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

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.

Reality for me has always been that Amazon is rather flawless on return policy (in the UK anyway!)

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.