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I am currently caught up in an amazon scam. The third party seller listed items, put in fake shipping, item never arrived. It's been over a month and I am still

I am currently caught up in an amazon scam. The third party seller listed items, put in fake shipping, item never arrived. It's been over a month and I am still fighting amazon to get my money back. They have an "A to Z guarantee" which doesn't work, at least not in my case. The seller didn't even need to sell counterfeit items without running off with my money. Amazon customer support has no idea what to do since the third party is supposed to refund me.

tyingq 8y ago
I wonder if Amazon bans you if you file a chargeback.
- pheeney 8y ago
  That is what I am really concerned with. Some automatic process that will ban me if I try and fight their system. The only way out is to make enough noise on social media that someone in corporate makes a policy exception.
  - ryandrake 8y ago
    Why worry about being banned? Why would you want to continue to do business with a company that treats you like this? When I get to the point where I am contemplating a CC chargeback, the bridge is already burned.
    - neetdeth 8y ago
      Because Amazon is no longer a simple bookseller. It's a diversified mega-corporation that is big enough that the average individual will want to think twice before getting on its bad side. What if you want to host something on AWS? Stream on Twitch? Shop at an Amazon Go? Keep listening to your Audible library? What if you're using home automation equipment that's tethered to a cloud service and Amazon acquires the company? Sure, a simple chargeback probably won't trigger broad spectrum retaliation though all their subsidiaries, but the fact is that Amazon has accrued a lot of power in recent years.
      - tyingq 8y ago
        Other megacorps like Google have already demonstrated that ability to cancel all your services for violating terms on just one.
        pheeney 8y ago
        And to top it off theres no support channel or humans in the process to "appeal" their decision. The only luck you have is being semi-famous enough to get your experience in the headlines before an exec lets you back in.
      - pheeney 8y ago
        Exactly. I am an amazon affiliate and use other amazon services as my business. The bridge has been burned for me as a consumer to continue shopping with them personally or with my business, but it's too risky to upset the beast if that somehow triggers an impact to my livelihood on the other end. I would love nothing more than to phase Amazon out of my life along with Google but that is increasingly difficult to do. How many processes are in place at Amazon to fight chargebacks? How do we know it won't trigger anything? How do I know they won't retroactively make a decision months or years later? Thats the risk I can't take.
        ryandrake 8y ago
        I didn't consider the case where you're not just a consumer. Will they kill your (presumably totally separate and isolated) business account due to a charge-back on your consumer account? How do they even know it's the same person? Even if so, I'd argue if your business is so utterly dependent on a single company's service, that's a huge risk and you ought to be be taking steps to diversify or self-host some things. We've all read those "Company X changed algorithm Y and my business is over!" stories. As a pure consumer, I stand by my statement: If you're going to charge back a credit card transaction, you're past the point of ever wanting to do business with them again, so shouldn't care what they do to your account.
        pheeney 8y ago
FakeComments 8y ago
I’ve never had success with “A to Z” refunds, to the point it seems designed not to work — and instead, actively use Amazon’s brand loyalty to enable fraud. I wonder, was my trust as a customer who spends thousands of dollars a year ever worth more than $20 to Amazon? Because they sure were quick enough to throw it away over $20, when one of their business partners defrauded me via their website. (PS — if you work at Amazon, and your internal metrics show that customer trust is worth more than 0.005 dollars per customer dollar spent, you have made business decisions WAY out of alignment with your metrics.)
- pheeney 8y ago
  Its ironic as well because the customer service agents kept saying if this was an Amazon purchase they would have refunded me. Kept reassuring me that this wouldn't have been an issue if you purchased with us, we would have taken care of this. But I kept telling them this still IS Amazon. They just deflected like it has nothing to do with them.
rb808 8y ago
Did the fake shipping code have a destination as your house? I'd expect they'd be able to check that.
- pheeney 8y ago
  Nope. The latest seller reviews has 80 other people that also received fake tracking in the last 30 days. Amazon's response is that they asked the seller to prove they shipped it or refunded me. That was 2 weeks ago and apparently Amazon is still "investigating". You would think a quick check of the tracking, look at recent seller reviews, lack of response from the seller would be an open and shut case. Apparently the seller is smarter than we all thought and knows something about this process with Amazon and the effort to get our money back. Can't imagine they don't up with something in the end.

tyingq 8y ago

I wonder if Amazon bans you if you file a chargeback.

pheeney 8y ago
That is what I am really concerned with. Some automatic process that will ban me if I try and fight their system. The only way out is to make enough noise on social media that someone in corporate makes a policy exception.
- ryandrake 8y ago
  Why worry about being banned? Why would you want to continue to do business with a company that treats you like this? When I get to the point where I am contemplating a CC chargeback, the bridge is already burned.
  - neetdeth 8y ago
    Because Amazon is no longer a simple bookseller. It's a diversified mega-corporation that is big enough that the average individual will want to think twice before getting on its bad side. What if you want to host something on AWS? Stream on Twitch? Shop at an Amazon Go? Keep listening to your Audible library? What if you're using home automation equipment that's tethered to a cloud service and Amazon acquires the company? Sure, a simple chargeback probably won't trigger broad spectrum retaliation though all their subsidiaries, but the fact is that Amazon has accrued a lot of power in recent years.
    - tyingq 8y ago
      Other megacorps like Google have already demonstrated that ability to cancel all your services for violating terms on just one.
      - pheeney 8y ago
        And to top it off theres no support channel or humans in the process to "appeal" their decision. The only luck you have is being semi-famous enough to get your experience in the headlines before an exec lets you back in.
    - pheeney 8y ago
      Exactly. I am an amazon affiliate and use other amazon services as my business. The bridge has been burned for me as a consumer to continue shopping with them personally or with my business, but it's too risky to upset the beast if that somehow triggers an impact to my livelihood on the other end. I would love nothing more than to phase Amazon out of my life along with Google but that is increasingly difficult to do. How many processes are in place at Amazon to fight chargebacks? How do we know it won't trigger anything? How do I know they won't retroactively make a decision months or years later? Thats the risk I can't take.
      - ryandrake 8y ago
        I didn't consider the case where you're not just a consumer. Will they kill your (presumably totally separate and isolated) business account due to a charge-back on your consumer account? How do they even know it's the same person? Even if so, I'd argue if your business is so utterly dependent on a single company's service, that's a huge risk and you ought to be be taking steps to diversify or self-host some things. We've all read those "Company X changed algorithm Y and my business is over!" stories. As a pure consumer, I stand by my statement: If you're going to charge back a credit card transaction, you're past the point of ever wanting to do business with them again, so shouldn't care what they do to your account.
        pheeney 8y ago

FakeComments 8y ago

I’ve never had success with “A to Z” refunds, to the point it seems designed not to work — and instead, actively use Amazon’s brand loyalty to enable fraud. I wonder, was my trust as a customer who spends thousands of dollars a year ever worth more than $20 to Amazon? Because they sure were quick enough to throw it away over $20, when one of their business partners defrauded me via their website. (PS — if you work at Amazon, and your internal metrics show that customer trust is worth more than 0.005 dollars per customer dollar spent, you have made business decisions WAY out of alignment with your metrics.)

pheeney 8y ago
Its ironic as well because the customer service agents kept saying if this was an Amazon purchase they would have refunded me. Kept reassuring me that this wouldn't have been an issue if you purchased with us, we would have taken care of this. But I kept telling them this still IS Amazon. They just deflected like it has nothing to do with them.

rb808 8y ago

Did the fake shipping code have a destination as your house? I'd expect they'd be able to check that.

pheeney 8y ago
Nope. The latest seller reviews has 80 other people that also received fake tracking in the last 30 days. Amazon's response is that they asked the seller to prove they shipped it or refunded me. That was 2 weeks ago and apparently Amazon is still "investigating". You would think a quick check of the tracking, look at recent seller reviews, lack of response from the seller would be an open and shut case. Apparently the seller is smarter than we all thought and knows something about this process with Amazon and the effort to get our money back. Can't imagine they don't up with something in the end.