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

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

#161

Post by sackerhews » Sun, May 30, 2021, 9:07 AM UTC

reikonomusha wrote: post #3

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…

Amazon used to be my #1 shopping place (save for groceries), years ago but I rarely use them anymore.

Last hard drive I ordered from them came wrapped in factory issued static plastic bag, and NO padding inside the Amazon issued cardboard box. I of course returned it after confirming it was broken.

That's not the only reason I gave up on them. Searching is getting really hard, reviews are meaningless due to fake ones, counterfeit products, ...

To me it looks like they've decided to run the business to the ground and cash in a monumental amount of money.

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

#162

Post by pantalaimon » Sun, May 30, 2021, 9:08 AM UTC

reikonomusha wrote: post #3

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…

Once you've established a monopoly you can start degrading the service

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

#163

Post by odnes » Sun, May 30, 2021, 9:09 AM UTC

confiq wrote: post #157

odnes wrote: post #128

This this a clear cut case and amazon should process the refund, however, in general refunding is a hard problem for Amazon to solve due to the sheer volume fraud that occurs. For anyone unaware, go to telegram and do a public search for 'refunding'. There are hundreds of channels where you can pay someone to refund >£10,000 of stuff for you for a 10% fee. Afaik, the main method that 'refunders' use to defraud amazon…

> So it looks to amazon as being successfully delivered to the return warehouse, but what actually got delivered was a brick, to some random house but how amazon does not check the quality of the return? I mean, even if UPS confirms that the package arrived to right address, wouldn't someone from amazon warehouse check if the package is valid?

Well there is nothing for them to check. From what I've read, they wait two weeks then mark the package as 'lost in transit'.

I think for the last-mile of delivery, couriers rely on the actual address written on the package, not the address that the barcode scans to. I might be wrong though.

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

#164

Post by cmckn » Sun, May 30, 2021, 9:10 AM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #133

cmckn wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The open box thing is a huge issue. I bought probably 5 things last year >$100 sold as “new” that just weren’t. Returns have always been easy, I live near an Amazon Go and they even have an attendant that helps. But not being able to trust that a new item is actually new is…shitty. I would never buy electronics from Amazon, just get it for the same price at Best Buy and wait a couple more days (plus they often have s…

> Always keep in mind that everyone will price-match Amazon. The other side of that coin is that Amazon used to have relatively low prices. Not anymore.

They do still occasionally have flash sales that I’ve gotten brick-and-mortars to match. But yeah, their business model has shifted away from undercutting everyone; makes sense but it’s disappointing.

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

#165

Post by wyattpeak » Sun, May 30, 2021, 9:11 AM UTC

rkk3 wrote: post #153

wyattpeak wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At the end of the day most big companies have found its a better strategy to trust/not dispute customers in these situations. The article we're responding to, not to mention the comments, is evidence that that is at minimum an unreliable assumption. Re your second point, the seemingly standard way of resolving these issues after the company refuses to comply is to make it a PR problem for the company. Videos are go…

> The article we're responding to... is evidence that that is at minimum an unreliable assumption. They were already refunded before the story was even published. Yes, Amazon didn't refund them 7K in their first customer support call, that ruffled their feathers but it is not at all surprising. At that $ obviously they need to be be escalated.

I think it's an extremely generous assumption towards Amazon that all they did was fail to refund "in the first customer support call".

I don't know about you, but I've never filed a police report because someone made me call twice to resolve something.

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

#166

Post by amatecha » Sun, May 30, 2021, 9:11 AM UTC

"some customers are resorting to filming the process of unboxing expensive gear in order to create proof in the event that an order has not been correctly fulfilled"

Yeah, for years I've been taking photos and/or video during the process of unboxing expensive items received via mail. Heard too many horror stories over the years.

FWIW I would never purchase a $7000 camera on Amazon.

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

#167

Post by amelius » Sun, May 30, 2021, 9:11 AM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #66

reikonomusha wrote: post #3

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…

I have to agree with damaged books. It seems Amazon is using lower quality packaging material today than they did a few years ago.

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

#168

Post by neiman » Sun, May 30, 2021, 9:11 AM UTC

I used to live for many years in a "bad" area of Berlin, where my packages were constantly disappearing, not arriving, taken by neighbors (who put an X as a signature), or left by the delivery people outside our building door.

After a few such accidents, each of it super tiring on its own to get things reshipped or reimbursed (and often I failed), I decided all this modernity is not for me. Nowadays I rather buy whatever I can physically in a store, even if it's a bit more expensive.

But again, that's an experience from a "special" part of Berlin, not the standard one I guess.

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

#169

Post by garmaine » Sun, May 30, 2021, 9:12 AM UTC

Reason077 wrote: post #152

garmaine wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder actually where this stuff happens typically. Clearly some seems to happen before things even get to Amazon, that whole counterfeit commingling thing you hear about, where the 3rd-party stock gets used even if you buy from Amazon directly. This is actually largely Amazon's fault, as far as I understand it. People buy obviously counterfeit items, then buy the real thing on Amazon, and return the counterfeit…

> "Amazon has no concept of "open box" vs "new,"" Yes they do. There is a large section of the website ("Amazon Warehouse deals") devoted to open-box items. I've used this a few times and got great prices on perfect items, just with opened or damaged packaging.

Yet somehow returns end up back in the warehouse where they are picked as "new" sales to other customers.

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

#170

Post by petee » Sun, May 30, 2021, 9:13 AM UTC

abhiminator wrote: post #7

x0x0 wrote: post #2

My shock here is that someone would order something that costs $7k from amazon! Buy that from BH, newegg, some specialty retailer, etc. Not American alibaba.

I'd argue the opposite -- why not order from Amazon? Lots of folks have come to trust Amazon's reliability and customer service over the years, so it does make sense for customers to order expensive things from Amazon or any other online store, especially with a pandemic going around. This incident in particular does seem to be an outlier, and we'll have to see how Amazon resolves it.

I stopped trusting amazon when they removed the ability to report product issues, like knockoffs or scams.

Removing the links just affirmed they don't care whats in their marketplace, and they just backed that attitude up with their recent lawsuit claiming they're not responsible.

I've even reported people who include the "$5 for a review", but they don't ever do anything about it. What trust have they earned except from a few people not complaining?