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Amazon Has an Honesty Issue

171 points by _Microft 3y ago

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
wizb 3y ago
I tried to return a couple of things within 30 days last month, they offered me less than purchase price plus ridiculously expensive shipping. Total refund would have been around 70% of purchase price. Not what I expected when I signed up as a Prime customer.
- varelse 3y ago
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DueDilligence 3y ago
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RecycledEle 3y ago
Someone stole am Xbox. I'm not sure it's Amazon.
- raincom 3y ago
  Well, who is responsible for the theft? Whoever handled this piece stole it. So many hands from shipping to delivery. It is my hunch that either the driver or some folks in the local distribution center stole it. A secret code doesn't solve the problem, unless the receiver opens the box in front of the delivery driver.
- codetrotter 3y ago
  I think it’s about high time that Amazon disrupts the “leave it on the porch” method. Too many packages are stolen by thieves. And I mean, they’ve already started to some extend to deal with it. There are many cities I’ve been to that has Amazon delivery boxes where you can pick up your stuff. I think that when drones get powerful enough, and regulation allows it, Amazon will adopt drone delivery everywhere. You get a notification on your phone telling you that your package is at the local distribution center. When you get back home, or some other day later where you are not busy, you tell the app to deliver now and within short time a drone drops the package off at your home any time that is convenient to you 24x7/365, even if it’s like 3am on a Sunday. And for the rest of the journey up to that point, rigorous tracking and auditing to make sure packages don’t go “missing” on the way.
  - adamckay 3y ago
    Doesn't matter in this case. An Xbox was ordered that's classed as a "high value" item so requires a OTP being given to the driver to release the package. The package was hand delivered to the customer when the customer provided the OTP, but it turns out the contents of the package were swapped out with junk.
  - Gorbzel 3y ago
    They have no idea how to disrupt last mile delivery without corruption and theft. They’ve tried. My apartment building’s doorbox has Amazon Key, such that drivers have the ability to let themselves in and drop off packages in a secure area. I’ve confirmed with one of the better Amazon delivery drivers that it works like a charm. The vast majority of them don’t (think/care to) use it. At this point I’m actually glad, lest they let themselves into the secure area and steal other packages.
  - desas 3y ago
    "leave it on the porch" isn't even a thing in the UK, unless you specifically nominate it as your acceptable secure place. Amazon knock on the door, if you're not in then they'll come back tomorrow, and if you're not in, then they'll try the next day. If you're not in three days in a row they'll hold the package for three days, to give you time to arrange one final delivery attempt to your home, Amazon locker or pick-up point (neighbourhood shop). Eventually they'll just take the package back and refund you automatically.
    - daveoc64 3y ago
      Amazon leaves stuff on my porch most days in the UK.
    - sanitycheck 3y ago
      Recent Amazon UK delivery experiences: - Expected delivery on Wednesday, instead "delivered" Tuesday when I'm out by just leaving it in front of the front door, 1m from the street. - Sitting downstairs eating dinner, my phone pings, Amazon package apparently delivered. But nobody rang the bell or knocked the door. It's just been left outside the front door again. - Another "delivered" notification but no knock and nothing left outside the house. Check app, status is "handed to resident". Assume it's been nicked, but check with the neighbour just in case - thankfully they got it! - My parents ordered some glassware, delivery driver dropped the package (marked Fragile) from waist height onto their doorstep, again without even attempting to knock/ring the bell. Footage captured on security cam. Obviously glassware didn't survive.
- fweimer 3y ago
  Not sure about that. One of the screenshots mentions AMZNMKTPLACE AMAZON CO UK. If it was indeed an Amazon Marketplace vendor, then it's not entirely unheard of that it was a scam from the start.
  - sanitycheck 3y ago
    Yep, I spotted the same thing. Third party seller. I'll still occasionally buy stuff from Amazon that's actually sold by Amazon, but I'd pick almost any other retailer over an "Amazon Marketplace" seller. Scam city. (I'll search for stuff directly on camelcamelcamel these days, as the "sold by amazon" filter is gone from Amazon's own website.)
raincom 3y ago
Three years ago, a friend of a friend told me that he knows people inside UPS/Fedex/etc who steal expensive items, and sell them to fencers. Now it is time to pick up your expensive stuff from local stores, even if you place orders online.
- whatshisface 3y ago
  I had something stolen out of the USPS system. I don't know whether it was the mailing center or the USPS itself but it disappeared in a way that logically couldn't have been a mistake.
  - raincom 3y ago
    USPS is considered safer, because of federal charges. Some wise people suggested to use priority/express mail, along with insurance, if one wants it more secure in the USPS system.
    - User23 3y ago
      Postal inspectors take this sort of thing very seriously.
      - raincom 3y ago
        Only when they want to investigate your case. Most of the time, postal investigators don't care. Maybe, they care if the package is insured/priority/express mail.
      - handedness 3y ago
        Lately I've been seeing comments like this surprisingly often, but my firsthand experience tells me otherwise.
        gnicholas 3y ago
        A relative had mail stolen from an outgoing mailbox. She filed a complaint and was contacted months later when they caught the guy. They found her checks (to charity) in his house. She was shocked to hear back so much later. Apparently they were on the case the whole time, since it was affecting a lot of people.
charcircuit 3y ago
Web retailers being slow is nothing new. Especially during December.
not_your_vase 3y ago
This reads more like a rant unfortunately. While I agree with the closing statements, I think you realized it too late. You already made Amazon an almost undestroyable behemoth with the previous 83 purchases of yours (sure, you didn't do it alone. But your patronage was essential while it lasted). You can't really make that not-happened, it's late for that. On a different note, it is not Amazon's interest to scam you. But unfortunately it is one rando's word (yours) against another rando's word (the driver, or whoever), without a lot of proof that could be sent to the police.
notyofriend 3y ago
Recently I had them fail to deliver a 10$ item, flag it in their system as a delivery failure notify me that the failure occurred and then still not give me a refund and tell me that they are doing me a favor by refund it. The service quality really Turing to poop. In December they basically done guarantee delivers either anymore so between that and the sea of counterfeits I only make 5-10$ item orders from them where the delivery costs more than the item.
wdb 3y ago
Lately I have been recording the opening of expensive parcels received from Amazon with one-time code to avoid these issues. Recently they have been causing issues with a return they lost after receiving it and want me to recharge the amount.
rutierut 3y ago
I cannot think of a _single_ low-margin global corporation that can get away with it that hasn’t made the trade-off where they accept some of their customers will be treated horribly in order to save _a lot_ of money. I’ve currently got a DHL package in limbo that’s worth about the same and the main function of their customer service department seems to be to indicate that trying to consume customer service resources is not going to help you. Employees will give you completely contradictory and verifiably incorrect information.
- blagie 3y ago
  I don't think this saves Amazon money. They have a huge problem with internal, for lack of a better word, corruptions. * Packing people who don't care if high-value items are broken * Delivery people who fake deliveries and steal * Co-mingling of fake items with sellers ... and so on. Because the delivery person wasn't investigated, they'll steal again and again, and that will spread to others in Amazon culture. Good companies do investigate issues like this one, and keep the business clean. Once a culture of theft creeps in, it's a lot harder to fix, and it oozes $$$ at a crazy rate. This costs them a massive amount of money. My guess is there is no one in the corporate hierarchy who cares enough about their employer to fix it (everyone I've met who works for Amazon is a disgruntled employee). There is a slight bit of short-term savings, but around two years back, I stopped ordering anything from Amazon which might be subject to fraud or safety issues (e.g. high-cost items, food, medicine, SD cards, SSDs, brand-name clothing items, etc.). This year, I cancelled Prime. There's just too much fraud going on. I can't imagine Amazon is saving money when XBoxes and similar items get stolen, and I can't imagine long-term success if they're bleeding customers and brand value. If AWS wasn't tied to the retail division, I'd be shorting Amazon retail right now.
  - cjaybo 3y ago
    You posted the same theory above, except there you included the important disclaimer that you have no inside information — is this just a hunch that you have? Because it seems like a Hanlon’s razor type of situation to me. Without some sort of evidence of the fraud you speak of, it seems far more likely to be them simply struggling with challenges of scale. Every business deals with bad employees but the majority of people with jobs tend to want to keep their job. It’s hard for me to imagine that fraud is the dominating cause here.
johngossman 3y ago
Fwiw...this reminded me I had a package ($90) not show up this week. I used their completely automated system and got refunded in 5 minutes. Message even says "if you find the package you can keep it." I think you need a lot of examples to draw any conclusions and self-reporting is going to be almost entirely negative experiences.
- ksec 3y ago
  Unfortunately a lot of these benefits ( So to speak if you do received the package ) are never really being told publicly. One of thing that most on people on the planet, including those on HN dont realise is just how hard logistics are in real world.
- EA-3167 3y ago
  They have some real upsides, the Amazon return policy being one of them. They also have a huge problem with counterfeits, abusive resellers, rigged voting and so on. The existence of their best point doesn't obviate the existence of the sort of behavior that should lead to sanction, regulation, and reform.
- shepherdjerred 3y ago
  I'll share my anecdote: a few weeks ago I ordered hooks for hanging up lights ($25). The package was marked as delivered, but nowhere to be seen. I don't have a problem with package theft, so my guess is that it was delivered to the wrong address or something. I went to Amazon's site and tried to report the issue, but, at least for that item, there was no automated way to report a package as "not delivered".
  - johngossman 3y ago
    Good point. There was a very non-obvious "Get Help" button which led to a non-obvious "Get More Help" link which led to a "Call me" button. But they called instantly once I got there
  - wahnfrieden 3y ago
    It’s there they just trick you. Don’t go looking for the option starting from your order details. Instead start from the general support chat and say the automated response didn’t help you and you need more help.
iamcalledrob 3y ago
Amazon (US) has really gone downhill in the past ~5 years. I signed up for Prime a over decade ago because of the reliable 2 day shipping. It worked pretty much as described. It was great. Shipping is no longer 2 days on most items - "Prime" shipping can now take 7 days. Amazon advertise same or next day shipping, but it's really only for big ticket, occasional purchase items. Most everyday purchases now take 3-7 days, the same as without prime. They show the prime badge, but if you log out you can see that non-prime members get the same shipping. This feels really dishonest. Amazon pretend that you get huge shipping benefits from Prime, but it turns out you don't anymore. For the first time, I've cancelled my prime renewal. What, exactly, am I paying for these days? Walmart offer next-day free shipping on the big ticket items too, without the membership.
- noncoml 3y ago
  What’s dishonest is that they say the 2-day applies only after they ship the item, but they don’t count their “internal logistics” shipping in this time. How do I know that? Amazin charges your card only when they actually pack and ship the item. But the tracking on UPS will not appear until 3-4 days later Another annoying thing about Amazon is the subscribe and save. They see it as one way contract. Many times I have subscribed to a product only to get a notification when it’s fulfillment time that was saying that the product was out of stock and I should choose a replacement. That’s not how it is supposed to work Amazon. I take up the obligation to buy a product monthly and you should take the obligation to make sure it’s available. It ended up being death by a thousand cuts for me and Amazon. I barely use it anymore
- THENATHE 3y ago
  I literally never experience this issue. Except for a couple of actually lost packages, my prime has had EVERY package come in 2 days or less except holidays. I live in a 250k town tho, so I am not sure if there is some level of size that plays into it. Perhaps I am the perfect size to have enough infrastructure to get reliable deliveries, but small enough that I don't have to worry about all that comes with a massive city.
  - dingusdew 3y ago
dboreham 3y ago
Amazon code that renders tracking seems obviously broken in places. They shipped a thing to me (MT) from NY, and the post office mistakenly routed it to Puerto Rico. At some point in this saga the Amazon order tracking page went from "it's running late and if it isn't there tomorrow you can get a refund" to "likely it was delivered on or around Dec 1 and you can't get a refund". Meanwhile the tracking (number copied from that same page) shows it meandering around FL on its way back from its Carribean vacation.
- bragr 3y ago
  You can probably still get a refund if you open the support chat, experience of the blog writer not withstanding. They always have more options than the shipping page will give you.
stoorafa 3y ago
Amazon took something like 30 days to deliver me an iPad (Pro, so $900) that was supposed to be “Prime” delivered. I asked them to cancel the order after seven days, and repeatedly asked them to cancel, but they wouldn’t. They seem to follow the old Ferengi adage of “Once you have their money, you never give it back” Edit: I returned it for a refund, but was out a decent amount do money for a while.
- r00fus 3y ago
  I simply refuse to buy high value items from Amazon these days. Especially Apple products. In fact I tend to buy most goods via local same-day delivery or pickup.
  - kibwen 3y ago
    I don't dare buy technology from Amazon, the commingling of products from random sources means the risk of counterfeits is just too high. Micro Center or Best Buy would have to be actively malicious for something like that to happen, while Amazon can just be passively malicious and say "system working as designed, wontfix".
- gnicholas 3y ago
  Were they the shipper or seller? I can understand them saying they can’t cancel the order midstream, but once it’s been over a week from the order time, they can’t exactly stand by that default rule. You can’t take someone’s money and leave them with nothing for a month.
  - AlotOfReading 3y ago
    Amazon and Apple have had an agreement since ~2018 that limits third party sellers of Apple products on the platform in return for Amazon having access to new devices on the market. It's very likely that the seller was Apple directly and the device already in the warehouse.
deleted 3y ago
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RajT88 3y ago
Buying stealable big ticket stuff like this on Amazon is something I just realized I have never done. I haven't had issues with Amazon drivers stealing my packages, but I sure as hell have gone through issues with my fucking neighbors stealing my packages. Apartment living is hell. /rant Game consoles and guitars I generally buy in person. Sure, there's corner cases, like buying used (generally retro) consoles on eBay, but these won't be clearly marked as a game console.
- anonymouskimmer 3y ago
  The Amazon delivery driver doesn't know it's a game console either, as it was in a regular brown box. The driver just knew it required a special code prior to delivery. The only Amazon people who know it's a console are those responsible for packing it.
  - raincom 3y ago
    'Knowing it required a special code priority to delivery' itself is a signal for stealing, and replacing it with junk. Drivers can do it; even people at distribution centers do it [1] [1] https://www.newsweek.com/amazon-workers-steal-140k-goods-depot-1585350 https://www.newsweek.com/amazon-workers-steal-140k-goods-dep...
thelittleone 3y ago
Dang I'm no fan of amazon's ethics but it seems bad ethics is the norm among corporates, governments not the exception. Corruption, abuses of power... occurring with such regularity and at worst a slap on the wrist or forced to retire with a huge payout.
xkekjrktllss 3y ago
Amazon is a private enterprise and its profit is soaring, which means this is simply a non-issue. I thought HN knew how free markets worked but I guess not.
- blagie 3y ago
  Amazon's market cap soared when profits were negative. Amazon was building up reputation, logistics, and customer relations. As far as I can tell, they've been torching all of that long-term value for about the past three years. That's a huge loss of value.
  - xkekjrktllss 3y ago
    When were profits negative? AFAIK Amazon.com may lose money but AWS more than makes up for it. Amazon.com is a long game to monopolize retail logistics, which they are just now starting to offer as a service to other retailers, meaning Amazon.com is of less importance.
    - blagie 3y ago
      Amazon was losing money for nearly the first decade of its existence. It was a bit of a laughing stock among the traditional business community: "Lose money on every sale, but make it up in volume!" The loses were considered astronomical at the time; in 2000, it lost over a billion dollars. The strategy was the right one, though. To put all of that in perspective, in 2018, it earned over 10 billion, and many businesses have since followed the Amazon model. It's sort of a classic case study in business schools now.
      - xkekjrktllss 3y ago
        You are conflating Amazon with Amazon.com, and vice versa at your convenience. It's much too sloppy of analysis to sustain a worthy discussion.
        3y ago
crazygringo 3y ago
I don't think the conclusions presented are true. It seems to be a pretty "standard" case of theft that, unfortunately, yes these things often take time to resolve. And all of the "analysis" is just speculation. Does it suck that it took extra messages for the return to be acknowledged, and extra weeks for the refund to finally get approved and go through? For sure. Does this mean "Amazon has an honesty issue"? No. Dealing with a package where the expensive contents were swapped out for other content is probably going to take weeks to resolve with any major retailer. Trying to shortcut the process by filing a chargeback isn't going to help anything. You only do that if Amazon ultimately denies the return. Of course it sucks it ties up that money. But they can also just leave the balance on the credit card for an extra month and pay, what, $8 in interest? Everything about: > remain in a state of financial limbo for the better part of 2 months, spending Christmas wondering whether we'd ever see our money again. feels overly dramatic. Anyone who can put a $600+ Xbox bundle on a credit card isn't going to be left in "financial limbo". In the end, they can rest assured that a chargeback with Amex will work even if it didn't on their first attempt. Yes this is all annoying. But it's not some conspiracy. These cases are hard for companies to deal with, because for every delivery person who's a thief, there's a customer who lies and gets a free Xbox out of it. So they do take time and effort to resolve.
- alibarber 3y ago
  Trying to shortcut the process by filing a chargeback isn't going to help anything. You only do that if Amazon ultimately denies the return. Maybe - but as he correctly mentions, in the UK, he's effectively buying the console from American Express because they gave him credit for it.
  - crazygringo 3y ago
    I don't see what that has to do with anything. You still wait for the Amazon return process to conclude one way or another.
    - blibble 3y ago
      you don't have to, a prompt refund is guaranteed by UK law within 14 days regardless of amazon's shitty processes if they don't do it in time, chargeback is a perfectly reasonable
anonymouskimmer 3y ago
> On the day, I was full of righteous indignation and ideally wanted the driver to be nailed to the nearest wall The guy keeps on making this out to be the driver's fault, when only circumstantial evidence points to that. Everytime he was mentioning reasons to think it was the driver I, as a person who has worked in shipping and delivery as a hoi polloi, thought of reasonable reasons why the driver would act that way. - The driver probably isn't even there when his van is loaded, so easy for a package handler to swap things out. - A package with mandatory code instructions may have been in another part of the van, and could have been missed the first go-around by a busy driver. (edit: assuming it wasn't loaded into another van entirely.) - Online tracking being off happens all of the time.
- inopinatus 3y ago
  The author is a case study in sloppy thinking. Sure, they were wronged; they are certainly a victim here. But property was stolen and the retailer is negligently complicit in the theft. When this happens, you call the police, and your insurance company.
  - anonymouskimmer 3y ago
    I agree in general, but I think he's right in claiming that this isn't a criminal matter on his end, as the console was technically stolen from Amazon prior to delivery, not from him after delivery. What he's doing with Amazon customer service and Amex are the pertinent things from his end.
    - inopinatus 3y ago
      The point at which Amazon denies this is the moment where they became negligently complicit.
      - anonymouskimmer 3y ago
        Still a civil matter instead of a criminal matter. Amazon has the lawful right to both protect their interests and perform their process of refund (whatever errors and pauses they may make during this process). As such the state of mind necessary for criminal complicity has yet to be shown.
blibble 3y ago
amazon has become total unadulterated garbage I ordered a present last year, it was "delivered" to the side of my house when I was out I found it a few days later, completely ruined by the winter weather I explained to what they call customer service that their delivery had ruined it, they said send it back, which I did few days later they're blaming me for returning damaged goods and trying to charge me for the damage I contacted jeff@ too and the "executive support" were just as bad as the idiots on the website I had an account for 20 years, now closed and I now happily pay more not to use amazon
- blagie 3y ago
  You pay less. I did the math on other sellers versus Amazon, factoring in cost of dealing with fraud@Amazon. Paying a little bit more sticker is much cheaper than getting cheated once in a while.
alibarber 3y ago
Huh - I've had Amazon prime 'guaranteed' n-day delivery fail twice in succession for a 90GBP textbook. I'll put this down to incompetence rather than malice, but imagining the disappointment of any potential thief of it served as some compensation.
neilv 3y ago
> and have even contested credit card charge-backs. Personally, I'd never do a CC chargeback against certain companies. Too much risk of being cut off from a crucial vendor by a "customers who do chargebacks aren't worth the trouble" automation/SOP. (For household consumer issues... if customer service was exhausted, I'd escalate to the CEO's office "?" email address, and if even that didn't work, but I really needed it solved, I'd consult a lawyer about whether they could negotiate a solution with a letter or phone call.)
- tester756 3y ago
  How they can cut you off? Aren't there various payment methods?
  - josephcsible 3y ago
    They don't just blacklist the credit card number you used, but also your name, address, email, and phone number. And it wouldn't surprise me if they also had some heuristic involving IPs, cookies, and device fingerprinting.
oooyay 3y ago
This isn't just an Amazon problem. I requested a refund from Expedia because their search listed a hotel from another state with a city by the same name when I made a specific city & state search. Their search functionality clearly had a bug and we reserved a hotel in the wrong city. Upon realizing this an hour later we phoned Expedia who told us to phone the hotel; when we talked to the hotel the person that answered said only a manager could refund my purchase and to call in the morning. When I called in the morning the manager told me they held the room for me so I had to pay for it anyway. I realized that I had been gaslit, willingly, but the people who worked there. I talked to Expedia who offered me a partial refund, which I refused. I called my credit card company and they filed a dispute, eventually citing that I'd had several successful bookings with Expedia before (totally unrelated to my case). To me, the issue is that credit card companies no longer exist to protect and defend consumers the way they used to. They're deep in the pockets of vendors, massaging their backs for a kick of the churn. There's room here for a very heavy handed, national agency in each country that makes these companies lives hell when they lie or drag their feet.
- phil21 3y ago
  The problem is chargeback fraud has become rampant since COVID, at least from friends stories in the payments and retail spaces. The word got out you can just call your bank and they will back you very few questions asked. This was abused by many, and now it's no longer a sure thing. Anything outside of outright fraud is very much a coin flip likely depending on how profitable you are to the issuing bank.
  - oooyay 3y ago
    I'm sympathetic having worked in anti-fraud adjacent fields before, but this extreme pendulum swing - if that's what this indeed is - is at least inappropriate and at worst nefarious. All of my transactions go through this card; they owe me to represent me well when I'm a customer like that. When they fail to, someone needs to deliver some ire with sticking power. Same way that there's ire that can be felt by a consumer facing charges of fraud.
    - 3y ago
aprilthird2021 3y ago
I've found my use of Amazon declining over time. Temu has basically replaced lots of consistent small-value buys that I'd go to Amazon for: cables, plastic things, simple tools, kitchen stuff, etc. High ticket items I usually shop around a lot to get the best deal and that's rarely on Amazon. And I've found myself buying more and more from independent shops. Anyone else notice similar trends in their habits?
deleted 3y ago
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upon_drumhead 3y ago
> Never buy anything of any meaningful value (if anything at all) from Amazon ever again Honestly, a single chargeback will cause Amazon to cancel your account and block you from the platform forever. It's the cost of getting your money back :(
- josephcsible 3y ago
  Do they also delete all of your previous Kindle purchases and all of your data in AWS?
  - upon_drumhead 3y ago
    I would believe so, anything tied to that account goes poof.
baz00 3y ago
Cancelled my Prime this month. I will never use Amazon again. 3rd package in a month that has gone missing. Posted in apartment letter box in mail room. Each time it is missing. No sign of any amazon packages. Neighbours reporting the same with their stuff. On top of the shit show that has been the support situation during Re:Invent I'd rather use any other retailer or cloud provider. Amazon are a fucking shit show race to the bottom and we should stop giving them money and let them burn.
mmh0000 3y ago
Wow, I read this whole article and it’s amazing how similar of an experience I had. I ordered a fairly fancy mechanical keyboard and instead got a used motorcycle cover. I did a proper return through Amazon, they even said via live chat that they were processing the refund. But the refund never came. After two months of back and forth with I filed the dispute with AMEX. Amazon disputed the charge back. I had to dispute the Amazon dispute. finally, Amex did end up refunding the money even though Amazon did not.
iamleppert 3y ago
Always film yourself opening high value packages. For the author, it really boils down to circumstantial evidence. A photo of a box not containing the item isn’t proof of anything. I’d even go further and make sure there’s uninterrupted video evidence showing delivery and opening of the package. Open them on your front porch in view of your doorbell camera. If you’re a victim of a fraud like this, first make a police report of the theft. Then contact the merchant. If you aren’t given a refund or replacement within the same time period of the original delivery, start the dispute process with your bank. If that fails, take the matter to small claims court against the original merchant. This is where you can take your evidence to someone who is local and who doesn’t work for the merchant. They don’t care about whatever terms of service, procedures of the company and operate under the law. Most of the time the company won’t even show up and if they do it likely will be one of their juniors from their legal staff. As long as you have evidence and a police report, you’ll get a judgement in your favor. Once you get the judgement, if still within 90 days of the purchase, send it to your bank to have the chargeback redone. If not within 90 days, you will need to collect from the merchant themselves. Send a copy of the judgement and a demand letter certified mail to the merchant. You need to check your local laws on how long they have to pay it. If they don’t pay, you’ll need to go back to the judge in most cases and follow the process of civil seizure. Normally this involves the sheriff or local law enforcement. One of the easiest ways to collect is to show up to a local branch of a bank where the merchant has money and have the bank execute the seize money from their account. If you can’t find their bank, or they have no money, you can show up with the judgement and law enforcement (call them when you get there or follow the process outlined by the judge, sometimes this involves the local sheriff). You can then seize any property that might be at the location.
anonymousiam 3y ago
It's been nearly two years since Jeff Bezos stepped down as CEO of Amazon. I'm surprised that Mr. Tasker would not be aware of this. https://apnews.com/article/jeff-bezos-leaves-seattle-miami-amazon-0f04558aa909f1f5b56735e82a0a2011 https://apnews.com/article/jeff-bezos-leaves-seattle-miami-a...
tracer4201 3y ago
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zizee 3y ago
That was a good reminder to cancel my prime membership, ta!
kmeisthax 3y ago
Six years ago, I had my computer compromised by a remote access trojan. The hacker accessed my machine while I was asleep, used Chrome password manager extraction tools to get my Facebook password, then credential-stuffed it into Amazon[0] to buy as many PSN cards as they could before Chase's fraud detection tripped and started texting me for verification, which woke me up. You would think that fixing this would be simple: revoke the PSN cards and reverse the credit card transactions. Turns out, they don't do that. At all. Amazon insisted that they wouldn't do shit without a bank chargeback. I of course had already started that process with Chase. About a month later, I get a call from Chase saying they need to "move the transactions to the new account"[1], which sounds like a stupid technical thing, so sure, whatever. A few weeks later I get a letter in the mail saying the dispute was closed because "it was a dispute with the merchant" - no explanation what that means. They give a phone number to call that goes to voicemail - I called at least five times and never got a call back, and all $400 worth of fraudulent transactions were right back on my statement. I gave up trying to fight shit because I don't want to sue my bank, nor do I want to fight Dread Pirate Bezos. I'm not suicidal[2]. However, it did teach me two things that have stuck with me: - Amazon has a blanket opt-out with the credit card companies and issuing banks. I don't know how, it could be as simple as "don't waste time investigating likely false accusations of fraud", but they are able to win[3] chargebacks with credit card companies using explanations that look like someone just picked the first option on the form that denies the dispute. - PlayStation Network cards are apparently as immutable and uncensorable as Bitcoin[4]. If you want to do crimes, do them with PlayStation. [0] Yes, I was reusing passwords. Yes, I did change every password I had over the next few days. Yes, I completely wiped the machine and reinstalled everything. No, I don't think I should have been liable for fraud because of any of this. [1] They had sent me a new card and card number at this point. [2] I'm pretty sure the "slow and horrible" option in the suicide booths involves burying yourself in legal fees. [3] Keep in mind that not-monopolistic merchants almost never win chargebacks or disputes. [4] For an extra layer of irony, a few days prior, I'd written a long screed at a Bitcoin fanatic on Reddit about how credit card chargebacks are a feature, not a bug, and that immutable transactions are a design defect.
henry114 3y ago
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rwmj 3y ago
I had an Amazon driver steal a phone I'd ordered. I did get a refund, but they were not in the slightest bit interested in the evidence I had that the driver had stolen the phone. It seems they just write that part off.
lindamacreal51 3y ago
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anuraaga 3y ago
I had a similar experience with a Chinese scam seller on eBay with a $500 GPU. tl;dr neither ebay nor PayPal would accept a claim because they had proof of receipt from DHL. Of course, a simple call to DHL could easily verify it was delivery to a different address but even providing an email from DHL to this effect as evidence didn't change the line. Eventually had to charge back and luckily in my case that did go through after about 3 months of process - the phone call from the card company in the process was nice to verify unlike everyone else it did actually get handled by a real person. Naturally that was the end of my eBay account, PayPal unfortunately I do need from time to time. I suppose this is just standard practice in the industry but wonder why it can be so consistently bad even with real evidence.

171 points by _Microft 3y ago

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wizb 3y ago

I tried to return a couple of things within 30 days last month, they offered me less than purchase price plus ridiculously expensive shipping. Total refund would have been around 70% of purchase price. Not what I expected when I signed up as a Prime customer.

varelse 3y ago
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DueDilligence 3y ago

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RecycledEle 3y ago

Someone stole am Xbox. I'm not sure it's Amazon.

raincom 3y ago
Well, who is responsible for the theft? Whoever handled this piece stole it. So many hands from shipping to delivery. It is my hunch that either the driver or some folks in the local distribution center stole it. A secret code doesn't solve the problem, unless the receiver opens the box in front of the delivery driver.
codetrotter 3y ago
I think it’s about high time that Amazon disrupts the “leave it on the porch” method. Too many packages are stolen by thieves. And I mean, they’ve already started to some extend to deal with it. There are many cities I’ve been to that has Amazon delivery boxes where you can pick up your stuff. I think that when drones get powerful enough, and regulation allows it, Amazon will adopt drone delivery everywhere. You get a notification on your phone telling you that your package is at the local distribution center. When you get back home, or some other day later where you are not busy, you tell the app to deliver now and within short time a drone drops the package off at your home any time that is convenient to you 24x7/365, even if it’s like 3am on a Sunday. And for the rest of the journey up to that point, rigorous tracking and auditing to make sure packages don’t go “missing” on the way.
- adamckay 3y ago
  Doesn't matter in this case. An Xbox was ordered that's classed as a "high value" item so requires a OTP being given to the driver to release the package. The package was hand delivered to the customer when the customer provided the OTP, but it turns out the contents of the package were swapped out with junk.
- Gorbzel 3y ago
  They have no idea how to disrupt last mile delivery without corruption and theft. They’ve tried. My apartment building’s doorbox has Amazon Key, such that drivers have the ability to let themselves in and drop off packages in a secure area. I’ve confirmed with one of the better Amazon delivery drivers that it works like a charm. The vast majority of them don’t (think/care to) use it. At this point I’m actually glad, lest they let themselves into the secure area and steal other packages.
- desas 3y ago
  "leave it on the porch" isn't even a thing in the UK, unless you specifically nominate it as your acceptable secure place. Amazon knock on the door, if you're not in then they'll come back tomorrow, and if you're not in, then they'll try the next day. If you're not in three days in a row they'll hold the package for three days, to give you time to arrange one final delivery attempt to your home, Amazon locker or pick-up point (neighbourhood shop). Eventually they'll just take the package back and refund you automatically.
  - daveoc64 3y ago
    Amazon leaves stuff on my porch most days in the UK.
  - sanitycheck 3y ago
    Recent Amazon UK delivery experiences: - Expected delivery on Wednesday, instead "delivered" Tuesday when I'm out by just leaving it in front of the front door, 1m from the street. - Sitting downstairs eating dinner, my phone pings, Amazon package apparently delivered. But nobody rang the bell or knocked the door. It's just been left outside the front door again. - Another "delivered" notification but no knock and nothing left outside the house. Check app, status is "handed to resident". Assume it's been nicked, but check with the neighbour just in case - thankfully they got it! - My parents ordered some glassware, delivery driver dropped the package (marked Fragile) from waist height onto their doorstep, again without even attempting to knock/ring the bell. Footage captured on security cam. Obviously glassware didn't survive.
fweimer 3y ago
Not sure about that. One of the screenshots mentions AMZNMKTPLACE AMAZON CO UK. If it was indeed an Amazon Marketplace vendor, then it's not entirely unheard of that it was a scam from the start.
- sanitycheck 3y ago
  Yep, I spotted the same thing. Third party seller. I'll still occasionally buy stuff from Amazon that's actually sold by Amazon, but I'd pick almost any other retailer over an "Amazon Marketplace" seller. Scam city. (I'll search for stuff directly on camelcamelcamel these days, as the "sold by amazon" filter is gone from Amazon's own website.)

raincom 3y ago

Three years ago, a friend of a friend told me that he knows people inside UPS/Fedex/etc who steal expensive items, and sell them to fencers. Now it is time to pick up your expensive stuff from local stores, even if you place orders online.

whatshisface 3y ago
I had something stolen out of the USPS system. I don't know whether it was the mailing center or the USPS itself but it disappeared in a way that logically couldn't have been a mistake.
- raincom 3y ago
  USPS is considered safer, because of federal charges. Some wise people suggested to use priority/express mail, along with insurance, if one wants it more secure in the USPS system.
  - User23 3y ago
    Postal inspectors take this sort of thing very seriously.
    - raincom 3y ago
      Only when they want to investigate your case. Most of the time, postal investigators don't care. Maybe, they care if the package is insured/priority/express mail.
    - handedness 3y ago
      Lately I've been seeing comments like this surprisingly often, but my firsthand experience tells me otherwise.
      - gnicholas 3y ago
        A relative had mail stolen from an outgoing mailbox. She filed a complaint and was contacted months later when they caught the guy. They found her checks (to charity) in his house. She was shocked to hear back so much later. Apparently they were on the case the whole time, since it was affecting a lot of people.

charcircuit 3y ago

Web retailers being slow is nothing new. Especially during December.

not_your_vase 3y ago

This reads more like a rant unfortunately. While I agree with the closing statements, I think you realized it too late. You already made Amazon an almost undestroyable behemoth with the previous 83 purchases of yours (sure, you didn't do it alone. But your patronage was essential while it lasted). You can't really make that not-happened, it's late for that. On a different note, it is not Amazon's interest to scam you. But unfortunately it is one rando's word (yours) against another rando's word (the driver, or whoever), without a lot of proof that could be sent to the police.

notyofriend 3y ago

Recently I had them fail to deliver a 10$ item, flag it in their system as a delivery failure notify me that the failure occurred and then still not give me a refund and tell me that they are doing me a favor by refund it. The service quality really Turing to poop. In December they basically done guarantee delivers either anymore so between that and the sea of counterfeits I only make 5-10$ item orders from them where the delivery costs more than the item.

wdb 3y ago

Lately I have been recording the opening of expensive parcels received from Amazon with one-time code to avoid these issues. Recently they have been causing issues with a return they lost after receiving it and want me to recharge the amount.

rutierut 3y ago

I cannot think of a _single_ low-margin global corporation that can get away with it that hasn’t made the trade-off where they accept some of their customers will be treated horribly in order to save _a lot_ of money. I’ve currently got a DHL package in limbo that’s worth about the same and the main function of their customer service department seems to be to indicate that trying to consume customer service resources is not going to help you. Employees will give you completely contradictory and verifiably incorrect information.

blagie 3y ago
I don't think this saves Amazon money. They have a huge problem with internal, for lack of a better word, corruptions. * Packing people who don't care if high-value items are broken * Delivery people who fake deliveries and steal * Co-mingling of fake items with sellers ... and so on. Because the delivery person wasn't investigated, they'll steal again and again, and that will spread to others in Amazon culture. Good companies do investigate issues like this one, and keep the business clean. Once a culture of theft creeps in, it's a lot harder to fix, and it oozes $$$ at a crazy rate. This costs them a massive amount of money. My guess is there is no one in the corporate hierarchy who cares enough about their employer to fix it (everyone I've met who works for Amazon is a disgruntled employee). There is a slight bit of short-term savings, but around two years back, I stopped ordering anything from Amazon which might be subject to fraud or safety issues (e.g. high-cost items, food, medicine, SD cards, SSDs, brand-name clothing items, etc.). This year, I cancelled Prime. There's just too much fraud going on. I can't imagine Amazon is saving money when XBoxes and similar items get stolen, and I can't imagine long-term success if they're bleeding customers and brand value. If AWS wasn't tied to the retail division, I'd be shorting Amazon retail right now.
- cjaybo 3y ago
  You posted the same theory above, except there you included the important disclaimer that you have no inside information — is this just a hunch that you have? Because it seems like a Hanlon’s razor type of situation to me. Without some sort of evidence of the fraud you speak of, it seems far more likely to be them simply struggling with challenges of scale. Every business deals with bad employees but the majority of people with jobs tend to want to keep their job. It’s hard for me to imagine that fraud is the dominating cause here.

johngossman 3y ago

Fwiw...this reminded me I had a package ($90) not show up this week. I used their completely automated system and got refunded in 5 minutes. Message even says "if you find the package you can keep it." I think you need a lot of examples to draw any conclusions and self-reporting is going to be almost entirely negative experiences.

ksec 3y ago
Unfortunately a lot of these benefits ( So to speak if you do received the package ) are never really being told publicly. One of thing that most on people on the planet, including those on HN dont realise is just how hard logistics are in real world.
EA-3167 3y ago
They have some real upsides, the Amazon return policy being one of them. They also have a huge problem with counterfeits, abusive resellers, rigged voting and so on. The existence of their best point doesn't obviate the existence of the sort of behavior that should lead to sanction, regulation, and reform.
shepherdjerred 3y ago
I'll share my anecdote: a few weeks ago I ordered hooks for hanging up lights ($25). The package was marked as delivered, but nowhere to be seen. I don't have a problem with package theft, so my guess is that it was delivered to the wrong address or something. I went to Amazon's site and tried to report the issue, but, at least for that item, there was no automated way to report a package as "not delivered".
- johngossman 3y ago
  Good point. There was a very non-obvious "Get Help" button which led to a non-obvious "Get More Help" link which led to a "Call me" button. But they called instantly once I got there
- wahnfrieden 3y ago
  It’s there they just trick you. Don’t go looking for the option starting from your order details. Instead start from the general support chat and say the automated response didn’t help you and you need more help.

iamcalledrob 3y ago

Amazon (US) has really gone downhill in the past ~5 years. I signed up for Prime a over decade ago because of the reliable 2 day shipping. It worked pretty much as described. It was great. Shipping is no longer 2 days on most items - "Prime" shipping can now take 7 days. Amazon advertise same or next day shipping, but it's really only for big ticket, occasional purchase items. Most everyday purchases now take 3-7 days, the same as without prime. They show the prime badge, but if you log out you can see that non-prime members get the same shipping. This feels really dishonest. Amazon pretend that you get huge shipping benefits from Prime, but it turns out you don't anymore. For the first time, I've cancelled my prime renewal. What, exactly, am I paying for these days? Walmart offer next-day free shipping on the big ticket items too, without the membership.

noncoml 3y ago
What’s dishonest is that they say the 2-day applies only after they ship the item, but they don’t count their “internal logistics” shipping in this time. How do I know that? Amazin charges your card only when they actually pack and ship the item. But the tracking on UPS will not appear until 3-4 days later Another annoying thing about Amazon is the subscribe and save. They see it as one way contract. Many times I have subscribed to a product only to get a notification when it’s fulfillment time that was saying that the product was out of stock and I should choose a replacement. That’s not how it is supposed to work Amazon. I take up the obligation to buy a product monthly and you should take the obligation to make sure it’s available. It ended up being death by a thousand cuts for me and Amazon. I barely use it anymore
THENATHE 3y ago
I literally never experience this issue. Except for a couple of actually lost packages, my prime has had EVERY package come in 2 days or less except holidays. I live in a 250k town tho, so I am not sure if there is some level of size that plays into it. Perhaps I am the perfect size to have enough infrastructure to get reliable deliveries, but small enough that I don't have to worry about all that comes with a massive city.
- dingusdew 3y ago

dboreham 3y ago

Amazon code that renders tracking seems obviously broken in places. They shipped a thing to me (MT) from NY, and the post office mistakenly routed it to Puerto Rico. At some point in this saga the Amazon order tracking page went from "it's running late and if it isn't there tomorrow you can get a refund" to "likely it was delivered on or around Dec 1 and you can't get a refund". Meanwhile the tracking (number copied from that same page) shows it meandering around FL on its way back from its Carribean vacation.

bragr 3y ago
You can probably still get a refund if you open the support chat, experience of the blog writer not withstanding. They always have more options than the shipping page will give you.

stoorafa 3y ago

Amazon took something like 30 days to deliver me an iPad (Pro, so $900) that was supposed to be “Prime” delivered. I asked them to cancel the order after seven days, and repeatedly asked them to cancel, but they wouldn’t. They seem to follow the old Ferengi adage of “Once you have their money, you never give it back” Edit: I returned it for a refund, but was out a decent amount do money for a while.

r00fus 3y ago
I simply refuse to buy high value items from Amazon these days. Especially Apple products. In fact I tend to buy most goods via local same-day delivery or pickup.
- kibwen 3y ago
  I don't dare buy technology from Amazon, the commingling of products from random sources means the risk of counterfeits is just too high. Micro Center or Best Buy would have to be actively malicious for something like that to happen, while Amazon can just be passively malicious and say "system working as designed, wontfix".
gnicholas 3y ago
Were they the shipper or seller? I can understand them saying they can’t cancel the order midstream, but once it’s been over a week from the order time, they can’t exactly stand by that default rule. You can’t take someone’s money and leave them with nothing for a month.
- AlotOfReading 3y ago
  Amazon and Apple have had an agreement since ~2018 that limits third party sellers of Apple products on the platform in return for Amazon having access to new devices on the market. It's very likely that the seller was Apple directly and the device already in the warehouse.

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RajT88 3y ago

Buying stealable big ticket stuff like this on Amazon is something I just realized I have never done. I haven't had issues with Amazon drivers stealing my packages, but I sure as hell have gone through issues with my fucking neighbors stealing my packages. Apartment living is hell. /rant Game consoles and guitars I generally buy in person. Sure, there's corner cases, like buying used (generally retro) consoles on eBay, but these won't be clearly marked as a game console.

anonymouskimmer 3y ago
The Amazon delivery driver doesn't know it's a game console either, as it was in a regular brown box. The driver just knew it required a special code prior to delivery. The only Amazon people who know it's a console are those responsible for packing it.
- raincom 3y ago
  'Knowing it required a special code priority to delivery' itself is a signal for stealing, and replacing it with junk. Drivers can do it; even people at distribution centers do it [1] [1] https://www.newsweek.com/amazon-workers-steal-140k-goods-depot-1585350 https://www.newsweek.com/amazon-workers-steal-140k-goods-dep...

thelittleone 3y ago

Dang I'm no fan of amazon's ethics but it seems bad ethics is the norm among corporates, governments not the exception. Corruption, abuses of power... occurring with such regularity and at worst a slap on the wrist or forced to retire with a huge payout.

xkekjrktllss 3y ago

Amazon is a private enterprise and its profit is soaring, which means this is simply a non-issue. I thought HN knew how free markets worked but I guess not.

blagie 3y ago
Amazon's market cap soared when profits were negative. Amazon was building up reputation, logistics, and customer relations. As far as I can tell, they've been torching all of that long-term value for about the past three years. That's a huge loss of value.
- xkekjrktllss 3y ago
  When were profits negative? AFAIK Amazon.com may lose money but AWS more than makes up for it. Amazon.com is a long game to monopolize retail logistics, which they are just now starting to offer as a service to other retailers, meaning Amazon.com is of less importance.
  - blagie 3y ago
    Amazon was losing money for nearly the first decade of its existence. It was a bit of a laughing stock among the traditional business community: "Lose money on every sale, but make it up in volume!" The loses were considered astronomical at the time; in 2000, it lost over a billion dollars. The strategy was the right one, though. To put all of that in perspective, in 2018, it earned over 10 billion, and many businesses have since followed the Amazon model. It's sort of a classic case study in business schools now.
    - xkekjrktllss 3y ago
      You are conflating Amazon with Amazon.com, and vice versa at your convenience. It's much too sloppy of analysis to sustain a worthy discussion.
      - 3y ago

crazygringo 3y ago

I don't think the conclusions presented are true. It seems to be a pretty "standard" case of theft that, unfortunately, yes these things often take time to resolve. And all of the "analysis" is just speculation. Does it suck that it took extra messages for the return to be acknowledged, and extra weeks for the refund to finally get approved and go through? For sure. Does this mean "Amazon has an honesty issue"? No. Dealing with a package where the expensive contents were swapped out for other content is probably going to take weeks to resolve with any major retailer. Trying to shortcut the process by filing a chargeback isn't going to help anything. You only do that if Amazon ultimately denies the return. Of course it sucks it ties up that money. But they can also just leave the balance on the credit card for an extra month and pay, what, $8 in interest? Everything about: > remain in a state of financial limbo for the better part of 2 months, spending Christmas wondering whether we'd ever see our money again. feels overly dramatic. Anyone who can put a $600+ Xbox bundle on a credit card isn't going to be left in "financial limbo". In the end, they can rest assured that a chargeback with Amex will work even if it didn't on their first attempt. Yes this is all annoying. But it's not some conspiracy. These cases are hard for companies to deal with, because for every delivery person who's a thief, there's a customer who lies and gets a free Xbox out of it. So they do take time and effort to resolve.

alibarber 3y ago
Trying to shortcut the process by filing a chargeback isn't going to help anything. You only do that if Amazon ultimately denies the return. Maybe - but as he correctly mentions, in the UK, he's effectively buying the console from American Express because they gave him credit for it.
- crazygringo 3y ago
  I don't see what that has to do with anything. You still wait for the Amazon return process to conclude one way or another.
  - blibble 3y ago
    you don't have to, a prompt refund is guaranteed by UK law within 14 days regardless of amazon's shitty processes if they don't do it in time, chargeback is a perfectly reasonable

anonymouskimmer 3y ago

> On the day, I was full of righteous indignation and ideally wanted the driver to be nailed to the nearest wall The guy keeps on making this out to be the driver's fault, when only circumstantial evidence points to that. Everytime he was mentioning reasons to think it was the driver I, as a person who has worked in shipping and delivery as a hoi polloi, thought of reasonable reasons why the driver would act that way. - The driver probably isn't even there when his van is loaded, so easy for a package handler to swap things out. - A package with mandatory code instructions may have been in another part of the van, and could have been missed the first go-around by a busy driver. (edit: assuming it wasn't loaded into another van entirely.) - Online tracking being off happens all of the time.

inopinatus 3y ago
The author is a case study in sloppy thinking. Sure, they were wronged; they are certainly a victim here. But property was stolen and the retailer is negligently complicit in the theft. When this happens, you call the police, and your insurance company.
- anonymouskimmer 3y ago
  I agree in general, but I think he's right in claiming that this isn't a criminal matter on his end, as the console was technically stolen from Amazon prior to delivery, not from him after delivery. What he's doing with Amazon customer service and Amex are the pertinent things from his end.
  - inopinatus 3y ago
    The point at which Amazon denies this is the moment where they became negligently complicit.
    - anonymouskimmer 3y ago
      Still a civil matter instead of a criminal matter. Amazon has the lawful right to both protect their interests and perform their process of refund (whatever errors and pauses they may make during this process). As such the state of mind necessary for criminal complicity has yet to be shown.

blibble 3y ago

amazon has become total unadulterated garbage I ordered a present last year, it was "delivered" to the side of my house when I was out I found it a few days later, completely ruined by the winter weather I explained to what they call customer service that their delivery had ruined it, they said send it back, which I did few days later they're blaming me for returning damaged goods and trying to charge me for the damage I contacted jeff@ too and the "executive support" were just as bad as the idiots on the website I had an account for 20 years, now closed and I now happily pay more not to use amazon

blagie 3y ago
You pay less. I did the math on other sellers versus Amazon, factoring in cost of dealing with fraud@Amazon. Paying a little bit more sticker is much cheaper than getting cheated once in a while.

alibarber 3y ago

Huh - I've had Amazon prime 'guaranteed' n-day delivery fail twice in succession for a 90GBP textbook. I'll put this down to incompetence rather than malice, but imagining the disappointment of any potential thief of it served as some compensation.

neilv 3y ago

> and have even contested credit card charge-backs. Personally, I'd never do a CC chargeback against certain companies. Too much risk of being cut off from a crucial vendor by a "customers who do chargebacks aren't worth the trouble" automation/SOP. (For household consumer issues... if customer service was exhausted, I'd escalate to the CEO's office "?" email address, and if even that didn't work, but I really needed it solved, I'd consult a lawyer about whether they could negotiate a solution with a letter or phone call.)

tester756 3y ago
How they can cut you off? Aren't there various payment methods?
- josephcsible 3y ago
  They don't just blacklist the credit card number you used, but also your name, address, email, and phone number. And it wouldn't surprise me if they also had some heuristic involving IPs, cookies, and device fingerprinting.

oooyay 3y ago

This isn't just an Amazon problem. I requested a refund from Expedia because their search listed a hotel from another state with a city by the same name when I made a specific city & state search. Their search functionality clearly had a bug and we reserved a hotel in the wrong city. Upon realizing this an hour later we phoned Expedia who told us to phone the hotel; when we talked to the hotel the person that answered said only a manager could refund my purchase and to call in the morning. When I called in the morning the manager told me they held the room for me so I had to pay for it anyway. I realized that I had been gaslit, willingly, but the people who worked there. I talked to Expedia who offered me a partial refund, which I refused. I called my credit card company and they filed a dispute, eventually citing that I'd had several successful bookings with Expedia before (totally unrelated to my case). To me, the issue is that credit card companies no longer exist to protect and defend consumers the way they used to. They're deep in the pockets of vendors, massaging their backs for a kick of the churn. There's room here for a very heavy handed, national agency in each country that makes these companies lives hell when they lie or drag their feet.

phil21 3y ago
The problem is chargeback fraud has become rampant since COVID, at least from friends stories in the payments and retail spaces. The word got out you can just call your bank and they will back you very few questions asked. This was abused by many, and now it's no longer a sure thing. Anything outside of outright fraud is very much a coin flip likely depending on how profitable you are to the issuing bank.
- oooyay 3y ago
  I'm sympathetic having worked in anti-fraud adjacent fields before, but this extreme pendulum swing - if that's what this indeed is - is at least inappropriate and at worst nefarious. All of my transactions go through this card; they owe me to represent me well when I'm a customer like that. When they fail to, someone needs to deliver some ire with sticking power. Same way that there's ire that can be felt by a consumer facing charges of fraud.
  - 3y ago

aprilthird2021 3y ago

I've found my use of Amazon declining over time. Temu has basically replaced lots of consistent small-value buys that I'd go to Amazon for: cables, plastic things, simple tools, kitchen stuff, etc. High ticket items I usually shop around a lot to get the best deal and that's rarely on Amazon. And I've found myself buying more and more from independent shops. Anyone else notice similar trends in their habits?

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

upon_drumhead 3y ago

> Never buy anything of any meaningful value (if anything at all) from Amazon ever again Honestly, a single chargeback will cause Amazon to cancel your account and block you from the platform forever. It's the cost of getting your money back :(

josephcsible 3y ago
Do they also delete all of your previous Kindle purchases and all of your data in AWS?
- upon_drumhead 3y ago
  I would believe so, anything tied to that account goes poof.

baz00 3y ago

Cancelled my Prime this month. I will never use Amazon again. 3rd package in a month that has gone missing. Posted in apartment letter box in mail room. Each time it is missing. No sign of any amazon packages. Neighbours reporting the same with their stuff. On top of the shit show that has been the support situation during Re:Invent I'd rather use any other retailer or cloud provider. Amazon are a fucking shit show race to the bottom and we should stop giving them money and let them burn.

mmh0000 3y ago

Wow, I read this whole article and it’s amazing how similar of an experience I had. I ordered a fairly fancy mechanical keyboard and instead got a used motorcycle cover. I did a proper return through Amazon, they even said via live chat that they were processing the refund. But the refund never came. After two months of back and forth with I filed the dispute with AMEX. Amazon disputed the charge back. I had to dispute the Amazon dispute. finally, Amex did end up refunding the money even though Amazon did not.

iamleppert 3y ago

Always film yourself opening high value packages. For the author, it really boils down to circumstantial evidence. A photo of a box not containing the item isn’t proof of anything. I’d even go further and make sure there’s uninterrupted video evidence showing delivery and opening of the package. Open them on your front porch in view of your doorbell camera. If you’re a victim of a fraud like this, first make a police report of the theft. Then contact the merchant. If you aren’t given a refund or replacement within the same time period of the original delivery, start the dispute process with your bank. If that fails, take the matter to small claims court against the original merchant. This is where you can take your evidence to someone who is local and who doesn’t work for the merchant. They don’t care about whatever terms of service, procedures of the company and operate under the law. Most of the time the company won’t even show up and if they do it likely will be one of their juniors from their legal staff. As long as you have evidence and a police report, you’ll get a judgement in your favor. Once you get the judgement, if still within 90 days of the purchase, send it to your bank to have the chargeback redone. If not within 90 days, you will need to collect from the merchant themselves. Send a copy of the judgement and a demand letter certified mail to the merchant. You need to check your local laws on how long they have to pay it. If they don’t pay, you’ll need to go back to the judge in most cases and follow the process of civil seizure. Normally this involves the sheriff or local law enforcement. One of the easiest ways to collect is to show up to a local branch of a bank where the merchant has money and have the bank execute the seize money from their account. If you can’t find their bank, or they have no money, you can show up with the judgement and law enforcement (call them when you get there or follow the process outlined by the judge, sometimes this involves the local sheriff). You can then seize any property that might be at the location.

anonymousiam 3y ago

It's been nearly two years since Jeff Bezos stepped down as CEO of Amazon. I'm surprised that Mr. Tasker would not be aware of this. https://apnews.com/article/jeff-bezos-leaves-seattle-miami-amazon-0f04558aa909f1f5b56735e82a0a2011 https://apnews.com/article/jeff-bezos-leaves-seattle-miami-a...

tracer4201 3y ago

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zizee 3y ago

That was a good reminder to cancel my prime membership, ta!

kmeisthax 3y ago

Six years ago, I had my computer compromised by a remote access trojan. The hacker accessed my machine while I was asleep, used Chrome password manager extraction tools to get my Facebook password, then credential-stuffed it into Amazon[0] to buy as many PSN cards as they could before Chase's fraud detection tripped and started texting me for verification, which woke me up. You would think that fixing this would be simple: revoke the PSN cards and reverse the credit card transactions. Turns out, they don't do that. At all. Amazon insisted that they wouldn't do shit without a bank chargeback. I of course had already started that process with Chase. About a month later, I get a call from Chase saying they need to "move the transactions to the new account"[1], which sounds like a stupid technical thing, so sure, whatever. A few weeks later I get a letter in the mail saying the dispute was closed because "it was a dispute with the merchant" - no explanation what that means. They give a phone number to call that goes to voicemail - I called at least five times and never got a call back, and all $400 worth of fraudulent transactions were right back on my statement. I gave up trying to fight shit because I don't want to sue my bank, nor do I want to fight Dread Pirate Bezos. I'm not suicidal[2]. However, it did teach me two things that have stuck with me: - Amazon has a blanket opt-out with the credit card companies and issuing banks. I don't know how, it could be as simple as "don't waste time investigating likely false accusations of fraud", but they are able to win[3] chargebacks with credit card companies using explanations that look like someone just picked the first option on the form that denies the dispute. - PlayStation Network cards are apparently as immutable and uncensorable as Bitcoin[4]. If you want to do crimes, do them with PlayStation. [0] Yes, I was reusing passwords. Yes, I did change every password I had over the next few days. Yes, I completely wiped the machine and reinstalled everything. No, I don't think I should have been liable for fraud because of any of this. [1] They had sent me a new card and card number at this point. [2] I'm pretty sure the "slow and horrible" option in the suicide booths involves burying yourself in legal fees. [3] Keep in mind that not-monopolistic merchants almost never win chargebacks or disputes. [4] For an extra layer of irony, a few days prior, I'd written a long screed at a Bitcoin fanatic on Reddit about how credit card chargebacks are a feature, not a bug, and that immutable transactions are a design defect.

henry114 3y ago

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rwmj 3y ago

I had an Amazon driver steal a phone I'd ordered. I did get a refund, but they were not in the slightest bit interested in the evidence I had that the driver had stolen the phone. It seems they just write that part off.

lindamacreal51 3y ago

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anuraaga 3y ago

I had a similar experience with a Chinese scam seller on eBay with a $500 GPU. tl;dr neither ebay nor PayPal would accept a claim because they had proof of receipt from DHL. Of course, a simple call to DHL could easily verify it was delivery to a different address but even providing an email from DHL to this effect as evidence didn't change the line. Eventually had to charge back and luckily in my case that did go through after about 3 months of process - the phone call from the card company in the process was nice to verify unlike everyone else it did actually get handled by a real person. Naturally that was the end of my eBay account, PayPal unfortunately I do need from time to time. I suppose this is just standard practice in the industry but wonder why it can be so consistently bad even with real evidence.