processes or attitude but there is a lot of strength in numbers.
  - zinekeller 4y ago
    Yes, GP is simply incorrect to imply otherwise. I understand errors or misunderstandings that were subsequently rectified, but as long as Amazon et al. treat this as cost-of-doing-business it'll be simply be a disservice not to point problems such as this article explains. An edit: > Edit: I guess the people have spoken. Top 10 issues in tech today includes amazon not refunding this one guy... Again, it'll be reasonable for you to not value this article because you believe that this happens everyday both in Amazon and non-Amazon enterprises, but in my personal opinion the fact that they have bothered a major news organisation knowing that if they've stated is a lie would be judged to be unreliable (both legally and by the public) is an effort too much to simply ignore. For me, it says a lot to the quality of support that Amazon has given on edge-cases and to remind myself that a good company five years ago doesn't necessarily meant that it is good now.
  - LatteLazy 4y ago
gumby 4y ago
In every US state there are small claims courts for precisely these issues. 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.
- jonathanstrange 4y ago
  There is also a little known EU small claims court.[1] It costs 200 Euro and no lawyer to submit a case, and you get the 200 Euro back when the case is successful. [1] https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/dealing-with-customers/solving-disputes/european-small-claims-procedure/index_en.htm https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/dealing-with-customers...
  - zinekeller 4y ago
    > in any EU country except for Denmark 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.
    - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
      Could be. AFAIK, Denmark has several opt-outs on EU laws, just like UK had.
    - kawsper 4y ago
      It doesn't really say why, I'd like to know as well. > In accordance with Articles 1 and 2 of the Protocol on the position of Denmark annexed to the Treaty on European Union and to the Treaty establishing the European Community, Denmark does not take part in the adoption of this Regulation and is not bound by it or subject to its application, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A02007R0861-20130701 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A...
donatj 4y ago
I had a similar experience ordering the original Xbox Elite controller. In the case was a very beaten up standard controller someone must have returned in its place. I reported it and thankfully they took it back without issue.
whywhywhywhy 4y ago
One of the best things about Amazon has always been their returns. They shipped me a faulty GPU (actually I suspect it might have broken when the delivery guy slammed the box down after refusing my help carrying it up the stairs when I saw him struggling) 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.
- ViViDboarder 4y ago
  > $1000 right away before the item even went back. 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.
  - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
    I suspect it's product category dependent. I returned a glorified car battery charger last week and got the $$ minutes after UPS scanned it in. Electronics + "product wasn't sealed" claim -> red flags for counterfeit washing.
  - whywhywhywhy 4y ago
    Disappointing, the attitude they used to have is one of the reasons why I'd buy all tech products I could through them. 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.
- kennend3 4y ago
  I accidentlly bought the wrong thing the other day. It was in my cart and amazon removed it as it was no longer available from the seller and 'recommended' something else, same price, very similiar name. 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??
dismalpedigree 4y ago
Comingled inventory FTW! As a vendor, Why send in the real product to FBA when i can send a fake one and get paid the same amount? It even lets me undercut on price!
- deleted 4y ago
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- valdiorn 4y ago
  Or stolen products. Where do you think all those organized shoplifters sell their inventory of stolen perfumes and deodorant? Amazon!
  - dismalpedigree 4y ago
    Great point. If only there were a huge tech company willing to hand over shady vendors the way it hands over video footage from customer cameras
Johann2 4y ago
Happened to me - was buying a warehouse deal used Apple TV 4k, have gotten an old "normal" HD version instead. After sending it back, they said its an old version and recycled it. Had no chance to get my money back nor the apple tv back.
S0und 4y ago
Looking at the video, this is a fake, 3d printed PCB This might be OP, or someone got the same exact fake card. https://linustechtips.com/topic/1435830-did-i-receive-a-fake-gpu-or-im-missing-something-obvious-zotac-rtx-3060-ti/ https://linustechtips.com/topic/1435830-did-i-receive-a-fake...
shanebellone 4y ago
I've spent ~100k on Amazon and have been a Prime member since introduction. Last month, I canceled my membership and stopped using Amazon altogether. I've never had a problem returning product. But Amazon pivoted from a discount retailer to a premium retailer of convenience. In some cases, products are 3-4x the price of local retailers. I'd rather spend the money locally than pay a premium to Amazon.
- thfuran 4y ago
  >But Amazon pivoted from a discount retailer to a premium retailer of convenience. 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.
  - the_snooze 4y ago
    > 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.
    - calvinmorrison 4y ago
      The biggest indicator missing is value. Like, 5 stars for a 30 dollar vacuum pump... if it works a few times I would give it five stars. For a 300 dollar one. It better pull the needed mmhg perfectly and work for years. There's a use case for both
    - leeter 4y ago
      If I have to buy something on Amazon I've gone out of my way to make sure I'm buying from them directly lately. Too many issues with them pulling crap like this when it's a third party seller. But by forcing them to be the seller I force them to also be subject for that transaction to my state's consumer protection act. That seems to cause them to care more because suddenly they are on the hook because they are not just the marketplace.
culopatin 4y ago
Was it sold by Amazon or a third party? The only times I had issues with returns was with third parties
- fmajid 4y ago
  Doesn't matter. Amazon commingles the inventory so you might get a fraudulent product from a third-party seller even if you buy from Amazon itself. Always buy electronics from a reputable retailer like B&H Photo or Target. Amazon or NewEgg are not trustworthy.
  - wccrawford 4y ago
    Sure, you might get a fraudulent product either way. But that's not the problem here. The problem here is that they couldn't return the product and get their money back. And the scam itself caused that situation. That has everything to do with whether it was Amazon themselves denying the return, or the seller themselves.
- wccrawford 4y ago
  I'm not sure why you're getting downvoted. Returns for Amazon-fulfilled items have been awesome for me, even when it's something like this where they sent the wrong product or even no product. I once received an empty bag. No problem, they refunded me and I bought another. 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.
  - culopatin 4y ago
    I’m not sure, perhaps my post was too empty, I had just woken up when I posted. I couldn’t find the distinction in the article, but returning to third parties is never so easy. Understandably so, though. A smaller business doesn’t want to be scammed either. I had a friend try Amazon after selling on his site and eBay for a long time and he lost thousands to returns that had been damaged during install or just returned a rock.
INTPenis 4y ago
Power to the corporations. 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.
antihero 4y ago
Just FYI if this happens to you email jeff@amazon.com and it gets sorted in a few weeks. Happened to my despite being a long time customer with over £20k orders.
- dmd 4y ago
  1% of people who do that get it addressed, and tell everyone else it works. 99% of people never get the slightest response. Same for any other "email the CEO" address.
- mozman 4y ago
  I bought a fake camera lens and Amazon refused a refund. I charged it back and that was that.
- cjbgkagh 4y ago
  “He threatened to sue for $10,000 and received a full refund the next day” from the article about someone else dealing with Amazon. 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.
grej 4y ago
Don’t ever buy any high end electronics from Amazon. The counterfeit issues are rampant, and for the high end stuff they won’t take the fake back.
- fmajid 4y ago
  Don't buy anything involving electricity or that you put on or in your body. At least this fake video card didn't burn down their house, unlike other Amazon-sold counterfeit products they also try to wash their hands of liability for.
- lunarplague 4y ago
  Where am I supposed to buy electronics online? I live 2 hours away from the nearest Microcenter, and newegg is also a nogo.
  - PenguinCoder 4y ago
    I have had great experiences with B&H photo - https://www.bhphotovideo.com/ https://www.bhphotovideo.com/
    - kup0 4y ago
      This is where I try to buy most of my electronic equipment now. The shipping is quite fast to my location (faster than Amazon Prime) and the prices are usually pretty competitive.
    - ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
      B&H is excellent. I also tend to go directly to manufacturer sites. They may actually use Amazon for fulfillment, but you can be assured that the product you get, is real. I generally don't go for extremely reduced prices. I find that it is way too easy for scammers to take advantage of us, not paying too much attention to something we get at a good price. Every. Single. Time. that I've gotten a "great deal" on something, it has turned out to be fake. I have a pair of "Nike" shoes at home, that I got from Amazon, and are obvious counterfeits. I still have the original Pegasus 30 shoes, that I got at a local store, over ten years ago, and they are fine. The soles got flat, which was why I wanted to get new ones, but the shoes still work fine, and the padding is still good. The "Nikes" that I brought from Amazon, a few years ago, crapped out, after just three or four months. They actually cracked, and I tried out a couple of other types of sneakers, over the last few years. Nike has discontinued the Pegasus 30s, so I switched to New Balance sneakers, and I got these directly from the NB web site.
kleiba 4y ago
A friend of mine recently ordered a Chromebook which was on sale during the black friday week. Some days later, he gets a message from Amazon that the computer got "lost in the mail", but they refuse to send him a new device for the same price.
- danuker 4y ago
  Did he get money back at least? If not, you'd be surprised "small claims" can be up to $25k in some states.
  - kleiba 4y ago
    I believe he did.
BlueTemplar 4y ago
At least this time they didn't suffer any injuries because of it : https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/lawsuit-amazon-sold-eclipse-glasses-that-cause-permanent-blindness/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/lawsuit-amazon-s...
dgreensp 4y ago
At the start of the article it cites Amazon’s “declining profits,” but later it says Amazon’s $386 billion a year in profits is growing at a slowing pace and might start growing by less than 20% year over year. What hardship.
- croes 4y ago
  Just remember, for companies less profit growth is equivalent with less profit
- kennend3 4y ago
  I think by "declining profits" they are referencing a specific line of business, not "Amazon" proper. 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..).
- luckylion 4y ago
  They've mistaken net sales for profit. If Amazon had a profit of $386bn last year, I'd expected their market cap to be more then $960bn.
- malfist 4y ago
  It's a misnomer. Amazon has declining profit _growth_. Meaning our profit grew less last year less than it grew the year before. 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.
deleted 4y ago
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eganist 4y ago
I've recorded every Amazon unboxing (including a full recording around every angle of the unopened shipping box) I've done for every large ($100+) purchase I made with Amazon for years when I first heard claims like this arise, and it actually proved fruitful when Amazon shipped me a counterfeit 2080 Super mid pandemic. They refused to believe me until I sent an unlisted YouTube link of the unboxing. I don't have prime anymore. Why would I?
- deleted 4y ago
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bigcloud1299 4y ago
Something similar happened to me in 2000 on eBay. I was 16. Entering college and bought a desktop computer from eBay. I got a case with nothing inside. eBay didn’t do anything to help. Never shopped with them since.
_raoulcousins 4y ago
Anything that I buy from a Facebook group or something similar over $x, I set up a camera and record myself opening the product. Anything that I sell over $x, I record evidence of packing and shipping. I don't really have a set value for x, but it's definitely under $690. That might not have made a difference with Amazon, but it can't hurt.
Waterluvian 4y ago
I cancelled my membership a few weeks ago. It’s even more annoying now. So many ads. So many new steps where it asks you to upgrade. 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.
robofanatic 4y ago
I used to go to a local brick and mortar store and checkout a product and order it from Amazon. These days I go to a store and go to Amazon to check reviews and then buy it from the store. How tables have turned for Amazon.
- gtirloni 4y ago
  > These days I go to a store and go to Amazon to check reviews and then buy it from the store. 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.
  - SkyPuncher 4y ago
    Most stores can get me what I need within a day or two. Either by pickup from the store or last-mile shipping to my door. It's sufficient for most things.
    - krolden 4y ago
      And some of them will even do price matching.
  - robofanatic 4y ago
    well if I don't find what I want in the store I go for Amazon. Also where I live, lately Amazon has some logistics problems like delayed delivery, lost/stolen packages, delivery to wrong address etc. last week a delivery guy was going around our neighborhood in the early morning hours in dark with a flash light. someone literally called a cop on him :-)
  - discardedrefuse 4y ago
    > while Amazon has dozens They have dozens of low quality knock offs. If that's what you're looking for just buy direct from from ali or banngood.
mabbo 4y ago
Having spent many years in "Outbound" of Amazon Fulfillment, I'm skeptical that Amazon would ever know that they didn't send a fake item. 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.
- MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
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  - deleted 4y ago
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- akhmatova 4y ago
  Excellent analysis. But the issue here isn't that someone made a mistake somewhere. 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.
  - kshacker 4y ago
    > But rather, that at a very high level: Amazon knows perfectly well that a certain percentage of its customers are getting screwed over 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.
dingdingdang 4y ago
I can see how the shitshow commenced though. Instead of contacting Amazon via chat and providing a few photos to document the process the family did a regular return which off was in turn picked up as fraudulent.. No one's fault in particular but annoying situation for sure!! Reality for me has always been that Amazon is rather flawless on return policy (in the UK anyway!)
- aylons 4y ago
  When you're making a return, Amazon has a field that allows you to say that the product delivered does not match the purchase (the wording is not quite that, and they have a few variants). I don't feel like there's a need for a chat if the form already allows me to say that and do not require sending any pictures. They could follow up if they felt the need, before issuing the return code. Amazon has a bad process for these cases and seems not interested in fixing it.
- kotaKat 4y ago
  Yeah. The automated return process is going to try to force you to mail things back. If you can force your way through their byzantine process that hides trying to get to a human behind a chatbot, you can eventually make your way to the proper humans that will actually issue a refund. Worst off you email jeff@ or jassy@ and some executive assistant eventually picks it up.
kup0 4y ago
They shipped me an LED bulb... in a padded envelope 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.
i_dont_know_ 4y ago
I strongly suspect prioritized handling or some other points-based system that classifies customers and the quality of care they 'deserve'. 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.
pronlover723 4y ago
I am not a lawyer but in the USA at least, if I understand correctly, if someone sends you something didn't request it's yours to keep for free https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/business-guide-ftcs-mail-internet-or-telephone-order-merchandise-rule 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.
- brazzy 4y ago
  The point of that law is to shut down scams where companies send you stuff without you ording anything (or, in most cases, ever having heard from them) and then demand payment. 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.
  - pronlover723 4y ago
    How do you know it was a mistake? The same incentives apply. They might be sending you the wrong thing on purpose, hoping you won't notice, so the law is there to prevent that.
    - anotherman554 4y ago
      Here's a post from the legal advice reddit suggesting your understanding of the law is so off point that a person can be charged with larceny for listening to you: https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/68phvf/comment/dh0gkvn/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/68phvf/comment...
ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
I completely believe that story. 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.
dncornholio 4y ago
Question, how could Amazon protect itself from customers buying and receiving a real GPU and sending back a fake one?
- digitalcancer 4y ago
  1) By banning commingling and otherwise making sure that they are not shipping out fakes to begin with. 2) by checking returns before reselling them. Easy-peasy.
sn_master 4y ago
Unrelated, but does anyone know someone in Amazon? I was searching for something and ended up finding many firearm accessories very clearly intentionally mislabeled, and at suspiciously low prices (less than 1/5 of retail price at a normal gun store) that they're either of dubious and unsafe quality, or stolen.
infecto 4y ago
Recently cancelled my prime membership. Not a huge expense in the grand scheme of things but I could no longer justify the cost for only expedited shipping. Have also tried to cut back on my spending on amazon with sheer amount of crap that gets sold on the platform at elevated prices. Definetly had me thinking about my own level of consumerism and realizing there was just no need for that level of Amazon in my life. 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.
martin_a 4y ago
Amazon Prime has become a prime (haha) example of how capitalism is failing. It's not the best price, it's not faster anymore, it's not good quality and you can't trust anybody. 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.
- paywallasinbeer 4y ago
  Could you explain why this is an example of capitalism failing and not just an example of a business (Amazon retail) starting to fail?
  - martin_a 4y ago
    If Amazon is not "peak-capitalism" through and through, what else is? If they don't get these things right, who can, who will?
    - paywallasinbeer 4y ago
      Another, more efficient, business. Plenty of other extremely large businesses have failed in the past and been usurped.
Someone1234 4y ago
Just this week Amazon shipped me a tempered with product similar to the one in the article (although $21 not almost $700). Shipped and sold on Amazon, and then rejected my review where I warned others and provided photos (actually both of the last two, negative, reviews I've tried to post got rejected). 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.
- lakomen 4y ago
  That's the next thing, they outright reject negative reviews. They even share your contact info with the seller, so your review isn't anonymous at all. I got harassed via email by a seller once because I gave him a negative review. The USB hub I bought was brittle and broke after the warranty period.
chrisgd 4y ago
Curious what a credit card chargeback would accomplish, I have had mixed results with that
- greedo 4y ago
  Wouldn't Amazon just cancel your account?
cft 4y ago
Ebay is not better. I was in Spain and our servers were in a datacenter in the States. One of the HDDs in RAID1 failed, and the array was in the critical state on our master DB. It was critical correcting this failure as soon as possible. I ordered a new HDD from ebay from a seller with 100% positive feedback directly to the datacenter and organized remote hands there to install it. When RAID rebuilt, smartctl showed that the HDD has more than 40k powered on hours. I am afraid the days if high trust society, where services like ebay could function, are over.
alexhjones 4y ago
A few months back I ordered an Xbox Series X from Amazon but a large box arrived with nothing but some plastic picnic forks in it. Luckily I managed to get the driver to pose for a selfie with the box showing there was no Xbox. In this case I think they had sold out and decided to ship "something" instead of cancel the order as they didn't even ask for photo proof that the box was empty.
lakomen 4y ago
I had something similar happen to me in Germany. A FireTV stick LAN cable adapter, which didn't work. I returned both the Ftv stick and the adapter in the same package. The stick was marked as received, the adapter wasn't. I wrote then 4 times. No response. The 5th time I wrote an angry mail threatening to go to the police. Literally the next day I received an apology email that it was a mistake on their end. At least it was resolved. But the nerves it cost me... no compensation for that. I don't appreciate being called a fraud.
stuntkite 4y ago
I use this fancy 3M “Velcro” called Dual Lock a lot. It’s expensive but awesome. I order it from 3M on Amazon. In 2020 about half of the time it was counterfeit. The adhesive was slimy, stank, and would fuck up anything you put it on. The packaging varied widely. I never tried to return it, I just kind of collected them. 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.
Merad 4y ago
Some of Amazon's policies are real head scratchers. Last year I bought a high end ultrawide monitor from them. I believe I paid about $1500 for it originally. Two or three days after it arrived, it went on sale for about $300 less. IME most companies have a policy in the fine print where if an item goes on sale less than a week after purchase they'll refund the difference, if you ask. So I contact Amazon support. The agent insisted that no refund was possible but that I should return the monitor for a refund and order a new one at the lower price. It boggled my mind so much that I asked them explicitly if they understand that they'd be paying for return shipping (at least $50 given the size and weight of the monitor), they'd be getting back an open box item that would lose probably 20-30% of its value, and I'd get back the $300. They said yeah, that was just how the system worked...
- elexhobby 4y ago
  FWIW I've been told similar by Costco too, so Amazon isn't unique in this respect. My guess is that it adds some friction to the process. Refunding money is a purely digital activity, while refunding requires to you go and ship it, wait for the new item to arrive, etc, so you won't do it unless the savings are worth the time investment.
  - vegadw 4y ago
    I suspect this is the case, but IMHO the practice should be illegal. If you accept returns for the purpose of price reduction you should just do the price reduction directly, both for the sake of the environmental cost and as a matter of treating consumers decently.
wdb 4y ago
I like to record a video when I am opening parcels that a contain a valuable product to try to avoid these kind of discussions. Worked once with Amazon 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
coryfklein 4y ago
Wow this is still happening? I actually wrote about a similar phenomenon of replacing iPhones with clay back in 2016 and apparently Amazon still hasn't figured out a way to stop this. 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-with-clay.html http://coryklein.com/2016/06/20/scammers-replacing-iphones-w...
thedanishdev 4y ago
This happened to me. Bought AirPods Pro a couple of months back for £250. I received a cheap garbage speaker worth ~£10. I spent ridiculous amount of stress and time trying to get it sorted with Amazon to no avail. Amazon kept telling me to return the AirPods I never received. It was the fourth Apple product I bought from Amazon in twelve months yet they still refused to help me after they had delivered me the wrong item. 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-amazon-order-replaced-weetabix/ https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/23150437.uea-students-macbook-a... https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/man-ordered-569-ipad-amazon-25351207.amp 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.
jsnelgro 4y ago
I had a very similar experience except it was a 1st gen MS surface book packaged in a 2nd box. They look nearly identical. Spent months getting gaslighted by Amazon support. My coworker who'd previously worked at Amazon Fulfillment suggested I email jeff@amazon.com directly. The case was picked up by a higher-level CS rep and they reversed the charges. No apology or concessions for the horrible experience otherwise. I truly hate this company.

251 points by liamk 4y ago

Amazon did the same thing to me recently. They shipped me the wrong socks, and are refusing the refund the money unless I send back the ones they sent me, despite the fact that it's blatantly illegal in the U.S. for a company to force you to return something mailed to you that you didn't order.

AzzieElbab 4y ago
Out of curiosity, can you describe how that happened? I always get refunds from them as soon as items are shipped back, before amz actually receive them.
- geodel 4y ago
  Well, this person is saying they do not want to return back received wrong item as it is not their mistake and want the correct product be shipped. So quite clearly different case from you.
  - AzzieElbab 4y ago
    My bad. I misread their post but honestly wouldn’t have imagined myself trying to keep both the item and the money
nulbyte 4y ago
If you placed the order, and the wrong item was sent to fulfill your order, you can be required to return it. That's not an unsolicited package. 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-shipment-that-was-not-ordered.html https://legalbeagle.com/13357033-law-regarding-receiving-a-s...
6LLvveMx2koXfwn 4y ago
So to push this to absurd dimensions, if Amazon sent you a Tesla instead of a paper clip due to some erroneous internal process, you could keep the Tesla and still demand Amazon send you the paper clip?
anotherman554 4y ago
I doubt you are correct that you don't have to return it. If the item was sent to you by mistake then the law requires you to return it under the legal theory of unjust enrichment. You can only keep it if the unsolicited item was sent to you intentionally. 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-merchandise https://consumer.georgia.gov/consumer-topics/unordered-merch...

CaptainZapp 4y ago

I put Amazon on my eternal shit list a very long time ago, when they only sold books. 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.

LatteLazy 4y ago

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jacquesm 4y ago
Actually, there is. The idea here is that even though one party is immense that they should be able to get away with dishonest business practices is abhorrent and it serves a purpose to point this out in places where there are lots of eyeballs. For one it helps to warn people that this stuff could happen to their order too, for another it may help to bring together people that have had similar things happen to them so that they can take collective action, which stands a much better chances of being effective. Keep in mind that companies the size of Amazon are sensitive to their reputation and to statistics and as along as you are an isolated case they will not change their processes or attitude but there is a lot of strength in numbers.
- zinekeller 4y ago
  Yes, GP is simply incorrect to imply otherwise. I understand errors or misunderstandings that were subsequently rectified, but as long as Amazon et al. treat this as cost-of-doing-business it'll be simply be a disservice not to point problems such as this article explains. An edit: > Edit: I guess the people have spoken. Top 10 issues in tech today includes amazon not refunding this one guy... Again, it'll be reasonable for you to not value this article because you believe that this happens everyday both in Amazon and non-Amazon enterprises, but in my personal opinion the fact that they have bothered a major news organisation knowing that if they've stated is a lie would be judged to be unreliable (both legally and by the public) is an effort too much to simply ignore. For me, it says a lot to the quality of support that Amazon has given on edge-cases and to remind myself that a good company five years ago doesn't necessarily meant that it is good now.
- LatteLazy 4y ago

gumby 4y ago

In every US state there are small claims courts for precisely these issues. 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.

jonathanstrange 4y ago
There is also a little known EU small claims court.[1] It costs 200 Euro and no lawyer to submit a case, and you get the 200 Euro back when the case is successful. [1] https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/dealing-with-customers/solving-disputes/european-small-claims-procedure/index_en.htm https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/dealing-with-customers...
- zinekeller 4y ago
  > in any EU country except for Denmark 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.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    Could be. AFAIK, Denmark has several opt-outs on EU laws, just like UK had.
  - kawsper 4y ago
    It doesn't really say why, I'd like to know as well. > In accordance with Articles 1 and 2 of the Protocol on the position of Denmark annexed to the Treaty on European Union and to the Treaty establishing the European Community, Denmark does not take part in the adoption of this Regulation and is not bound by it or subject to its application, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A02007R0861-20130701 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A...

donatj 4y ago

I had a similar experience ordering the original Xbox Elite controller. In the case was a very beaten up standard controller someone must have returned in its place. I reported it and thankfully they took it back without issue.

whywhywhywhy 4y ago

One of the best things about Amazon has always been their returns. They shipped me a faulty GPU (actually I suspect it might have broken when the delivery guy slammed the box down after refusing my help carrying it up the stairs when I saw him struggling) 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.

ViViDboarder 4y ago
> $1000 right away before the item even went back. 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.
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  I suspect it's product category dependent. I returned a glorified car battery charger last week and got the $$ minutes after UPS scanned it in. Electronics + "product wasn't sealed" claim -> red flags for counterfeit washing.
- whywhywhywhy 4y ago
  Disappointing, the attitude they used to have is one of the reasons why I'd buy all tech products I could through them. 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.
kennend3 4y ago
I accidentlly bought the wrong thing the other day. It was in my cart and amazon removed it as it was no longer available from the seller and 'recommended' something else, same price, very similiar name. 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??

dismalpedigree 4y ago

Comingled inventory FTW! As a vendor, Why send in the real product to FBA when i can send a fake one and get paid the same amount? It even lets me undercut on price!

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valdiorn 4y ago
Or stolen products. Where do you think all those organized shoplifters sell their inventory of stolen perfumes and deodorant? Amazon!
- dismalpedigree 4y ago
  Great point. If only there were a huge tech company willing to hand over shady vendors the way it hands over video footage from customer cameras

Johann2 4y ago

Happened to me - was buying a warehouse deal used Apple TV 4k, have gotten an old "normal" HD version instead. After sending it back, they said its an old version and recycled it. Had no chance to get my money back nor the apple tv back.

S0und 4y ago

Looking at the video, this is a fake, 3d printed PCB This might be OP, or someone got the same exact fake card. https://linustechtips.com/topic/1435830-did-i-receive-a-fake-gpu-or-im-missing-something-obvious-zotac-rtx-3060-ti/ https://linustechtips.com/topic/1435830-did-i-receive-a-fake...

shanebellone 4y ago

I've spent ~100k on Amazon and have been a Prime member since introduction. Last month, I canceled my membership and stopped using Amazon altogether. I've never had a problem returning product. But Amazon pivoted from a discount retailer to a premium retailer of convenience. In some cases, products are 3-4x the price of local retailers. I'd rather spend the money locally than pay a premium to Amazon.

thfuran 4y ago
>But Amazon pivoted from a discount retailer to a premium retailer of convenience. 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.
- the_snooze 4y ago
  > 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.
  - calvinmorrison 4y ago
    The biggest indicator missing is value. Like, 5 stars for a 30 dollar vacuum pump... if it works a few times I would give it five stars. For a 300 dollar one. It better pull the needed mmhg perfectly and work for years. There's a use case for both
  - leeter 4y ago
    If I have to buy something on Amazon I've gone out of my way to make sure I'm buying from them directly lately. Too many issues with them pulling crap like this when it's a third party seller. But by forcing them to be the seller I force them to also be subject for that transaction to my state's consumer protection act. That seems to cause them to care more because suddenly they are on the hook because they are not just the marketplace.

culopatin 4y ago

Was it sold by Amazon or a third party? The only times I had issues with returns was with third parties

fmajid 4y ago
Doesn't matter. Amazon commingles the inventory so you might get a fraudulent product from a third-party seller even if you buy from Amazon itself. Always buy electronics from a reputable retailer like B&H Photo or Target. Amazon or NewEgg are not trustworthy.
- wccrawford 4y ago
  Sure, you might get a fraudulent product either way. But that's not the problem here. The problem here is that they couldn't return the product and get their money back. And the scam itself caused that situation. That has everything to do with whether it was Amazon themselves denying the return, or the seller themselves.
wccrawford 4y ago
I'm not sure why you're getting downvoted. Returns for Amazon-fulfilled items have been awesome for me, even when it's something like this where they sent the wrong product or even no product. I once received an empty bag. No problem, they refunded me and I bought another. 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.
- culopatin 4y ago
  I’m not sure, perhaps my post was too empty, I had just woken up when I posted. I couldn’t find the distinction in the article, but returning to third parties is never so easy. Understandably so, though. A smaller business doesn’t want to be scammed either. I had a friend try Amazon after selling on his site and eBay for a long time and he lost thousands to returns that had been damaged during install or just returned a rock.

INTPenis 4y ago

Power to the corporations. 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.

antihero 4y ago

Just FYI if this happens to you email jeff@amazon.com and it gets sorted in a few weeks. Happened to my despite being a long time customer with over £20k orders.

dmd 4y ago
1% of people who do that get it addressed, and tell everyone else it works. 99% of people never get the slightest response. Same for any other "email the CEO" address.
mozman 4y ago
I bought a fake camera lens and Amazon refused a refund. I charged it back and that was that.
cjbgkagh 4y ago
“He threatened to sue for $10,000 and received a full refund the next day” from the article about someone else dealing with Amazon. 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.

grej 4y ago

Don’t ever buy any high end electronics from Amazon. The counterfeit issues are rampant, and for the high end stuff they won’t take the fake back.

fmajid 4y ago
Don't buy anything involving electricity or that you put on or in your body. At least this fake video card didn't burn down their house, unlike other Amazon-sold counterfeit products they also try to wash their hands of liability for.
lunarplague 4y ago
Where am I supposed to buy electronics online? I live 2 hours away from the nearest Microcenter, and newegg is also a nogo.
- PenguinCoder 4y ago
  I have had great experiences with B&H photo - https://www.bhphotovideo.com/ https://www.bhphotovideo.com/
  - kup0 4y ago
    This is where I try to buy most of my electronic equipment now. The shipping is quite fast to my location (faster than Amazon Prime) and the prices are usually pretty competitive.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
    B&H is excellent. I also tend to go directly to manufacturer sites. They may actually use Amazon for fulfillment, but you can be assured that the product you get, is real. I generally don't go for extremely reduced prices. I find that it is way too easy for scammers to take advantage of us, not paying too much attention to something we get at a good price. Every. Single. Time. that I've gotten a "great deal" on something, it has turned out to be fake. I have a pair of "Nike" shoes at home, that I got from Amazon, and are obvious counterfeits. I still have the original Pegasus 30 shoes, that I got at a local store, over ten years ago, and they are fine. The soles got flat, which was why I wanted to get new ones, but the shoes still work fine, and the padding is still good. The "Nikes" that I brought from Amazon, a few years ago, crapped out, after just three or four months. They actually cracked, and I tried out a couple of other types of sneakers, over the last few years. Nike has discontinued the Pegasus 30s, so I switched to New Balance sneakers, and I got these directly from the NB web site.

kleiba 4y ago

A friend of mine recently ordered a Chromebook which was on sale during the black friday week. Some days later, he gets a message from Amazon that the computer got "lost in the mail", but they refuse to send him a new device for the same price.

danuker 4y ago
Did he get money back at least? If not, you'd be surprised "small claims" can be up to $25k in some states.
- kleiba 4y ago
  I believe he did.

BlueTemplar 4y ago

At least this time they didn't suffer any injuries because of it : https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/lawsuit-amazon-sold-eclipse-glasses-that-cause-permanent-blindness/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/08/lawsuit-amazon-s...

dgreensp 4y ago

At the start of the article it cites Amazon’s “declining profits,” but later it says Amazon’s $386 billion a year in profits is growing at a slowing pace and might start growing by less than 20% year over year. What hardship.

croes 4y ago
Just remember, for companies less profit growth is equivalent with less profit
kennend3 4y ago
I think by "declining profits" they are referencing a specific line of business, not "Amazon" proper. 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..).
luckylion 4y ago
They've mistaken net sales for profit. If Amazon had a profit of $386bn last year, I'd expected their market cap to be more then $960bn.
malfist 4y ago
It's a misnomer. Amazon has declining profit _growth_. Meaning our profit grew less last year less than it grew the year before. 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.

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eganist 4y ago

I've recorded every Amazon unboxing (including a full recording around every angle of the unopened shipping box) I've done for every large ($100+) purchase I made with Amazon for years when I first heard claims like this arise, and it actually proved fruitful when Amazon shipped me a counterfeit 2080 Super mid pandemic. They refused to believe me until I sent an unlisted YouTube link of the unboxing. I don't have prime anymore. Why would I?

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bigcloud1299 4y ago

Something similar happened to me in 2000 on eBay. I was 16. Entering college and bought a desktop computer from eBay. I got a case with nothing inside. eBay didn’t do anything to help. Never shopped with them since.

_raoulcousins 4y ago

Anything that I buy from a Facebook group or something similar over $x, I set up a camera and record myself opening the product. Anything that I sell over $x, I record evidence of packing and shipping. I don't really have a set value for x, but it's definitely under $690. That might not have made a difference with Amazon, but it can't hurt.

Waterluvian 4y ago

I cancelled my membership a few weeks ago. It’s even more annoying now. So many ads. So many new steps where it asks you to upgrade. 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.

robofanatic 4y ago

I used to go to a local brick and mortar store and checkout a product and order it from Amazon. These days I go to a store and go to Amazon to check reviews and then buy it from the store. How tables have turned for Amazon.

gtirloni 4y ago
> These days I go to a store and go to Amazon to check reviews and then buy it from the store. 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.
- SkyPuncher 4y ago
  Most stores can get me what I need within a day or two. Either by pickup from the store or last-mile shipping to my door. It's sufficient for most things.
  - krolden 4y ago
    And some of them will even do price matching.
- robofanatic 4y ago
  well if I don't find what I want in the store I go for Amazon. Also where I live, lately Amazon has some logistics problems like delayed delivery, lost/stolen packages, delivery to wrong address etc. last week a delivery guy was going around our neighborhood in the early morning hours in dark with a flash light. someone literally called a cop on him :-)
- discardedrefuse 4y ago
  > while Amazon has dozens They have dozens of low quality knock offs. If that's what you're looking for just buy direct from from ali or banngood.

mabbo 4y ago

Having spent many years in "Outbound" of Amazon Fulfillment, I'm skeptical that Amazon would ever know that they didn't send a fake item. 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.

MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
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- deleted 4y ago
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akhmatova 4y ago
Excellent analysis. But the issue here isn't that someone made a mistake somewhere. 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.
- kshacker 4y ago
  > But rather, that at a very high level: Amazon knows perfectly well that a certain percentage of its customers are getting screwed over 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.

dingdingdang 4y ago

I can see how the shitshow commenced though. Instead of contacting Amazon via chat and providing a few photos to document the process the family did a regular return which off was in turn picked up as fraudulent.. No one's fault in particular but annoying situation for sure!! Reality for me has always been that Amazon is rather flawless on return policy (in the UK anyway!)

aylons 4y ago
When you're making a return, Amazon has a field that allows you to say that the product delivered does not match the purchase (the wording is not quite that, and they have a few variants). I don't feel like there's a need for a chat if the form already allows me to say that and do not require sending any pictures. They could follow up if they felt the need, before issuing the return code. Amazon has a bad process for these cases and seems not interested in fixing it.
kotaKat 4y ago
Yeah. The automated return process is going to try to force you to mail things back. If you can force your way through their byzantine process that hides trying to get to a human behind a chatbot, you can eventually make your way to the proper humans that will actually issue a refund. Worst off you email jeff@ or jassy@ and some executive assistant eventually picks it up.

kup0 4y ago

They shipped me an LED bulb... in a padded envelope 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.

i_dont_know_ 4y ago

I strongly suspect prioritized handling or some other points-based system that classifies customers and the quality of care they 'deserve'. 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.

pronlover723 4y ago

I am not a lawyer but in the USA at least, if I understand correctly, if someone sends you something didn't request it's yours to keep for free https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/business-guide-ftcs-mail-internet-or-telephone-order-merchandise-rule 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.

brazzy 4y ago
The point of that law is to shut down scams where companies send you stuff without you ording anything (or, in most cases, ever having heard from them) and then demand payment. 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.
- pronlover723 4y ago
  How do you know it was a mistake? The same incentives apply. They might be sending you the wrong thing on purpose, hoping you won't notice, so the law is there to prevent that.
  - anotherman554 4y ago
    Here's a post from the legal advice reddit suggesting your understanding of the law is so off point that a person can be charged with larceny for listening to you: https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/68phvf/comment/dh0gkvn/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/68phvf/comment...

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago

I completely believe that story. 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.

dncornholio 4y ago

Question, how could Amazon protect itself from customers buying and receiving a real GPU and sending back a fake one?

digitalcancer 4y ago
1) By banning commingling and otherwise making sure that they are not shipping out fakes to begin with. 2) by checking returns before reselling them. Easy-peasy.

sn_master 4y ago

Unrelated, but does anyone know someone in Amazon? I was searching for something and ended up finding many firearm accessories very clearly intentionally mislabeled, and at suspiciously low prices (less than 1/5 of retail price at a normal gun store) that they're either of dubious and unsafe quality, or stolen.

infecto 4y ago

Recently cancelled my prime membership. Not a huge expense in the grand scheme of things but I could no longer justify the cost for only expedited shipping. Have also tried to cut back on my spending on amazon with sheer amount of crap that gets sold on the platform at elevated prices. Definetly had me thinking about my own level of consumerism and realizing there was just no need for that level of Amazon in my life. 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.

martin_a 4y ago

Amazon Prime has become a prime (haha) example of how capitalism is failing. It's not the best price, it's not faster anymore, it's not good quality and you can't trust anybody. 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.

paywallasinbeer 4y ago
Could you explain why this is an example of capitalism failing and not just an example of a business (Amazon retail) starting to fail?
- martin_a 4y ago
  If Amazon is not "peak-capitalism" through and through, what else is? If they don't get these things right, who can, who will?
  - paywallasinbeer 4y ago
    Another, more efficient, business. Plenty of other extremely large businesses have failed in the past and been usurped.

Someone1234 4y ago

Just this week Amazon shipped me a tempered with product similar to the one in the article (although $21 not almost $700). Shipped and sold on Amazon, and then rejected my review where I warned others and provided photos (actually both of the last two, negative, reviews I've tried to post got rejected). 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.

lakomen 4y ago
That's the next thing, they outright reject negative reviews. They even share your contact info with the seller, so your review isn't anonymous at all. I got harassed via email by a seller once because I gave him a negative review. The USB hub I bought was brittle and broke after the warranty period.

chrisgd 4y ago

Curious what a credit card chargeback would accomplish, I have had mixed results with that

greedo 4y ago
Wouldn't Amazon just cancel your account?

cft 4y ago

Ebay is not better. I was in Spain and our servers were in a datacenter in the States. One of the HDDs in RAID1 failed, and the array was in the critical state on our master DB. It was critical correcting this failure as soon as possible. I ordered a new HDD from ebay from a seller with 100% positive feedback directly to the datacenter and organized remote hands there to install it. When RAID rebuilt, smartctl showed that the HDD has more than 40k powered on hours. I am afraid the days if high trust society, where services like ebay could function, are over.

alexhjones 4y ago

A few months back I ordered an Xbox Series X from Amazon but a large box arrived with nothing but some plastic picnic forks in it. Luckily I managed to get the driver to pose for a selfie with the box showing there was no Xbox. In this case I think they had sold out and decided to ship "something" instead of cancel the order as they didn't even ask for photo proof that the box was empty.

lakomen 4y ago

I had something similar happen to me in Germany. A FireTV stick LAN cable adapter, which didn't work. I returned both the Ftv stick and the adapter in the same package. The stick was marked as received, the adapter wasn't. I wrote then 4 times. No response. The 5th time I wrote an angry mail threatening to go to the police. Literally the next day I received an apology email that it was a mistake on their end. At least it was resolved. But the nerves it cost me... no compensation for that. I don't appreciate being called a fraud.

stuntkite 4y ago

I use this fancy 3M “Velcro” called Dual Lock a lot. It’s expensive but awesome. I order it from 3M on Amazon. In 2020 about half of the time it was counterfeit. The adhesive was slimy, stank, and would fuck up anything you put it on. The packaging varied widely. I never tried to return it, I just kind of collected them. 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.

Merad 4y ago

Some of Amazon's policies are real head scratchers. Last year I bought a high end ultrawide monitor from them. I believe I paid about $1500 for it originally. Two or three days after it arrived, it went on sale for about $300 less. IME most companies have a policy in the fine print where if an item goes on sale less than a week after purchase they'll refund the difference, if you ask. So I contact Amazon support. The agent insisted that no refund was possible but that I should return the monitor for a refund and order a new one at the lower price. It boggled my mind so much that I asked them explicitly if they understand that they'd be paying for return shipping (at least $50 given the size and weight of the monitor), they'd be getting back an open box item that would lose probably 20-30% of its value, and I'd get back the $300. They said yeah, that was just how the system worked...

elexhobby 4y ago
FWIW I've been told similar by Costco too, so Amazon isn't unique in this respect. My guess is that it adds some friction to the process. Refunding money is a purely digital activity, while refunding requires to you go and ship it, wait for the new item to arrive, etc, so you won't do it unless the savings are worth the time investment.
- vegadw 4y ago
  I suspect this is the case, but IMHO the practice should be illegal. If you accept returns for the purpose of price reduction you should just do the price reduction directly, both for the sake of the environmental cost and as a matter of treating consumers decently.

wdb 4y ago

I like to record a video when I am opening parcels that a contain a valuable product to try to avoid these kind of discussions. Worked once with Amazon 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

coryfklein 4y ago

Wow this is still happening? I actually wrote about a similar phenomenon of replacing iPhones with clay back in 2016 and apparently Amazon still hasn't figured out a way to stop this. 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-with-clay.html http://coryklein.com/2016/06/20/scammers-replacing-iphones-w...

thedanishdev 4y ago

This happened to me. Bought AirPods Pro a couple of months back for £250. I received a cheap garbage speaker worth ~£10. I spent ridiculous amount of stress and time trying to get it sorted with Amazon to no avail. Amazon kept telling me to return the AirPods I never received. It was the fourth Apple product I bought from Amazon in twelve months yet they still refused to help me after they had delivered me the wrong item. 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-amazon-order-replaced-weetabix/ https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/23150437.uea-students-macbook-a... https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/man-ordered-569-ipad-amazon-25351207.amp 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.

jsnelgro 4y ago

I had a very similar experience except it was a 1st gen MS surface book packaged in a 2nd box. They look nearly identical. Spent months getting gaslighted by Amazon support. My coworker who'd previously worked at Amazon Fulfillment suggested I email jeff@amazon.com directly. The case was picked up by a higher-level CS rep and they reversed the charges. No apology or concessions for the horrible experience otherwise. I truly hate this company.