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Amazon refused to refund $7k after shipping an empty box instead of a Sony A1

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Re: Amazon refused to refund $7k after shipping an empty box instead of a Sony A1

#81
post #11

How does Amazon protect itself against unscrupulous buyers ordering $7k cameras and then claiming they received an empty box?

The USPS shipped weight of the package was less than the weight of the camera. There actually was evidence.

It was in this story, but there have been cases of people shipping rocks or sand to match the product weight.

Re: Amazon refused to refund $7k after shipping an empty box instead of a Sony A1

#82

I do not trust Amazon to ship anything safely and securely anymore. Almost everything I receive is damaged, late, or mis-delivered. Books are especially abused somewhere in Amazon’s fulfillment. (They’re always bent, creased, or dirty.) Items that are supposed to be 1-day shipping typically take >=3, and Amazon’s tracking mostly says “oops! it’ll come trust us”. (Not verbatim, obviously.) Amazon’s return process is b…

I'm genuinely surprised that people have such vastly different experiences with Amazon. I made 231 orders with them last year(lockdown....) And haven't had a problem with a single one. Couple times I wanted to return something they just refunded me without asking to send the item back. Everything arrives next day, always(here in UK anyway), and the customer support is stellar compared to literally anywhere else. Anyo…

You must have a very secure delivery location, and I'm willing to bet that you probably live in a more affluent community, if what you're saying is even true. That and/or you're having stuff delivered to Amazon locations.

Not to mention not everything is shipped from seller / manufacturer to you via Amazon.

Re: Amazon refused to refund $7k after shipping an empty box instead of a Sony A1

#83
post #17

> This was despite the fact that when boxed the Sony a1 weighs 3.22 lb (1.46 kg), and the Chiles’ package was listed by UPS as weighing only 2 lb (900 g). Not sure why Amazon was still arguing at this point. If UPS confirms the package was basically empty, then Amazon has no reason to believe the customer was lying.

Probably like in "The Rainmaker". Automatically deny every claim above $X. If there's a complaint on the denial, automatically approve or deny based on a new number $Y. Most people give up before you finally get a real human to actually check the case.

If I was a god I would never send anyone to hell to burn forever in fiery torment. For this situation I would be very very tempted to make an exception. Anyone who sets up an automated system designed specifically to hassle people for seeking recourse for being wronged, deserves every form of torture they get.

Re: Amazon refused to refund $7k after shipping an empty box instead of a Sony A1

#84
I feel there is something universal about the phase in which the company enters and it is interesting to learn what moves companies in different phases.

Growing market, good press around, apologists for your brand, regulation and anti-monopoly scrutiny seems far away. Then the company is risk-taking, 7k$ that somebody occasionally may cheat is nothing in comparison to a possible blog post saying how awesome the company is. I think miraculously Apple is still here now, Google and Amazon were here 10 years ago, now AWS is here, Microsoft came here again recently, etc.

Then times come that bad press is there regardless of what you do, regulators watch you carefully. Then the user support becomes some scripts to follow, revenue over the next months (or launch before the next promotion cycle) is all you care about. Here I think how Verizon were super greedy and tried to milk the Droid brand within the 1st year, essentially killing it. I think the problem is once you enter this phase, it self-reinforces to stay here.

I have a theory why Google moved from one to the other and I have no view on the others, but at least here I think it was majority external factors not withing the company.

Re: Amazon refused to refund $7k after shipping an empty box instead of a Sony A1

#85
post #11

How does Amazon protect itself against unscrupulous buyers ordering $7k cameras and then claiming they received an empty box?

I imagine they do some type of internal checks to see if it is a residential address and if there have been similar issues in the area. If they feel like the buyer may be lying then I'm sure they have some way to turn the matter over to investigators who may monitor their financial records and may even send police or FBI to surveil them.

So if my neighbour is abusing their Amazon account, if I get an empty box instead of a $7000 camera I get FBI to surveil me? What a fantastic idea, and it absolutely won't lead to any sort of discrimination whatsoever. I can already see the house listings "in a good neighbourhood, Amazon parcels arrive without a police surveillance van".

Re: Amazon refused to refund $7k after shipping an empty box instead of a Sony A1

#86
post #44

I've placed approx. 15k orders with Amazon Germany in 20 years and have probably had less than 100 issues, mostly with FBA sellers. I get an answer from CS within 10 minutes and 1-day shipments are on time ~98%. Refunds are issued as soon as I drop the package in the return box. Call me a fan. The best experience is still Amazon JP but returns are a little more complicated (Even within Japan) — Obviously b/c you more…

Amazon JP got a little worse ever since they started having their own delivery, which is not great compared to Yamato or Sagawa, which they were using before (and are still using sometimes, it's not clear under what conditions). But the difference is almost at the level of nitpicking. When you're used to top-notch service, and you suddenly get a subpar experience, that's kind of disappointing.

Re: Amazon refused to refund $7k after shipping an empty box instead of a Sony A1

#87

I do not trust Amazon to ship anything safely and securely anymore. Almost everything I receive is damaged, late, or mis-delivered. Books are especially abused somewhere in Amazon’s fulfillment. (They’re always bent, creased, or dirty.) Items that are supposed to be 1-day shipping typically take >=3, and Amazon’s tracking mostly says “oops! it’ll come trust us”. (Not verbatim, obviously.) Amazon’s return process is b…

I'm genuinely surprised that people have such vastly different experiences with Amazon. I made 231 orders with them last year(lockdown....) And haven't had a problem with a single one. Couple times I wanted to return something they just refunded me without asking to send the item back. Everything arrives next day, always(here in UK anyway), and the customer support is stellar compared to literally anywhere else. Anyo…

Same with roughly the same package volume annually over 8+ years. Literally the only thing lost was due to a historic weather event and Amazon still took care of it.

Maybe with commodity household goods it’s different than with higher value items or with electronics.

Re: Amazon refused to refund $7k after shipping an empty box instead of a Sony A1

#88

I do not trust Amazon to ship anything safely and securely anymore. Almost everything I receive is damaged, late, or mis-delivered. Books are especially abused somewhere in Amazon’s fulfillment. (They’re always bent, creased, or dirty.) Items that are supposed to be 1-day shipping typically take >=3, and Amazon’s tracking mostly says “oops! it’ll come trust us”. (Not verbatim, obviously.) Amazon’s return process is b…

The winning strategy for Amazon is to segregate by loyalty: Have an absolutely stunning experience until you are addicted, then let you have bad products and focus on newer clients. In fact, nothing tells us we all see the same prices either. I suspect they only show me more expensive items, because I can find my A4 paper at 6€ elsewhere instead of 10€ on Amazon. And same goes for most other stuff. Maybe after a few…

Maybe we need a service were we can all upload our online merchants screenshots of products and prices, that can then tell us if particular customers have been segmented into the pay more forever bin.

Re: Amazon refused to refund $7k after shipping an empty box instead of a Sony A1

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of books on Amazon are now printed on demand. In theory a smart and possibly environmentally friendly practice. But you end up with smudgy pages from a bad printer, pages missing, and a book binding not lasting more than a day.

I find it especially galling when for a document title search, I’ll see public domain reports (NASA NTRS PDFs for instance) ranking higher in Google results for buying a print on demand copy via Amazon at significantly inflated prices, or honestly just what is plain disgustingly greedy, the many charlatans selling them as kindle ebooks, sometimes as multiple skus with different prices, trying to profit from people th…

No post body was provided.

Re: Amazon refused to refund $7k after shipping an empty box instead of a Sony A1

#90

I don't see anywhere that says the item was shipped and sold by Amazon.com. If it was, then I can see how Amazon.com bears responsibility, but if not then it seems more like an issue with a third-party seller.

At 1:42 mark of the news broadcast[1], a snapshot of order details shows Sold by: Amazon.com Services LLC for both a $398 memory card and $6,498 camera.

[1] https://youtu.be/N-boHgrQ6QQ?t=102

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