3 ms·

[citation needed] I have never heard of this happening ever with amazon, though I would love to know where your experience with this is coming from.

pja 15y ago
The magic phrase to search for is "extraordinary number of incidents with your orders and corresponding shipments" which is from their standard form email when they cancel your account. My guess would be that Amazon's business model is very sensitive to the return rate, since returns are very expensive for them: their whole system is built around getting product out the door to the customer not the other way round! One or two expensive returns from a customer could wipe out all the profit they'll ever make from that individual. If they believe they can identify those customers who are likely to cost them money, it's in Amazon's interest to cut off service to those customers as early as possible. Perfectly rational behaviour, but I imagine highly frustrating for those customers who naturally feel that they've been somehow accused of wrongdoing when Amazon decides it doesn't want to do business with them any more.
- hyperbovine 15y ago
  This behavior is not limited to Amazon. Big-box retailers and department stores also ban people who abuse the return policy. And, as an honest shopper who likes being able to return things from time to time, I'm glad for it.
  - pja 15y ago
    I think the troubling issue for some is that they can return things for perfectly good reasons, the items in question were in fact faulty, or mis-described on the website or whatever, but Amazon canceled their accounts regardless. Of course it's possible that those who go online to complain about this are in fact abusing the system, but from Amazon's POV it makes perfect sense: they don't want picky customers who will return borderline goods because it will eat into their margins. It's much more profitable to sell to those who won't notice the dead pixels on their laptop display (or whatever the problem happens to be).

pja 15y ago

The magic phrase to search for is "extraordinary number of incidents with your orders and corresponding shipments" which is from their standard form email when they cancel your account. My guess would be that Amazon's business model is very sensitive to the return rate, since returns are very expensive for them: their whole system is built around getting product out the door to the customer not the other way round! One or two expensive returns from a customer could wipe out all the profit they'll ever make from that individual. If they believe they can identify those customers who are likely to cost them money, it's in Amazon's interest to cut off service to those customers as early as possible. Perfectly rational behaviour, but I imagine highly frustrating for those customers who naturally feel that they've been somehow accused of wrongdoing when Amazon decides it doesn't want to do business with them any more.

hyperbovine 15y ago
This behavior is not limited to Amazon. Big-box retailers and department stores also ban people who abuse the return policy. And, as an honest shopper who likes being able to return things from time to time, I'm glad for it.
- pja 15y ago
  I think the troubling issue for some is that they can return things for perfectly good reasons, the items in question were in fact faulty, or mis-described on the website or whatever, but Amazon canceled their accounts regardless. Of course it's possible that those who go online to complain about this are in fact abusing the system, but from Amazon's POV it makes perfect sense: they don't want picky customers who will return borderline goods because it will eat into their margins. It's much more profitable to sell to those who won't notice the dead pixels on their laptop display (or whatever the problem happens to be).