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Tell HN: Amazon fraudulently canceling orders as returned items

311 points by sigmaprimus 5y ago

Just wanted to let people know incase there are sellers that are having to pay return fees for items that Amazon has canceled due to the state of emergency and highway washouts in British Columbia. I just got scolded by the rudest customer service rep I have ever dealt with. Apperantly I should "Know full well that BC had a weather event and that my items were damaged" which is another lie as I tracked them and they never left the Amazon processing center. But anyways I assume what they are doing is clearing up space for new deliverable orders as the center is jammed full of packages that are for addresses cut off from the lower mainland. All new orders are being rerouted from the east rather than the south, but instead of reshipping the items at their southern warehouse, they just claimed they were all returns and placed the owness on the sellers for returned items. I guess doing the right thing would have eaten into Amazons profit margins, and if those margins are not big enough...well I guess their billionaire owner wont be able to take another joy ride into space. Dealing with Amazon customer support is felling more and more like dealing with an abusive partner.

fold3 5y ago
We're witnessing the early days of environmental collapse and there is someone complaining they won't get their Christmas present on time...
- sigmaprimus 5y ago
  Regardless of the current environmental, economic and or political situation discounting the deceptive and self-serving actions of a multinational corporation as trivial seems self-righteous. I hope You are never treated poorly by Amazon and never get trolled by smartass meme lord wanabees.
- SeanLuke 5y ago
  He's complaining that Amazon is charging him, not that it's canceling orders.
  - ryanlol 5y ago
    I suggest you read OPs comments more carefully, he is complaining that Amazon is “fraudulently” refunding his orders instead of delivering them when weather permits. Yes, what he is saying doesn’t make any sense.
    - Dylan16807 5y ago
      OP is complaining that Amazon is marking the refund as a return when it is not a return. "incase there are sellers that are having to pay return fees" That's the potential fraud part, which makes sense to me. Also, OP is complaining that they are cancelling the shipment in the first place instead of rerouting. That part isn't fraud but it's bad customer service. Also, OP was possibly lied to about item damage, which is really bad customer service.
      - ryanlol 5y ago
        The OP made a direct accusation of fraud with no real evidence to support that claim. > Also, OP is complaining that they are cancelling the shipment in the first place instead of rerouting. That part isn't fraud but it's bad customer service. Cancelling orders in a force majoure situation like this is normal, it’s not bad customer service. Working around this would be exceptional.
        Dylan16807 5y ago
        > The OP made a direct accusation of fraud with no real evidence to support that claim. The title is imprecise, but it's just a title. The first paragraph of the actual post clarifies that OP is saying if sellers are paying return fees, which is how returns normally work, then it's fraud. > Working around this would be exceptional. An option to delay shipment would not be 'exceptional', and it would not cost Amazon anything notable.
- Veen 5y ago
  Just out of curiousity, what do you think is serious enough to warrant complaint in the face of environmental collapse? Do you think we should stop complaining about anything less serious than a global catastrophe?
- JaimeThompson 5y ago
  You should check and see how Amazon gets rid of a lot of their returns which is to say that, rather often, they just trash them.
ddtaylor 5y ago
Almost everyone selling on Amazon knows that they have almost no recourse.
- sigmaprimus 5y ago
  It seems like blatant fraud to me but I'm not a seller, just a shopper who is currently reevaluating their relationship with Amazon(unfortunately not for the 1st time either). I feel that the fact they canceled my order without offering me a raincheck for the items they already charged my credit card for or at the keast give me the option to wait for reshipping. Now every item on the store is 15% to 250% higher if it is even available anymore...well is unfair especifically so close to Xmas. It just seems any response would have been better than the brow beating served up by an angry customer service rep. Heres the FOAD letter they just sent me. >>>>Hello, As you are likely aware, unprecedented weather events across British Columbia have resulted in road closures and damage to infrastructure that is severely hindering transportation into and out of Western Canada. Unfortunately, because of these events, we can no longer provide an estimated date for delivery of your package. If you do not want to wait for your package, please contact our Customer Service team to discuss other options. Thank you for your understanding. We wish everyone affected a safe and quick recovery. Please know that we also continue to prioritize the health and safety of our Amazon associates while we work through these challenges. Sincerely, Customer Service Amazon.ca SINCERELY? Pfft! At keast they are not canceling the items that real carriers fedex, canada post picked up....unlike the amazon contract carriers they use and abuse.
  - sigmaprimus 5y ago
    PS: I also puchased a Laptop through BestBuy around the same time that got caught up in this mess, they used FedEx as their carrier. There package was held up at the FedEx warehore in Richmond for 5 days but they have now rerouted it through Calgary and I expect I will recieve it eventually. Far better decisions in my opinion.
  - tasogare 5y ago
    > shopper who is currently reevaluating their relationship with Amazon(unfortunately not for the 1st time either) How many more times before you start acting on it for real? I had two bad experience Amazon France and never used since then. This company is crap, not only for buyers but for employees and traditional retail too. Also evade taxes. If you want things to change it's time to stop using it for real.
xyzzy21 5y ago
Yes. I've had this happen when I order "politically incorrect books". They are literally censoring idea they don't like.
- afpx 5y ago
  Which ones? I want read them.
naikrovek 5y ago
"owness" => "onus" I hate giving corrections, and this is a severe word misunderstanding, so I feel it's better to inform rather than leave it. I mean no disrespect by posting this, I intend only to inform and/or educate.
- sigmaprimus 5y ago
  Much appreciated, I do disagree with it being severe in this particular case as the Seller now technically now owes Amazon for shipping but yes I stand corrected and intended the word "ONUS" or "BURDEN". Maybe my friends gift that was "RETURNED" by Amazon will get replaced with a Scrabble game from Walmart!! +1 for You PS: I guess I should spend more time in the LiBerry and Axe more questions ;P
- hunter2_ 5y ago
  This is a most proper eggcorn [0] since OP's explanation is centered around "owe"... [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggcorn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggcorn
- wodenokoto 5y ago
  Thanks, I couldn't guess the right word/spelling from context, and the dictionary didn't help me.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
  Thank you. I didn't make that link and thought it was some rarely used English word that I hadn't heard before.
OJFord 5y ago
What actually happened? I'm having a hard time tying up the title with your description of it. They cancelled an order on your behalf, then when you contacted to say you didn't cancel it, they claimed it was damaged in transit? And refused to honour the original price in sending a replacement?
- sigmaprimus 5y ago
  They did not cancel the order, I ordered the items, they claimed I returned the items which did cancel the order in a round about way. This may make my issue more clear. Below is a copy of the email I sent a consumer protection advocate in my area explaining my personal issues with this situation. Beyond all that they are also taking advantage of sellers by processing items that Amazon had canceled as returns which has a punitive effect on sellers. >>>> Hello, I recently made some purchases on Amazon.ca and because of the shipping routes being cut off due to the weather events my shipments are delayed. This is an understandable situation but what Amazon has decided to do is cancel my orders without any option of waiting or offering a rain cheque for the items at a later date. Instead they just send an email saying your money will be refunded in 2 to 4 days(Which 2 to 4 days is also seems unreasonable considering they initiated the cancelation) I understand why they are doing this as their warehouse/shipping center is getting jammed up with items they can not deliver but with the current state of inflation and rising prices, I will be forced to pay more for the items which I already purchased due to their lack of capacity. When I contacted Amazon I was connected with the rudest customer service rep I have ever had and was scolded because "I know full well that there is a state of emergency in BC and that my items were most likely damaged due to the flooding". Which if that was the case I still feel my order should be fulfilled by Amazon at a later date. I am sure I am not the only one going through this in the North and I feel this matter should be investigated for the sake of others. I would expect that somewhere in the Amazon terms and conditions there is something that absolves them from making things right but just because something is legal to do, does not always mean it is fair. Thank You
  - FDSGSG 5y ago
    How exactly does this affect you? As far as I can tell, your complaining seems entirely unreasonable.
blago 5y ago
You know what Amazon did to me? They delisted my product claiming it was counterfeit. Then they started to directly promote and sell my own inventory. I know it was mine because I contacted the brand to check if Amazon had bought from them. They hadn't. Also, I was the only one selling this item on Amazon so they couldn't have stolen from someone else. What's more, I was the only one importing it to the US. I know because I'm acquainted with the brand owners. When I finally managed to get my stuff out of their warehouses, which took almost a year, they admitted that some of the inventory had been "lost" and compensated me pennies on the dollar. It was a surreal, Kafkaesque, experience that still brings back painful memories. I avoid thinking about it but I hope that one day Amazon will crash, burn, and hopefully never recover.
- beervirus 5y ago
  Why didn’t you sue?
  - blago 5y ago
    Forced arbitration and for the sake of my own mental health. I just don't want anything to do with this company anymore.
    - cosmotic 5y ago
      Forced arbitration that manages to paper over something like theft?
      - CogitoCogito 5y ago
        Yeah if the post here ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29297139 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29297139 ) is correct, I don't see how criminal fraud could be fall under forced arbitration. Criminal prosecution isn't even up to the private parties. That said, I could certainly see why someone might want to avoid devoting their life to fighting Amazon over something like this.
  - robertakarobin 5y ago
mabbo 5y ago
I can tell you a more likely story than "big conspiracy on Amazon's part". Amazon has systems in place to say "We cannot ship from X to Y anymore", but they require manual intervention and maybe those tools don't get used very much. Until someone finds the right button and presses it, orders are dropping into the warehouse to be fulfilled. Ship this sprocket from Vancouver to Calgary since Calgary's site has none. But the truck didn't show up, or maybe it did but now it's got nowhere to go. Now the dock has one section slowly filling up with packages. It's been days. Dock doors are a limited resource, and here's a bunch of them with a mountain of packages blocking them. And the site leadership, well, they have metrics to hit. Just like every other cog in the machine, they will be fired if they don't make rate. What, you thought it was just the lowly associates who are running with dogs nipping at their heels? What's a site leader to do? Well, there's a returns department right here. They've got tools that can handle the package being returned, allowing them to restock those items, refund the customers, clear the dock, and make everything go back to normal for the site. Sounds like good 'Customer Obsession' to get those orders refunded as quickly as possible. Sellers? Those aren't customers. Those metrics are not something the leadership needs to worry about, so they won't.
- goodluckchuck 5y ago
  Sounds functionally equivalent.
- awestley 5y ago
  This I 100% believe
marban 5y ago
Another anecdote from someone with ~20k orders: I bought two pairs of Airpods Max, returned one of them but mixed up the boxes with the two serials. Amazon disposed[!] the brand-new returned model and still charged me for both.
- dylan604 5y ago
  I mean, you messed up in a way that appears to Amazon like you tried to get one over on them. Mistakes happen, but the customer rarely wants to admit when they were the ones to make the mistake. This is a common scam in retail. Buy something, keep the something, fill the box with something else, return the item under extremely lenient return policies, get something for free. Next buyer shockingly gets box of rocks.
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
    It's fine to refuse the return. It's not fine to steal the refused return.
    - dylan604 5y ago
      What are the logisitcs for majorCorp? Eat the cost of shipping the item they didn't authorize to send to them in the first place? It's not their fault user did wrong thing. To them, they are still out 2 items. According to the terms of the return, if you don't follow the terms, you eat the cost of both items. The terms were not followed to the point that it will cost seller even more money to return the unqualified item. Maybe a bit rambly mambly, but hopefully you can at least see the situation from a neutral point of view.
      - Dylan16807 5y ago
        It's logistically annoying if you're sent something by mistake and now need to deal with it in some manner. But if they don't accept the return then it's not their property. Throwing it away is theft.
thrwawy3E11A 5y ago
OpticsPlanet has similarly slimy practices, some worse. The FTC should be involved by now. Don't hesitate to make a report ~ it takes a lot to budge them, but the more the merrier
- FDSGSG 5y ago
  What's the slimy practice? Amazon refunded orders that they weren't able to deliver. OP is upset because there's a display bug involving the cancellation reason.
  - thrwawy3E11A 5y ago
    I see futility in describing the slime of Amazon to an unconditional fan. Optics planet, long before supply issues, has pillarized their business with false advertising where items are advertised as readily available, undercut all competitor pricing, but have hidden backorders of months or no availability at all yet are always promoted for sale regardless. They cancel orders without notice and contrive bizarre excuses when questioned. I speculate that they see value in maintaining high sales stats and falsely outpricing competition, artificially appearing larger and higher volume resulting in better SEO and marketing. A steady drip of other slime oozes from their sleeves, especially related to shipping and order fulfilment and elsewhere. They are also paid cronies with the BBB, and invulnerable via that avenue. Product reviews are strangely nowhere nearly as full of shit as Amazon.
    - FDSGSG 5y ago
      Ah, so you can't actually name any specific slimy practice relevant to this conversation? Thought so.
floatingatoll 5y ago
I’m sorry that you had to be personally impacted to realize that Amazon is willing to screw you over rather than improve their processes. I wish that more people realized that Amazon’s retail operation is a flea market before they suffered. I hope that your story inspires more people to realize they’re vulnerable, re-evaluate the risks of using Amazon, and cancel Amazon Prime.
selimthegrim 5y ago
Did they do this with Ida too? I ordered a book that got stuck in Dallas and never showed up and I'm still not sure about the refund...
neom 5y ago
Have you tried dealing with Uber or AirBnB support recently? It's beyond bad, you basically have to use these services, amazon, airbnb, uber etc at your own risk. 70% of what I buy on amazon either isn't as advertised or breaks after an hour, 70% of my uber drivers don't know the city, 70% of my airbnb experiences in the last 5 years have been awful and support has been there in no instances. I can't believe I'm saying this but... google of all people, have better support than most tech companies these days.
- FDSGSG 5y ago
  Amazon support is great. With Uber drivers you get what you pay for, all Uber Lux drivers I've interacted with have been at the level you'd expect from a professional chauffeur company (which they usually work for).
  - neom 5y ago
    I recently discovered that uber lux/black thing, during the day it's been showing only 4/5 $ more so I tried it a few times and boy o boy, the drivers are a zillion times better. I feel very uncomfortable riding around in an SUV because I'm a hippie but I tell myself "it's on the road anyway, may as well use it" (although I'm well aware of how ridiculous that argument is).
    - ryanlol 5y ago
      I think the way Uber has handled this is truly excellent. In London we have a huge range of service levels to choose from: - UberX: The cheapest option, truly a mixed bag. - Comfort: Drivers with 500+ trips, average 4.85 rating and mid-size cars starting from 2015 - Exec (Black): 1000+ trips, avg rating of 4.9 and a “mid-tier luxury vehicle” manufactured after 2016 - Lux: Basically only drivers from professional chauffeur companies, 90% of the cars are new S-classes. Occasionally you’ll see a Rolls Royce. You get exactly what you’re willing to pay for, the prices are very competitive at every service level.
  - zaphod12 5y ago
    Amazon used to be great. They used to refund, or replace an order immediately. The other day I literally had a chat support agent tell me to call the shipper to check status and then gave me the Amazon support number, because Amazon was the shipper. This was after the website showed it as probably lost. They have decided that they don't need to care anymore. Oh, they also have started hiding the late order in your order history... imagine hoping you'll forget.
FDSGSG 5y ago
I suppose most users here didn't actually bother to read your screed, because it really doesn't seem to describe any real issues. What's supposed to be the problem here? Amazon just cancelled some orders that they couldn't deliver, you got a refund. Calling this "fraudulent"? That just makes you sound like a crazy person.
- op00to 5y ago
  They’re complaining because pre-pandemic, when shit broke, bitching got you your way. Now, there are just some things that aren’t gonna happen. No amount of influence or wealth insulates you from supply chain impacts of COVID. Pre-pandemic they never had to learn how to take the L and move on. Now that the Ls are piling up, privileged people are losing their collective shit.
  - ryanlol 5y ago
    The OP isn’t even taking a L, he’s just not getting the stuff he ordered (but is getting a refund).
- CodeWriter23 5y ago
  You’ve obviously never read The Amazon Business Services Agreement. The nuance here is Amazon charges sellers for _Returns_. How is it a return when it never left the warehouse?
  - ryanlol 5y ago
    OP is not writing from the perspective of a seller, he has absolutely no idea how this looks for the sellers.
    - CodeWriter23 5y ago
      Having been both a seller and customer on Amazon, I think OP’s writing is from the perspective of someone who has also been both.
senecaso 5y ago
Problems like this are why my business partner and I started building Vendazzo (https://vendazzo.com/ https://vendazzo.com/). My partner had been looking for a way to run an independent shop, outside of Amazon, and realized there was no central way to funnel traffic to independent shops. Each shop is left to figure out how to get their name out there and get users onto their site, whereas if you sign up for Amazon, users are given a central search to search across all sellers and find the item(s) they are looking for. Our product is very much a WIP, and will likely fall over with even modest load, but feel free to kick the tires. We have a lot of work we need to do, but if anyone (buyer or seller) has feedback, we would love to hear it. We're currently only indexing ~140k shops, and ~90m items, mostly from shops in the US, Canada, and Europe, but its a start.
- wsostt 5y ago
  Heads up on your landing page. I didn’t know what I was supposed to type into the search box. Category, item, zip code?
  - senecaso 5y ago
    Good to know! We'll have to add something in there to make it more obvious. At the moment, you can just search for the item you are looking for `red shoes`, `58 telecaster`, etc. The location filtering is after you search using the "filter" button, and it requires your location (currently). We plan to extend it to filter by ZIP as well, but we're not there yet. Also, of the 140k shops, we only have location data for ~20k of them. We're working on it.
  - OJFord 5y ago
    Oh wow yeah, I really agree. GP - I think this is a great idea, and from your description here on HN it's really clear how to use it, and I thought parent commenter must be overstating it, but no it really looks like I might be supposed to enter where I want to shop, rather than what for. It would help to preload some products (popular/trending at the moment perhaps?) I think or show some categories. So that it looks more like Amazon or any single shop, but the search gives you results from many. I've wondered before why Shopify doesn't do this fwiw. Why isn't there a central shop entrypoint for all Shopify shops? Bit of crossover with Etsy perhaps, but probably the more serious end and beyond.
dorianmariefr 5y ago
Shopify?
- senecaso 5y ago
  Yep, but then you have to work harder to drive traffic to your shop, since Shopify doesn't have a central marketplace or search feature.
  - akudha 5y ago
    For a company of that size, this must be trivial for Shopify to implement. Have a search engine that can search across all their stores, let stores to opt-in, curate/categorize the products very well, let users search with very narrow parameters, and above all, don't do "sponsored" listings (charge a $10 fee per store per month, or something like that) . The only tricky thing here would be the order of listings - which product comes first among competing stores? That would require some thought. Imagine a brand new, tiny, unknown seller. This feature alone might be worth it for the seller to sign up with Shopify.
    - senecaso 5y ago
      Yes, we were surprised as well, but since they didn't seem interested in building it, we started building one! ;) https://vendazzo.com/ https://vendazzo.com/
      - akudha 5y ago
        How does this work? Are you crawling the stores or do you have a relationship with the stores to display their products?
genericacct 5y ago
I also had an amazon seller not shipping anything and then claiming the item was returned last week (in Europe) fwiw. I am guessing they're trying to game some metric so they don't get in trouble with amazon itself.
hatware 5y ago
> if those margins are not big enough...well I guess their billionaire owner wont be able to take another joy ride into space. It's fun to shit on Bezos for doing what he wants with money he earned, but I was humbled recently listening to his various talks from around 2006-2010, when AWS was just taking off.
killingtime74 5y ago
It’s onus not owness
achenatx 5y ago
I posted a review that their amazon basics batteries leaked within a year just sitting on a shelf. They flagged my review as not meeting community standards and didnt post it.
y-c-o-m-b 5y ago
Many things they do now days is fraudulent. 90% of my orders over $100 are open-box or straight up used items, but they still charge full price on these items. If you're even more unlucky, you might get counterfeit products too despite ordering from the genuine manufacturer on Amazon's page.
slownews45 5y ago
You are a customer. There was a big issue in BC, your package from amazon was delayed and they refunded your money in full. You are complaining because 1) the refund took two days to process, which you claim is unreasonable. 2) You are also complaining based on your emails that they didn't offer you a "rain cheque", depsite the fact that amazon does not offer rain cheque's, and in fact changes prices of item you have put in your cart. You have now contacted a consumer protection advocate with this claim of fraud. Good luck! This is the MOST ridiculous consumer complaint I have seen. Are sellers treated like crap? For sure, that is a given. Sellers are not amazon's customers, there is no seller obsession, their is a customer obsession, and for the metrics amazon is watching what they did here probably makes sense, they can restock and reship these items to places they can deliver to.
jcrawfordor 5y ago
This seems like pretty normal behavior actually... they attempted to deliver the order, there was a failure to deliver, and so they are refunding it. I think it comes off weird just because of Amazon's kind of lazy implementation. I've had a nearly identical experience and I believe the reason is some shortcuts in Amazon's integration with UPS. In my case, I ordered a fairly expensive item from Amazon, it was late on delivery, and then I saw (via MyChoice) that the UPS tracking had been updated with a note along the lines of "merchandise missing, returning carton to shipper." It seemed like either someone had stolen it in shipping or something had happened that broke the box open. In any case, this decision by UPS to "return to sender" seems to have automatically triggered return processing on Amazon's side, as I got a "We couldn't deliver your item" email from Amazon followed a couple of days later by a slightly incongruous email telling me that my return had been received and a refund issued. They did not hold back any return fee, I got the full amount back. Overall I have no complaints about their handling, other than that the item was sold out so I'm now waiting on a restock which is slightly annoying... but that's the chip shortage for you. As for what the seller faced, it's sort of hard to know... while not the friendliest in the world I can imagine Amazon holding back some funds from the seller in this case because the risk of things being lost in transit (or stolen after delivery) is well-known to online sellers and something they presumably price in. On the other hand, around a year ago I had a series of Amazon orders all get stuck in the tracking and ultimately cancelled... at the same Amazon fulfillment warehouse in Southern California. They must have been having some kind of serious problem there, but it was annoying that they just kept trying to fulfill my orders out of the same place.
ajross 5y ago
This isn't fraud. Or if it is fraud it's not fraud against you and you don't have the information to see if it is or not. They can't get you your item because of the weather. Whether or not you personally feel that they should have worked harder or not isn't really the issue; that's not your call to make. They tried, they decided they couldn't do it[1] so they cancelled your order and refunded your purchase price. That's good customer service, not bad. [1] One likely reason is that they probably don't have the local warehousing space to store everyone's in-transit items; it needs to go back to a main shipping center anyway. And if they do, they should ship it to a customer they can reach from there promptly instead (which again is good customer service on the whole: ship as much stuff as you can as fast as you can).
vmception 5y ago
Although Bezos is a shareholder he is off of the project. There is a different CEO.
imroot 5y ago
Amazon has really turned a little more hostile to Third Party Merchants in the last few years. In 2012/2013, I was doing FBA on damaged cargo/insurance buyouts (If a truck gets into a wreck, 99.9%, they can't use the goods on the truck, so, Insurance companies will sell them for pennies on the pound. Yes, pound) when I found a company that was selling a trailer full of LG 27" monitors for what would equate to about $18/each. I had some office and self-storage space and a SUV, and would literally take 10 them from my self storage unit every day, take them to my office space, test the monitor out, open the back to inspect for damage, and then repackage everything in the box and sell them as Used/Tested/Refurbished depending on what I needed to do to get them working again. My biggest complaint was that when someone would return a monitor, it'd never make its way back to me -- as in, it always looked like someone would never return the monitor. I'd set calendar reminders to follow up with Amazon Seller Support, and I'd always get the money credited back to my account. I've watched the fees go up and up (when I was doing FBA, my Amazon fees would cost me around $10, shipping included, per piece. Today, the same fees would run me around $30/unit per device: my item is considered 'oversized') As someone on the Seller Forums mentions a few different times -- you aren't amazon's customer, the end-user is. Amazon is just a channel for selling your goods. Unfortunately, dealing with Amazon as a channel partner is just basically russian roulette -- no matter how well you can describe your problem, you're working with a team that just doesn't care. I've had offers from the same trucking insurance company over the last few years -- even a truck load of PS5's this summer -- but, didn't really want the headache of dealing with Amazon, so, I've turned the offers down.
- mdrzn 5y ago
  Buy these trucks full of goods for cheap, and resell somewhere else? Even eBay, instead of Amazon, would be great for flipping these items. Or even better, there's a need for an aggregator where people can offer to buy "their share" of the full truck of damaged items, and once you have sold 100% of the truck you send the items and collect the payment.
grodriguez100 5y ago
The first time I read this I thought you were a seller (due to your references to hypothetical return fees to be paid by sellers). After reading through the comments it seems that this is not the case —- you are a regular customer, you purchased some items, then the order was cancelled. Is that correct? If so, is that really such a big deal? Aren’t you making a mountain out of a molehill?

311 points by sigmaprimus 5y ago

fold3 5y ago

We're witnessing the early days of environmental collapse and there is someone complaining they won't get their Christmas present on time...

sigmaprimus 5y ago
Regardless of the current environmental, economic and or political situation discounting the deceptive and self-serving actions of a multinational corporation as trivial seems self-righteous. I hope You are never treated poorly by Amazon and never get trolled by smartass meme lord wanabees.
SeanLuke 5y ago
He's complaining that Amazon is charging him, not that it's canceling orders.
- ryanlol 5y ago
  I suggest you read OPs comments more carefully, he is complaining that Amazon is “fraudulently” refunding his orders instead of delivering them when weather permits. Yes, what he is saying doesn’t make any sense.
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    OP is complaining that Amazon is marking the refund as a return when it is not a return. "incase there are sellers that are having to pay return fees" That's the potential fraud part, which makes sense to me. Also, OP is complaining that they are cancelling the shipment in the first place instead of rerouting. That part isn't fraud but it's bad customer service. Also, OP was possibly lied to about item damage, which is really bad customer service.
    - ryanlol 5y ago
      The OP made a direct accusation of fraud with no real evidence to support that claim. > Also, OP is complaining that they are cancelling the shipment in the first place instead of rerouting. That part isn't fraud but it's bad customer service. Cancelling orders in a force majoure situation like this is normal, it’s not bad customer service. Working around this would be exceptional.
      - Dylan16807 5y ago
        > The OP made a direct accusation of fraud with no real evidence to support that claim. The title is imprecise, but it's just a title. The first paragraph of the actual post clarifies that OP is saying if sellers are paying return fees, which is how returns normally work, then it's fraud. > Working around this would be exceptional. An option to delay shipment would not be 'exceptional', and it would not cost Amazon anything notable.
Veen 5y ago
Just out of curiousity, what do you think is serious enough to warrant complaint in the face of environmental collapse? Do you think we should stop complaining about anything less serious than a global catastrophe?
JaimeThompson 5y ago
You should check and see how Amazon gets rid of a lot of their returns which is to say that, rather often, they just trash them.

ddtaylor 5y ago

Almost everyone selling on Amazon knows that they have almost no recourse.

sigmaprimus 5y ago
It seems like blatant fraud to me but I'm not a seller, just a shopper who is currently reevaluating their relationship with Amazon(unfortunately not for the 1st time either). I feel that the fact they canceled my order without offering me a raincheck for the items they already charged my credit card for or at the keast give me the option to wait for reshipping. Now every item on the store is 15% to 250% higher if it is even available anymore...well is unfair especifically so close to Xmas. It just seems any response would have been better than the brow beating served up by an angry customer service rep. Heres the FOAD letter they just sent me. >>>>Hello, As you are likely aware, unprecedented weather events across British Columbia have resulted in road closures and damage to infrastructure that is severely hindering transportation into and out of Western Canada. Unfortunately, because of these events, we can no longer provide an estimated date for delivery of your package. If you do not want to wait for your package, please contact our Customer Service team to discuss other options. Thank you for your understanding. We wish everyone affected a safe and quick recovery. Please know that we also continue to prioritize the health and safety of our Amazon associates while we work through these challenges. Sincerely, Customer Service Amazon.ca SINCERELY? Pfft! At keast they are not canceling the items that real carriers fedex, canada post picked up....unlike the amazon contract carriers they use and abuse.
- sigmaprimus 5y ago
  PS: I also puchased a Laptop through BestBuy around the same time that got caught up in this mess, they used FedEx as their carrier. There package was held up at the FedEx warehore in Richmond for 5 days but they have now rerouted it through Calgary and I expect I will recieve it eventually. Far better decisions in my opinion.
- tasogare 5y ago
  > shopper who is currently reevaluating their relationship with Amazon(unfortunately not for the 1st time either) How many more times before you start acting on it for real? I had two bad experience Amazon France and never used since then. This company is crap, not only for buyers but for employees and traditional retail too. Also evade taxes. If you want things to change it's time to stop using it for real.

xyzzy21 5y ago

Yes. I've had this happen when I order "politically incorrect books". They are literally censoring idea they don't like.

afpx 5y ago
Which ones? I want read them.

naikrovek 5y ago

"owness" => "onus" I hate giving corrections, and this is a severe word misunderstanding, so I feel it's better to inform rather than leave it. I mean no disrespect by posting this, I intend only to inform and/or educate.

sigmaprimus 5y ago
Much appreciated, I do disagree with it being severe in this particular case as the Seller now technically now owes Amazon for shipping but yes I stand corrected and intended the word "ONUS" or "BURDEN". Maybe my friends gift that was "RETURNED" by Amazon will get replaced with a Scrabble game from Walmart!! +1 for You PS: I guess I should spend more time in the LiBerry and Axe more questions ;P
hunter2_ 5y ago
This is a most proper eggcorn [0] since OP's explanation is centered around "owe"... [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggcorn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggcorn
wodenokoto 5y ago
Thanks, I couldn't guess the right word/spelling from context, and the dictionary didn't help me.
tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
Thank you. I didn't make that link and thought it was some rarely used English word that I hadn't heard before.

OJFord 5y ago

What actually happened? I'm having a hard time tying up the title with your description of it. They cancelled an order on your behalf, then when you contacted to say you didn't cancel it, they claimed it was damaged in transit? And refused to honour the original price in sending a replacement?

sigmaprimus 5y ago
They did not cancel the order, I ordered the items, they claimed I returned the items which did cancel the order in a round about way. This may make my issue more clear. Below is a copy of the email I sent a consumer protection advocate in my area explaining my personal issues with this situation. Beyond all that they are also taking advantage of sellers by processing items that Amazon had canceled as returns which has a punitive effect on sellers. >>>> Hello, I recently made some purchases on Amazon.ca and because of the shipping routes being cut off due to the weather events my shipments are delayed. This is an understandable situation but what Amazon has decided to do is cancel my orders without any option of waiting or offering a rain cheque for the items at a later date. Instead they just send an email saying your money will be refunded in 2 to 4 days(Which 2 to 4 days is also seems unreasonable considering they initiated the cancelation) I understand why they are doing this as their warehouse/shipping center is getting jammed up with items they can not deliver but with the current state of inflation and rising prices, I will be forced to pay more for the items which I already purchased due to their lack of capacity. When I contacted Amazon I was connected with the rudest customer service rep I have ever had and was scolded because "I know full well that there is a state of emergency in BC and that my items were most likely damaged due to the flooding". Which if that was the case I still feel my order should be fulfilled by Amazon at a later date. I am sure I am not the only one going through this in the North and I feel this matter should be investigated for the sake of others. I would expect that somewhere in the Amazon terms and conditions there is something that absolves them from making things right but just because something is legal to do, does not always mean it is fair. Thank You
- FDSGSG 5y ago
  How exactly does this affect you? As far as I can tell, your complaining seems entirely unreasonable.

blago 5y ago

You know what Amazon did to me? They delisted my product claiming it was counterfeit. Then they started to directly promote and sell my own inventory. I know it was mine because I contacted the brand to check if Amazon had bought from them. They hadn't. Also, I was the only one selling this item on Amazon so they couldn't have stolen from someone else. What's more, I was the only one importing it to the US. I know because I'm acquainted with the brand owners. When I finally managed to get my stuff out of their warehouses, which took almost a year, they admitted that some of the inventory had been "lost" and compensated me pennies on the dollar. It was a surreal, Kafkaesque, experience that still brings back painful memories. I avoid thinking about it but I hope that one day Amazon will crash, burn, and hopefully never recover.

beervirus 5y ago
Why didn’t you sue?
- blago 5y ago
  Forced arbitration and for the sake of my own mental health. I just don't want anything to do with this company anymore.
  - cosmotic 5y ago
    Forced arbitration that manages to paper over something like theft?
    - CogitoCogito 5y ago
      Yeah if the post here ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29297139 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29297139 ) is correct, I don't see how criminal fraud could be fall under forced arbitration. Criminal prosecution isn't even up to the private parties. That said, I could certainly see why someone might want to avoid devoting their life to fighting Amazon over something like this.
- robertakarobin 5y ago

mabbo 5y ago

I can tell you a more likely story than "big conspiracy on Amazon's part". Amazon has systems in place to say "We cannot ship from X to Y anymore", but they require manual intervention and maybe those tools don't get used very much. Until someone finds the right button and presses it, orders are dropping into the warehouse to be fulfilled. Ship this sprocket from Vancouver to Calgary since Calgary's site has none. But the truck didn't show up, or maybe it did but now it's got nowhere to go. Now the dock has one section slowly filling up with packages. It's been days. Dock doors are a limited resource, and here's a bunch of them with a mountain of packages blocking them. And the site leadership, well, they have metrics to hit. Just like every other cog in the machine, they will be fired if they don't make rate. What, you thought it was just the lowly associates who are running with dogs nipping at their heels? What's a site leader to do? Well, there's a returns department right here. They've got tools that can handle the package being returned, allowing them to restock those items, refund the customers, clear the dock, and make everything go back to normal for the site. Sounds like good 'Customer Obsession' to get those orders refunded as quickly as possible. Sellers? Those aren't customers. Those metrics are not something the leadership needs to worry about, so they won't.

goodluckchuck 5y ago
Sounds functionally equivalent.
awestley 5y ago
This I 100% believe

marban 5y ago

Another anecdote from someone with ~20k orders: I bought two pairs of Airpods Max, returned one of them but mixed up the boxes with the two serials. Amazon disposed[!] the brand-new returned model and still charged me for both.

dylan604 5y ago
I mean, you messed up in a way that appears to Amazon like you tried to get one over on them. Mistakes happen, but the customer rarely wants to admit when they were the ones to make the mistake. This is a common scam in retail. Buy something, keep the something, fill the box with something else, return the item under extremely lenient return policies, get something for free. Next buyer shockingly gets box of rocks.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
  It's fine to refuse the return. It's not fine to steal the refused return.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    What are the logisitcs for majorCorp? Eat the cost of shipping the item they didn't authorize to send to them in the first place? It's not their fault user did wrong thing. To them, they are still out 2 items. According to the terms of the return, if you don't follow the terms, you eat the cost of both items. The terms were not followed to the point that it will cost seller even more money to return the unqualified item. Maybe a bit rambly mambly, but hopefully you can at least see the situation from a neutral point of view.
    - Dylan16807 5y ago
      It's logistically annoying if you're sent something by mistake and now need to deal with it in some manner. But if they don't accept the return then it's not their property. Throwing it away is theft.

thrwawy3E11A 5y ago

OpticsPlanet has similarly slimy practices, some worse. The FTC should be involved by now. Don't hesitate to make a report ~ it takes a lot to budge them, but the more the merrier

FDSGSG 5y ago
What's the slimy practice? Amazon refunded orders that they weren't able to deliver. OP is upset because there's a display bug involving the cancellation reason.
- thrwawy3E11A 5y ago
  I see futility in describing the slime of Amazon to an unconditional fan. Optics planet, long before supply issues, has pillarized their business with false advertising where items are advertised as readily available, undercut all competitor pricing, but have hidden backorders of months or no availability at all yet are always promoted for sale regardless. They cancel orders without notice and contrive bizarre excuses when questioned. I speculate that they see value in maintaining high sales stats and falsely outpricing competition, artificially appearing larger and higher volume resulting in better SEO and marketing. A steady drip of other slime oozes from their sleeves, especially related to shipping and order fulfilment and elsewhere. They are also paid cronies with the BBB, and invulnerable via that avenue. Product reviews are strangely nowhere nearly as full of shit as Amazon.
  - FDSGSG 5y ago
    Ah, so you can't actually name any specific slimy practice relevant to this conversation? Thought so.

floatingatoll 5y ago

I’m sorry that you had to be personally impacted to realize that Amazon is willing to screw you over rather than improve their processes. I wish that more people realized that Amazon’s retail operation is a flea market before they suffered. I hope that your story inspires more people to realize they’re vulnerable, re-evaluate the risks of using Amazon, and cancel Amazon Prime.

selimthegrim 5y ago

Did they do this with Ida too? I ordered a book that got stuck in Dallas and never showed up and I'm still not sure about the refund...

neom 5y ago

Have you tried dealing with Uber or AirBnB support recently? It's beyond bad, you basically have to use these services, amazon, airbnb, uber etc at your own risk. 70% of what I buy on amazon either isn't as advertised or breaks after an hour, 70% of my uber drivers don't know the city, 70% of my airbnb experiences in the last 5 years have been awful and support has been there in no instances. I can't believe I'm saying this but... google of all people, have better support than most tech companies these days.

FDSGSG 5y ago
Amazon support is great. With Uber drivers you get what you pay for, all Uber Lux drivers I've interacted with have been at the level you'd expect from a professional chauffeur company (which they usually work for).
- neom 5y ago
  I recently discovered that uber lux/black thing, during the day it's been showing only 4/5 $ more so I tried it a few times and boy o boy, the drivers are a zillion times better. I feel very uncomfortable riding around in an SUV because I'm a hippie but I tell myself "it's on the road anyway, may as well use it" (although I'm well aware of how ridiculous that argument is).
  - ryanlol 5y ago
    I think the way Uber has handled this is truly excellent. In London we have a huge range of service levels to choose from: - UberX: The cheapest option, truly a mixed bag. - Comfort: Drivers with 500+ trips, average 4.85 rating and mid-size cars starting from 2015 - Exec (Black): 1000+ trips, avg rating of 4.9 and a “mid-tier luxury vehicle” manufactured after 2016 - Lux: Basically only drivers from professional chauffeur companies, 90% of the cars are new S-classes. Occasionally you’ll see a Rolls Royce. You get exactly what you’re willing to pay for, the prices are very competitive at every service level.
- zaphod12 5y ago
  Amazon used to be great. They used to refund, or replace an order immediately. The other day I literally had a chat support agent tell me to call the shipper to check status and then gave me the Amazon support number, because Amazon was the shipper. This was after the website showed it as probably lost. They have decided that they don't need to care anymore. Oh, they also have started hiding the late order in your order history... imagine hoping you'll forget.

FDSGSG 5y ago

I suppose most users here didn't actually bother to read your screed, because it really doesn't seem to describe any real issues. What's supposed to be the problem here? Amazon just cancelled some orders that they couldn't deliver, you got a refund. Calling this "fraudulent"? That just makes you sound like a crazy person.

op00to 5y ago
They’re complaining because pre-pandemic, when shit broke, bitching got you your way. Now, there are just some things that aren’t gonna happen. No amount of influence or wealth insulates you from supply chain impacts of COVID. Pre-pandemic they never had to learn how to take the L and move on. Now that the Ls are piling up, privileged people are losing their collective shit.
- ryanlol 5y ago
  The OP isn’t even taking a L, he’s just not getting the stuff he ordered (but is getting a refund).
CodeWriter23 5y ago
You’ve obviously never read The Amazon Business Services Agreement. The nuance here is Amazon charges sellers for _Returns_. How is it a return when it never left the warehouse?
- ryanlol 5y ago
  OP is not writing from the perspective of a seller, he has absolutely no idea how this looks for the sellers.
  - CodeWriter23 5y ago
    Having been both a seller and customer on Amazon, I think OP’s writing is from the perspective of someone who has also been both.

senecaso 5y ago

Problems like this are why my business partner and I started building Vendazzo (https://vendazzo.com/ https://vendazzo.com/). My partner had been looking for a way to run an independent shop, outside of Amazon, and realized there was no central way to funnel traffic to independent shops. Each shop is left to figure out how to get their name out there and get users onto their site, whereas if you sign up for Amazon, users are given a central search to search across all sellers and find the item(s) they are looking for. Our product is very much a WIP, and will likely fall over with even modest load, but feel free to kick the tires. We have a lot of work we need to do, but if anyone (buyer or seller) has feedback, we would love to hear it. We're currently only indexing ~140k shops, and ~90m items, mostly from shops in the US, Canada, and Europe, but its a start.

wsostt 5y ago
Heads up on your landing page. I didn’t know what I was supposed to type into the search box. Category, item, zip code?
- senecaso 5y ago
  Good to know! We'll have to add something in there to make it more obvious. At the moment, you can just search for the item you are looking for `red shoes`, `58 telecaster`, etc. The location filtering is after you search using the "filter" button, and it requires your location (currently). We plan to extend it to filter by ZIP as well, but we're not there yet. Also, of the 140k shops, we only have location data for ~20k of them. We're working on it.
- OJFord 5y ago
  Oh wow yeah, I really agree. GP - I think this is a great idea, and from your description here on HN it's really clear how to use it, and I thought parent commenter must be overstating it, but no it really looks like I might be supposed to enter where I want to shop, rather than what for. It would help to preload some products (popular/trending at the moment perhaps?) I think or show some categories. So that it looks more like Amazon or any single shop, but the search gives you results from many. I've wondered before why Shopify doesn't do this fwiw. Why isn't there a central shop entrypoint for all Shopify shops? Bit of crossover with Etsy perhaps, but probably the more serious end and beyond.

dorianmariefr 5y ago

Shopify?

senecaso 5y ago
Yep, but then you have to work harder to drive traffic to your shop, since Shopify doesn't have a central marketplace or search feature.
- akudha 5y ago
  For a company of that size, this must be trivial for Shopify to implement. Have a search engine that can search across all their stores, let stores to opt-in, curate/categorize the products very well, let users search with very narrow parameters, and above all, don't do "sponsored" listings (charge a $10 fee per store per month, or something like that) . The only tricky thing here would be the order of listings - which product comes first among competing stores? That would require some thought. Imagine a brand new, tiny, unknown seller. This feature alone might be worth it for the seller to sign up with Shopify.
  - senecaso 5y ago
    Yes, we were surprised as well, but since they didn't seem interested in building it, we started building one! ;) https://vendazzo.com/ https://vendazzo.com/
    - akudha 5y ago
      How does this work? Are you crawling the stores or do you have a relationship with the stores to display their products?

genericacct 5y ago

I also had an amazon seller not shipping anything and then claiming the item was returned last week (in Europe) fwiw. I am guessing they're trying to game some metric so they don't get in trouble with amazon itself.

hatware 5y ago

> if those margins are not big enough...well I guess their billionaire owner wont be able to take another joy ride into space. It's fun to shit on Bezos for doing what he wants with money he earned, but I was humbled recently listening to his various talks from around 2006-2010, when AWS was just taking off.

killingtime74 5y ago

It’s onus not owness

achenatx 5y ago

I posted a review that their amazon basics batteries leaked within a year just sitting on a shelf. They flagged my review as not meeting community standards and didnt post it.

y-c-o-m-b 5y ago

Many things they do now days is fraudulent. 90% of my orders over $100 are open-box or straight up used items, but they still charge full price on these items. If you're even more unlucky, you might get counterfeit products too despite ordering from the genuine manufacturer on Amazon's page.

slownews45 5y ago

You are a customer. There was a big issue in BC, your package from amazon was delayed and they refunded your money in full. You are complaining because 1) the refund took two days to process, which you claim is unreasonable. 2) You are also complaining based on your emails that they didn't offer you a "rain cheque", depsite the fact that amazon does not offer rain cheque's, and in fact changes prices of item you have put in your cart. You have now contacted a consumer protection advocate with this claim of fraud. Good luck! This is the MOST ridiculous consumer complaint I have seen. Are sellers treated like crap? For sure, that is a given. Sellers are not amazon's customers, there is no seller obsession, their is a customer obsession, and for the metrics amazon is watching what they did here probably makes sense, they can restock and reship these items to places they can deliver to.

jcrawfordor 5y ago

This seems like pretty normal behavior actually... they attempted to deliver the order, there was a failure to deliver, and so they are refunding it. I think it comes off weird just because of Amazon's kind of lazy implementation. I've had a nearly identical experience and I believe the reason is some shortcuts in Amazon's integration with UPS. In my case, I ordered a fairly expensive item from Amazon, it was late on delivery, and then I saw (via MyChoice) that the UPS tracking had been updated with a note along the lines of "merchandise missing, returning carton to shipper." It seemed like either someone had stolen it in shipping or something had happened that broke the box open. In any case, this decision by UPS to "return to sender" seems to have automatically triggered return processing on Amazon's side, as I got a "We couldn't deliver your item" email from Amazon followed a couple of days later by a slightly incongruous email telling me that my return had been received and a refund issued. They did not hold back any return fee, I got the full amount back. Overall I have no complaints about their handling, other than that the item was sold out so I'm now waiting on a restock which is slightly annoying... but that's the chip shortage for you. As for what the seller faced, it's sort of hard to know... while not the friendliest in the world I can imagine Amazon holding back some funds from the seller in this case because the risk of things being lost in transit (or stolen after delivery) is well-known to online sellers and something they presumably price in. On the other hand, around a year ago I had a series of Amazon orders all get stuck in the tracking and ultimately cancelled... at the same Amazon fulfillment warehouse in Southern California. They must have been having some kind of serious problem there, but it was annoying that they just kept trying to fulfill my orders out of the same place.

ajross 5y ago

This isn't fraud. Or if it is fraud it's not fraud against you and you don't have the information to see if it is or not. They can't get you your item because of the weather. Whether or not you personally feel that they should have worked harder or not isn't really the issue; that's not your call to make. They tried, they decided they couldn't do it[1] so they cancelled your order and refunded your purchase price. That's good customer service, not bad. [1] One likely reason is that they probably don't have the local warehousing space to store everyone's in-transit items; it needs to go back to a main shipping center anyway. And if they do, they should ship it to a customer they can reach from there promptly instead (which again is good customer service on the whole: ship as much stuff as you can as fast as you can).

vmception 5y ago

Although Bezos is a shareholder he is off of the project. There is a different CEO.

imroot 5y ago

Amazon has really turned a little more hostile to Third Party Merchants in the last few years. In 2012/2013, I was doing FBA on damaged cargo/insurance buyouts (If a truck gets into a wreck, 99.9%, they can't use the goods on the truck, so, Insurance companies will sell them for pennies on the pound. Yes, pound) when I found a company that was selling a trailer full of LG 27" monitors for what would equate to about $18/each. I had some office and self-storage space and a SUV, and would literally take 10 them from my self storage unit every day, take them to my office space, test the monitor out, open the back to inspect for damage, and then repackage everything in the box and sell them as Used/Tested/Refurbished depending on what I needed to do to get them working again. My biggest complaint was that when someone would return a monitor, it'd never make its way back to me -- as in, it always looked like someone would never return the monitor. I'd set calendar reminders to follow up with Amazon Seller Support, and I'd always get the money credited back to my account. I've watched the fees go up and up (when I was doing FBA, my Amazon fees would cost me around $10, shipping included, per piece. Today, the same fees would run me around $30/unit per device: my item is considered 'oversized') As someone on the Seller Forums mentions a few different times -- you aren't amazon's customer, the end-user is. Amazon is just a channel for selling your goods. Unfortunately, dealing with Amazon as a channel partner is just basically russian roulette -- no matter how well you can describe your problem, you're working with a team that just doesn't care. I've had offers from the same trucking insurance company over the last few years -- even a truck load of PS5's this summer -- but, didn't really want the headache of dealing with Amazon, so, I've turned the offers down.

mdrzn 5y ago
Buy these trucks full of goods for cheap, and resell somewhere else? Even eBay, instead of Amazon, would be great for flipping these items. Or even better, there's a need for an aggregator where people can offer to buy "their share" of the full truck of damaged items, and once you have sold 100% of the truck you send the items and collect the payment.

grodriguez100 5y ago

The first time I read this I thought you were a seller (due to your references to hypothetical return fees to be paid by sellers). After reading through the comments it seems that this is not the case —- you are a regular customer, you purchased some items, then the order was cancelled. Is that correct? If so, is that really such a big deal? Aren’t you making a mountain out of a molehill?