Amazon restricted my account and will not refund gift card balance of £200. Totally blindsided. Any advice??

[PunishmentRoundupWithJoon]

My account has been restricted by Amazon. Because I violated their returns and refunds policy. I'm gobsmacked (sorry to those who hate that word).

I am only allowed to make digital purchases.

Have been with Amazon for over 20 years and there's never been any issues with my account.

Of late, yes, I have returned several items, for various reasons (faulty, etc) and several packages have gone missing as, despite my explicit instructions on my account, the Amazon delivery people continued to leave my parcels in an unsafe place. Mainly, the public entrance foyer of my block of flats. They are still doing this with parcels for other residents.

I have a gift card balance on the account of over £200 and I have been told that they will not be refunding this money to me. WTF?

This is made worse by the fact that I recently placed an order and applied the gift cards to that order, and it certainly looked as if the purchase had gone through, with the gift cards as payment. However, when I received my credit card statement, the payment had been taken from my credit card. So, I am now £170 out of pocket and have have a huge gift card balance that I can't use.

Please, can anyone offer any advice here? Is there ANYONE that I can appeal to at Amazon? Is it even legal for them to keep my money like this??

Thank you in advance. I'm totally blindsided by this.I cannot emphasise strongly enough that I am not a dodgy customer. There has never been ANY issues with my account up till now.

What exactly are they accusing you of?

Amazon are scum. Scum.

You’ve been flagged as a scammer basically with all your missing parcels. Assume they also think you’re possibly switching broken / faulty items out.

A gift card balance wouldn’t be returned as cash as I’m sure that would fall under money laundering issues. Unless you topped it up directly from your bank and not with gift cards.

You’ll need to fight your case that you’re not a scammer or spend on digital things.

Is this gift card balance built up from refunds for missing/faulty orders?

"several" packages have gone missing in recent times? How many? What was the value? Could you not have had them delivered to a safer spot or pick up point once it happened a few times?

I think you need to take some responsibility for your customer behaviour, the drivers are paid pennies and have to deliver so many parcels to make a living, how easy was it to leave in a safe place? It really sucks that they've taken your voucher.

@orangeblluegreen Of violating their refunds and return policy.

Presumably, too many returns? And obviously, refunds on those returns. That's it.

Their T&Cs are explicit about excessive returns potentially leading to an account suspension.

How many returns and refunds have you sought over what period?

All you can do is try to speak to a human on their chat function / call function and appeal to them.

There is no obligation for them to refund your credit balance.

@NeedAbout36HoursADay - No, the gift card balance was from actual gift cards. We get the occasional 'reward' from work and can choose what we'd like. I always choose amazon vouchers as I spend so much on there.

@Ionlymakejokestodistractmyself - yes, once it was clear the drivers were not delivering to my door, I started to use Amazon lockers.

Can you transfer the gift card to another account or use it to buy cards you can use as gifts?

I've had "several" parcels go missing too. Not just amazon, every delivery company is the same despite me leaving notes on all of them to to say my front garden is NOT a safe place. Apparently people follow the delivery vans and nick parcels as soon as the van drives away. My neighbour had one taken from her unlocked porch recently.

@GreenFootstool I can't honestly say, but I will be checking later. Over the past year - maybe eight? I'm guessing now. But, bear in mind that I order a lot, so eight might sound a lot but I order every couple of weeks.

@Vallies - thank you, that is something I will look into. I wonder if that will be considered a digital purchase? I appreciate your suggestion because at the moment I'm just not able to think clearly!

I know this isn't directly related to your issue, and probably not much consolation, but Amazon is a horrible company with disgustingly unfair labour practices and an owner who is propping up Donald Trump. If you do a search of Amazon unfair business practices, you'll find an endless list of how awful they are to their warehouse workers, drivers and to small businesses.

That said, it's worth having a conversation with a customer service representative. I go to great lengths to not give them business, but several years ago, when we did use them, I found their customer service people to be very helpful.

They think you’re a scammer with missing parcels, returned good etc. 🤷‍♀️

@Holeymoley28 - Good god. I can see what you're saying but, Jesus. I'm a scammer. Well. It'd be funny if it wasn't actually happening.

I guess they have to be on the alert for scammers these days, and people taking the piss, but I never imagined I'd be tagged as one of those people.

Just checked and I've been ordering since 2004. Think I was a member before that too.

I think what might have pushed this was the fact of the missing parcels. There were several over the past two years, which is exactly why I started using the lockers or having things delivered to a pick up point.

I made the mistake of ordering something two weeks ago and didn't change the delivery details to lockers or pick up, so it came to my home address. It didn't arrive and the tracking details said "delivered to a safe location" but with no details about where this location was. Amazon couldn't help and neither could the seller. The Amazon person I spoke to filed an A-Z claim without my explicitly asking for a refund and the next thing....my account is restricted.

@Boomer55 - Yes, it looks that way.....

Without accusing you I get parcels about once a week and had 1 thing I about 3 years that hasn’t arrived. So I assume issues with couriers but Amazon are assuming you are the issue.

I live in fear of this happening.
Amazon come about 5/7 days to my house.
((Is that ‘normal’ in Amazon standards??)).

It will of likely flagged as extra suspicious that the second you don’t use the lockers again you’ve opened a claim again.

It’s bad but people return things that were not from there and even return items with completely different things in them. It’s crazy.

I’ll never keep a credit balance of over £50 just incase.

I’ve heard of some people having to give crime reference numbers for stolen parcels to get refunds as Amazon was getting high reports from certain areas. Another poster on here whose address was banned not long ago as well because her parcels never arrive.

As long as you’re not reporting lots of missing or faulty/damaged parcels you’ll be fine.

I sometimes have multiple deliveries in a day 😅

Normal for my house too. I was surprised when OP said she orders a lot, but qualified it as every couple of weeks.

I've never had a parcel go missing, but I have a good safe place. Well, not quite true. One Christmas about 10 years ago a delivery driver pretended to deliver a tablet that was due to be a Christmas gift. They marked it as delivered from outside my house. Luckily, they believed me as there was no photo evidence of the delivery and dispatched a replacement to arrive in time.

I suspect it's the refunds on missing items for OP causing the issue, rather than actual returns. I have returned lots more than 8 items in the last year.

They have a clear policy that you’ve violated. Many companies have banned customers for similar reasons, it’s commonly known.

Any customer that had multiple faulty products would stop ordering from that company. Any customer who repeatedly had packages go missing would either choose a different delivery location or a collection service, no wonder they think you are a scammer.

In other situations I’ve never known a customer get their account back.

The gift card balance is an outrage and I am with you for wanting that resolved. Closing your account is a different issue though. They are a profit seeking business and have the right to stop dealing with customers that are unprofitable. It is probably that a combination of returns, missing parcels and low value deliveries all mean they just dont want your business anymore. Harsh but understandable

To be fair, it's their drivers leaving packages in ridiculous places. They often leave them in full wheelie bins by the kerb. Clearly put out of collection. How stupid do you have to be?

I don't care how many deliveries they have to make, that's not my problem, either leave it somewhere safe, knock on a neighbours, or try again later. Delivering is their job. It's not a huge ask to expect them to do it.

I’m not sure what digital purchases are?