Url changed from https://fstoppers.com/news/amazon-refused-refund-7000-after-..., which points to this.
Amazon refused to refund $7k after shipping an empty box instead of a Sony A1
571–580 of 647 posts
Re: Amazon refused to refund $7k after shipping an empty box instead of a Sony A1
#572Like most people, I've ordered a lot of packages (hundreds?) on Amazon and almost never had a problem. In the rare case of a problem, Amazon would instantly refund me. But almost all those orders are under $1000. Everything changes when you have a problem with an expensive order. Amazon has a price threshold where the support system is different and the normal CS people are powerless. During lockdown, I ordered a Son…
I'm afraid of being downvoted, but the algorithm for an Amazon return looks something like: Your LTV = Forecasting total revenue from your transactions so far Revenue = The sum of your past transactions Refund? = LTV - Revenue - Refund Cost > 0 This is a much simpler, much more logical model. It appears everywhere, like with credit card disputes or when you get service discounts to not leave. Because when you don't g…
While what you’re saying about how it works sounds extremely plausible, I am rather dubious about the idea that this is how it ought to work (and the inference that this is simple, therefore it’s how it ought to work).
Taken to the extreme (and I don’t see anything in the argument that prevents it being taken to the extreme) and combined with acceptance of utility functions (_i.e._ that the value of anything is comparable to anything else, including human lives) this seems to also reduce any and all rule enforcement to wergild or something radical in that vein. Which—I’m not sure how it worked historically, but it also seems to be the current state of patent law (it doesn’t matter if the patent has merit, the side with the better and more expensive lawyers will starve out the other), and the results look utterly miserable.
Vague generalities aside, the complaints (and hypothetical downvotes) seems to indicate that, however simple and transparent a rule this is from the inside, people don’t want to pay for what is not their fault (cf experiments where people rejected a $1/$99 split in favour of a $0/$0 one to punish the other guy). I’m reminded of people queueing up in droves to the first McDonald’s in Moscow nor for the food or the prices, but for the customer service, because that was literally the first time in their lives they could get that anywhere.
Unless it’s marketed as a luxury good, people will actually pay for decent customer service that, among other things, satisfies their sense of fairness. That a model which does not reflect this can be simple is not a virtue of that model, it’s shoddy model-building. Not providing that service might still be the better economic decision (with caveats), if few enough people end up bitter over it (and complain on HN, etc.), but that’s a much more involved claim than “but it’s so simple!”. It also has very little to do with its moral merit, and if the better economic decision is too far from the moral one, it may well be time to go tune the incentives again and not to give up on your set of morals.
I’m not convinced customer protection regulations are the answer here, but the results of no customer protection regulations also seem completely idiotic from the outside. The third option of piling upon the company online also seems revolting for entirely different reasons.
Re: Amazon refused to refund $7k after shipping an empty box instead of a Sony A1
#573Earlier quoted context omitted.
As others have also said, doing a chargeback risks Amazon closing your account permanently. So if you're prepared to take that risk and never buy from Amazon again, sure.. go for it.. But given the centralization of vendors this can have bigger downsides than upside.
Intriguing and horrifying.. What happens with a ban? I assume all my not-downloaded Kindle books become unavailable. Does the Kindle app delete the ones I have locally? (I assume the result would be similar for movies/shows purchased.) Does it ban my credit card, name, address, or a more abstract "buying profile"?
I'd wager that, as with other digital "purchases" from companies like Apple, Google, Steam, etc, if your account is closed, you lose everything since you didn't actually buy it.
Re: Amazon refused to refund $7k after shipping an empty box instead of a Sony A1
#574Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Bad ones (pathological ones) - we just try to get rid of them ASAP and no refunds. A customer "not buying much" is not "bad". If you accept his money for cheap stuff, he is your customer. There's a difference between an honest customer who usually doesn't buy much and then buys something expensive and is getting sadly scammed and a customer trying to rob you. If you accept the customer for cheap stuff but refuse to…
> If you accept the customer for cheap stuff but refuse to help him when he gets scammed on an expensive item, you are the bad, pathological, person/business. For every refund system you will unfortunately get people who attempt to game that system. They'll buy many negligible cost items without issue, then a single high cost item that they'll claim never arrived hoping they've outsmarted the store or algorithm. Thes…
Yeah, this is a very real problem, and I've experienced both sides of it as a customer and running an ecom biz. It's very difficult to spot some of these people ahead of time.
It makes me sad. Ebay two decades ago was a lot different. I never got burned back then, and did a fair bit of buying and selling snowboard gear, including boards that get up to around $800 each. There's absolutely no way I'd do that today. Just impossible not to get ripped off on it.
Re: Amazon refused to refund $7k after shipping an empty box instead of a Sony A1
#575I don't know how we ever got to the point of accepting that shipping is some equal third party in the transaction. Shipping is a subcontractor to the company that sold the product. It is 100% the responsibility of the company to make right. Imagine if you bought a TV at a store and they said, "want us to bring it out to your car?" And they did. And it got destroyed in the parking lot. And the company said, "you'll ha…
Especially when the retailer is the one choosing the shipper. On some sites you can at least choose UPS vs FedEx, then it would be a slightly different story.
Not really. Doesn't matter if the TV breaks in the store's front or back parking lot, it's still the store's parking lot.
Re: Amazon refused to refund $7k after shipping an empty box instead of a Sony A1
#576Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, some common sense is needed. Anything at too-good-to-be-true prices are nearly always a scam, for example. I buy about everything from Amazon, since the beginning, and have had nearly zero issues. A screw-up now and then is forgivable.
Yeah, but I can hardly blame non-technical people who don't know the prices of things and who haven't heard about the cheats that off-brand memory cards can pull. I mean, many of them advertise to the computer that they are the listed size. But... when you fill them up, it becomes clear that's a lie. I wish Amazon could randomly test and delist some of those products or whatever. Or maybe do some random testing befor…
Of course Amazon needs to do better. But the point remains - to-good-to-be-true prices should always arouse suspicions, as they are a tell for scams.
Re: Amazon refused to refund $7k after shipping an empty box instead of a Sony A1
#577Like most people, I've ordered a lot of packages (hundreds?) on Amazon and almost never had a problem. In the rare case of a problem, Amazon would instantly refund me. But almost all those orders are under $1000. Everything changes when you have a problem with an expensive order. Amazon has a price threshold where the support system is different and the normal CS people are powerless. During lockdown, I ordered a Son…
I'm afraid of being downvoted, but the algorithm for an Amazon return looks something like: Your LTV = Forecasting total revenue from your transactions so far Revenue = The sum of your past transactions Refund? = LTV - Revenue - Refund Cost > 0 This is a much simpler, much more logical model. It appears everywhere, like with credit card disputes or when you get service discounts to not leave. Because when you don't g…
At some point Amazon shipped me 5 CPUs in five boxes in a larger branded box instead of just one. I sent four back and didn't even get a "sorry for your trouble".
I wonder if that factors in somehow.
I also wonder - since the box containing five CPUs looked like a "single product" box - how often that must have happened.
Re: Amazon refused to refund $7k after shipping an empty box instead of a Sony A1
#578Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perfectly believable. The thing I really loved about Amazon is that they had their act together. But that has declined drastically over the decades; now whenever I actually have to deal with them it seems like there's a ton of internal chaos. In June 2018, I ordered a soccer magazine, "Futbol Total", for my soccer-mad nephew. It said it would arrive in 4-16 weeks, which seemed weird. I waited it out, and no magazine.…
Declined over the decades? Decades?
The company is over twenty years old. What’s the problem?
Re: Amazon refused to refund $7k after shipping an empty box instead of a Sony A1
#579Like most people, I've ordered a lot of packages (hundreds?) on Amazon and almost never had a problem. In the rare case of a problem, Amazon would instantly refund me. But almost all those orders are under $1000. Everything changes when you have a problem with an expensive order. Amazon has a price threshold where the support system is different and the normal CS people are powerless. During lockdown, I ordered a Son…
Perfectly believable. The thing I really loved about Amazon is that they had their act together. But that has declined drastically over the decades; now whenever I actually have to deal with them it seems like there's a ton of internal chaos. In June 2018, I ordered a soccer magazine, "Futbol Total", for my soccer-mad nephew. It said it would arrive in 4-16 weeks, which seemed weird. I waited it out, and no magazine.…
To be fair, this is almost certainly an issue with whoever was selling the item on Amazon, rather than Amazon.
Which of course is nothing more than a convenient excuse for them to use when the only ones with the power to regulate what sellers end up on their platform is... Amazon.
Re: Amazon refused to refund $7k after shipping an empty box instead of a Sony A1
#580Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not an outlier. I've ordered things from Amazon and gotten completely wrong things- like 1 latex glove in the box instead of the makeup I ordered. There are a lot of knockoff products on there, even benign things like birdfeeders are getting faked and sold: https://www.marketplace.org/2019/11/18/how-amazons-counterfe...
Irony is the bird feeder story originally came out before we knew amazon was using their market insight to steal and knockoff their own sellers products. Likely amazon was the one making the knockoffs.
> before we knew amazon was using their market insight to steal and knockoff their own sellers products. Likely amazon was the one making the knockoffs.
I have not heard that, but holy cow. Just so incredibly shady.
For what it's worth, I bought that same birdfeeder directly from the manufacturer's own storefront on ebay (I've found ebay to be easier to find real sellers than Amazon and don't have to deal with figuring out who is doing the shipping etc) and it's awesome.