On the one hand, I agree. But with the increasing scammers on Amazon, this policy is going to bite them. I ordered a Nest Protect a few years ago and what I received was a cheap First Alert detector inside a Nest’s box. Did I get flagged for that return?
As an aside, clearly their returns department doesn’t bother to check returns like they indicate with a “Amazon Inspected” sticker on the box. So not only was I scammed, but Amazon was complicit in it AND may have penalized me for the return.
Lately I’ve gone through three adaptors from three different manufacturers and sellers and every one of them has broken within weeks, maybe months, of receiving it. And they all had great reviews at the time I bought them. But when I go back later, I notice a lot of obviously fake reviews that weren’t there before. Not sure how that scam works but it’s costing me money.
I used to stay with Amazon in large part because of their fantastic customer service, but that’s not enough anymore. The scammers are running rampant on their platform and Amazon is choosing to view me as the troublemaker.
From the article:
“If your behavior is consistently outside the norm, you’re not really the kind of customer they want,” said James Thomson, a former senior manager at Amazon and now partner at brand consultancy Buy Box Experts.
Companies “firing”, both explicitly by bans and by putting them into service hell until they go away, customers that are expensive to service because their behavior is outside of what the firm is optimized around is decidedly not new or something Amazon invented.
One time I made an order with a few things, but namely cat litter and an (expensive) air filter. The cat litter and air filter were cutely packaged together with no protection for the air filter. Of course the air filter was smashed and unusable.
I forgot this "bug" twice more and realized they weren't going to fix the issue. I determined that I should not order these items from Amazon lest they ban me for returning the filters too many times. I sent feedback each time, but I guess they'd rather just ban customers or whatever.
Who orders cat litter from Amazon? The delivery fees on something that heavy would cost as much as the item itself! Yeah, yeah, it's heavy and you might not have a car to pick it up from the store, I get it.
But still. Knowing what we know about the amazon warehouses and how quickly the staff are forced to work, maybe it's in your best interest to be cognizant of what you're ordering and not order certain items together.
I order all my pet supplies online. Prime covers shipping from Amazon, and Chewy has free shipping on orders over $49. Chewy is great because you can also order prescription foods (they call the vet and verify).
We regularly order 16kg sacks of specific bread flour, two sacks together qualify for free Supersaver delivery.
It's basically the last thing we order from Amazon and I suppose they'll eventually exempt it from free delivery but until then we'll keep availing of the service. No car and no local outlets.
I once ordered 8 items, including Tide detergent, and they were all packaged in a single large box, not individually packaged in any way. Multiple items were smashed, the detergent was punctured, and everything was covered in small amounts of detergent.
I got a $100+ refund for all 8 items and they didn't want any of the items back.
Returns initiated through a representative aren’t tallied, at least that was true upto about mid 2017.
It’s also not just how many returns or even the monetary amount of them it’s a much more complex pattern which takes into account the return patterns of other users which have purchased that items and other simmilar items.
This isn't surprising at all. Amazon's return policy is prone to social engineering. And there is a cottage industry out there taking advantage of this situation to con money out of Amazon.
A friend's account was hacked last year and his account information changed. Then the hacker proceeded to request a gift card refund on a previously purchased laptop. The gift card was then used to buy another laptop shipped to a freight forwarder. Couple of months later, Amazon banned the account.
Amazon actually needs to improve its fraud detection capabilities. But until the time it does that, blaming customers for too many returns seem to be the go to strategy.
I have to wonder what the actual parameters are to end up being flagged in this way. I feel like I'm fairly liberal in returning things to Amazon and the painlessness of returns is really one of the primary motivators behind ordering from Amazon for me.
I've purchased around 1700 items and spent around $56,000 at Amazon since 2006. Of those I've returned a total of 90 items.
28 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 75.4 ms ] threadAs an aside, clearly their returns department doesn’t bother to check returns like they indicate with a “Amazon Inspected” sticker on the box. So not only was I scammed, but Amazon was complicit in it AND may have penalized me for the return.
Lately I’ve gone through three adaptors from three different manufacturers and sellers and every one of them has broken within weeks, maybe months, of receiving it. And they all had great reviews at the time I bought them. But when I go back later, I notice a lot of obviously fake reviews that weren’t there before. Not sure how that scam works but it’s costing me money.
I used to stay with Amazon in large part because of their fantastic customer service, but that’s not enough anymore. The scammers are running rampant on their platform and Amazon is choosing to view me as the troublemaker.
Today it is Amazon normalization, tomorrow ...?
Companies “firing”, both explicitly by bans and by putting them into service hell until they go away, customers that are expensive to service because their behavior is outside of what the firm is optimized around is decidedly not new or something Amazon invented.
One time I made an order with a few things, but namely cat litter and an (expensive) air filter. The cat litter and air filter were cutely packaged together with no protection for the air filter. Of course the air filter was smashed and unusable.
I forgot this "bug" twice more and realized they weren't going to fix the issue. I determined that I should not order these items from Amazon lest they ban me for returning the filters too many times. I sent feedback each time, but I guess they'd rather just ban customers or whatever.
But still. Knowing what we know about the amazon warehouses and how quickly the staff are forced to work, maybe it's in your best interest to be cognizant of what you're ordering and not order certain items together.
>I determined that I should not order these items from Amazon lest they ban me for returning the filters too many times.
> amazon
?
Also I expect a grocery bagger to not set a bunch of stuff on eggs, I think the same can be expected of someone packing boxes.
It's basically the last thing we order from Amazon and I suppose they'll eventually exempt it from free delivery but until then we'll keep availing of the service. No car and no local outlets.
I got a $100+ refund for all 8 items and they didn't want any of the items back.
Probably counts against my account tally.
It’s also not just how many returns or even the monetary amount of them it’s a much more complex pattern which takes into account the return patterns of other users which have purchased that items and other simmilar items.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17124924
Repeating my comment from the same thread:
This isn't surprising at all. Amazon's return policy is prone to social engineering. And there is a cottage industry out there taking advantage of this situation to con money out of Amazon. A friend's account was hacked last year and his account information changed. Then the hacker proceeded to request a gift card refund on a previously purchased laptop. The gift card was then used to buy another laptop shipped to a freight forwarder. Couple of months later, Amazon banned the account.
Amazon actually needs to improve its fraud detection capabilities. But until the time it does that, blaming customers for too many returns seem to be the go to strategy.
The previous one seems to have died on the vine. This one has more comments and votes.
Recently I have had more returns than normal. Why? The products I am receiving are broken or not as advertised or the quality is just very poor.
I returned a screen protector because it just would not stick to the screen of my phone.
I returned an iPad case because it wouldn't close all the way even though it was for my iPad size.
I returned a laser pointer and goggles because I couldn't see the beam.
I wonder too how much I am being penalized by Amazon's internal systems for these.
I've purchased around 1700 items and spent around $56,000 at Amazon since 2006. Of those I've returned a total of 90 items.