I feel I’ve been absolutely scammed by Amazon. Do not buy anything expensive from them!

[FireAdvice]

I’ve certainly learnt a lesson from this experience and won’t buy anything expensive especially not an electrical item from them again.

bought an expensive dualit toaster and it didn’t work. They said I could return it, but I’d binned the toaster box . I sent it back, at the post office the woman there even had to open my box to check there was a toaster in there which she did and signed to say she’d done it. My refund came through.

a while later I had an email saying they’d not got my return. I rang them, the bloke apologised and said it was a mistake and not to worry.

then two weeks ago I had an email saying I’d sent them a different toaster back and they charged my debit card for the full amount of the toaster. Customer services are not allowed to talk to me about this on the phone or the chat. I can only deal with the specialist team by email. I’ve replied to the email as instructed was told I’d have a response in 72 hours and nothing. Customer services say they’d can’t escalate it.

ive responded to the email 4x now and still no response. I’m tweeting them and they just repeatedly tell me to respond to the email. I keep telling them that I do but nobody replies.

its like dealing with some rogue trader scam artist. They got my return, but are adamant I sent them a different toaster back which is blatantly not true. But how do I prove it? I have a video of the toaster not working so why would I keep a faulty toaster.

my brother had a similar issue where he ordered an expensive Lego set and in the box it was dirty, mixed Lego….not the set he’d ordered. He couldn’t prove that either. Loads of stories online of people order iPhones, etc and getting bags of icing sugar. They never get their money back, they get treated like they’re the ones trying to defraud Amazon. some people have even being barred from Amazon.

I’ll use John Lewis from now on, or Curry’s for electrical stuff. Just not worth the risk. I don’t think I’ll ever get the money back.

I'm surprised. I've always found Amazon's customer service second to none. Always spoken to them and been refunded when requested - even for bigger items.

A pal left Amazon because the stealing was so rife and he got sneered at for refusing to join in, but at least the company used to take the hit - that is if it was from Amazon itself rather than Marketplace, which I'd never use

I'm not sure if this has really changed (?), but if so it's the last time I'll be buying anything that costs more than about £20 from them

Can you confirm whether this was Marketplace, @FireAdvice, or the main Amazon?

I think it’s the difference between buying from Amazon themselves or Amazon Marketplace. Sometimes it’s not that obvious you aren’t just buying directly from Amazon but if you’re not, the customer service will vary from company to company.

I ordered some moisturiser on there and it came without a lid! And yes it was Amazon as the seller.

I try to avoid them now - had also previously tried to cut down because of their tax avoidance but the convenience had crept back up...

I wouldn't be surprised if Amazon have changed their processes because their customers scam them.

Years ago I ordered a big fancy coffee machine but returned it because it was too noisy, too big, too faffy and the coffee wasn't any better than our £20 stovetop coffee maker. I got the refund notification before I'd left the shop I dropped it off at - less honest people could exploit this and send back all sorts of rubbish and keep expensive goods. So I'm not surprised the post office clerk had to check the item.

I used to sell with them. It's more that they created such a Kafka-esque structure of departments which has resulted in such a proliferation of rules that the whole organisation has become entirely dysfunctional. I actually had to threaten Amazon head office with small claims court because it kept demanding I owed money I didn't and withholding my sales earnings. I was stuck in a doom loop of providing verification and proof I didn't owe anything, only to be asked for it all over again by another department, or sometimes even the same department. This went on for months and months.

Funnily enough within an hour of head office getting my small claims threat, Amazon released all my funds.

We will never order expensive electrical items from Amazon now, we ordered an iPad didn’t arrive on delivery day made me suspicious.

Following day delivery man tried to drop the parcel and run but we made him wait until it was opened and it contained a Cookery book!

Amazon replied to contact immediately and money refunded within the hour.

Only if the item is above £100 in value.

I bought my Dualit toaster from Lakeland as I had a 20% off voucher, They often have these vouchers if you sign up for them, I have found them good and they give a 3 year guarantee

I’m sure I already read this exact thread the other day.

As others have said raise a dispute with your card company.

Always pay on credit card.
For this reason.
Not your money, not your problem.

I always try to avoid using them to be honest. I just bought a mobile from Argos even though it was slightly cheaper on Amazon because I can't be arsed with the hassle of sending things back if there's a problem. It's so much easier to go into a store and speak to a human.

I did this last week and apart from an immediate text from Barclays with a reference number I’ve heard nothing.

Amazon have stopped responding to me on twitter. Just had a few responses saying to keep communicating via email but no acknowledgment of my tweets saying they don’t reply to my emails

had a sort of response to an email today telling me yet again to reply to the email they sent me on 9th Oct. I’ve replied to this email so many times and never had a response. Oddly this latest email to me was addressed to Sara which isn’t my name.

I'd never use Amazon now for anything that isn't cheap gardening stuff. Fraudulent goods are rife and what was a previously good customer service has changed to be close to useless.
As a pps said, all goods (Amazon and Marketplace) are placed in the same bins so even if you buy direct from Amazon or ensure you use the seller page, it's no guarentee.
Years ago I used to buy supplements from them, there's no way I'd do that now.

I buy all my stuff direct from sellers, I buy bulk if there's free delivery over a certain spend.

I’ve had similiar experiences op, I ordered an Apple Watch direct from them, had to have a code to accept the order. The box was full of random tat. It took lots of arguments & getting my credit card provider involved to sort. They wanted it returned before being refunded - even though I hadn’t received it 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️ i never order anything high value from them now. Pretty sure warehouse operative took it.

Not true.
I've just raised a chargeback for £54.00 for goods not received, & the money is already refunded - with a caveat that it could be reversed.

I bought the item direct from the manufacturer (major household name), but they used Amazon Shipping - who dumped it on the doorstep of the wrong address !

If she bought through Amazon DIRECT or through their marketplace.
Isn’t that a rather patronising question if you don’t know the answer?!

I am very, very careful about marketplace. You are buying off anyone and everyone, its full of dodgy chinese sellers flogging fake/low quality stuff.

This isn't new, its been that way for years.

Long story below of getting refund on v expensive purchase via Amazon.

Lesson I learned was If i'm buying anything v expensive. I double check returns policy, Ask trader questions first, and keep full photo records. And always pay by credit card. A tedious task I know.

If you know you are in the right, be persistent and in calls, keeping asking for the case to be escalated up. Keep email record/ or transcript of conversation. (Boring but necessary) Check your consumer rights too and quote it. And their own "policies".

TBF all the other Amazon returns I've had have been easy refunds, no problem at all.

In our case we sent it back goods and Trader claimed we damaged the original box and only offered half purchase price as refund. We had not. I believe it was attempted fraud by the Trader. He wanted to resell the full price goods and keep half the cash we'd paid on top. We said we will sell it ourselves then. He sent it back with bad cosmetic damage, halving resale value and claimed we did it. I had proof we didn't. Amazon after saying it was nothing to do with them,told us to send it to an Amazon office Scotland so they could see for themselves, despite insured documented and signed for, they claimed it never arrived. They said they didn't recognise the post office's photo of signature. Post office said they were not sure they could compensate.

Eventually escalated to a senior customer services person. Simples. We got a full refund within a week and that was that. He could see that we had enough proof for small claims.

OP has said she bought direct, not through marketplace.

I've only ever had great returns. I buy a lot from amazon and I return a fair amount too. Never quibbled once. I've even had refunds for things bought years ago from marketplace when the original seller has ignored me asking for troubleshooting advice.

@FireAdvice

Should you be brave enough to try a phone call their CS, human contact,
UK number is;

020 7084 7911
or
0800 2797234

Yeah, I'm not rich but for electricals I use John Lewis and my credit card. Every time.

I would perhaps try your bank for a charge reversal as you didn't authorise that charge to your card. They may do it for you.

I’ve stopped using Amazon as their customer service is subpar and they don’t conduct enough due diligence on the individuals and organisations selling products on their site.

I needed to buy an inflatable dog collar for my dog recovering from an emergency paw injury and if I spent an extra £7 I could get same day delivery by 2pm. I added a book that’s been on my wish list for a while to the basket, I just searched for the book and clicked ‘Buy New’ to add to my basket, I didn’t click through all the different sellers, just went with the one Amazon recommended which I assumed was credible.

The book arrived and it was counterfeit. The weight and page count didn’t match as advertised and it was a low quality print on some pages. There was some blurring of the text on the blurb. It didn’t have that new book smell and it didn’t “feel” right. There were subtle nuances when I compared it to a copy in Foyles, like one word in the title not being appropriately capitalised.

I took a closer look at the seller and searched them on companies house and it was a Romanian owned company, only just set up. Clearly some kind of drop shipping scam for counterfeit goods being operated from overseas. Amazon refunded me but deleted my review for being “false”???

I won’t buy from Amazon again, and will only support proper stores.