I USED to get amazing support from Amazon
Example: GTX 980TI on sale for 600 instead of 800 so I grab it, but the order doesn’t appear in my history? A day later it suddenly does and I’m charged FULL PRICE. Reach out to them to be like “where’s my $200 off?” And they sent back “shit fam you rite, should be $400” and refunded me the difference
Now: ordered some syrup pumps for coffee drink making, 4 pack (4 individual items sent in 1 box), one comes busted, ask for replacement on (1) item. Instead get auto-refund approved, a rude message saying “they’ll make an exception this time”, and the refund took 3 weeks
I don’t think companies understand that the words “we will make a one time exception for you as a courtesy” is the magic incantation to ensure that customer never returns.
I got that from Staples last week because they did me a real solid by refunding my online order they cancelled instead of going to a store with ID and the invoice and original credit card. Who the fuck goes to a physical store to get a refund on an online order the company themselves cancelled?!
Who the fuck goes to a physical store to get a refund on an online order the company themselves cancelled?!
I noticed many retailers making it uncomfortable to do any business besides buying from them.
Now every time I buy I have to worry about returns being a pain… Not worth the risk unless I must have it
Came full circle, capitalism
Ive had this happen a few times. It goes something like this:
- i buy product and initiate return
- i ship item with return label
- as soon as return label is scanned then amazon will release the funds back to me
- if for some reason they don’t get that package then they say they didn’t get the item back and take the funds back. When this has happened to me it has been 6+ months later
- when i asked amazon about it they just tell me they didn’t get it back. I tell them i have the shipping confirmation receipt and that this is someone else’s problem and not mine.
- there’s a lot of back and forth and eventually they act like they’re doing me a favor by giving me my money back
I think the problem was one of the drop off locations we used was stealing products, or just straight up losing them. But it is insane to me that amazon comes back 6 months later. The only thing worse than buying a broken dildo on amazon is returning the broken dildo and still getting charged for it. Getting fucked by the broken dildo twice and not in the ways i had hoped!
I always take it to my UPS store down the road instead of boxing it up and sending it out. You don’t package the item up at all. They scan the barcode on my phone and take the item. Done, return processed. If they steal it afterwards, not my problem since the code was scanned and you get a notification/receipt. They have a lot of strange locations you can take it to, including random big box stores.
That’s what we were doing. It can still happen. If the item isn’t received back by Amazon for some reason then they charge you for the product again, even if 6+ months later.
That is some definite bullshit. I am both a software developer and a controls engineer. That stuff irritates me to no end, but I also understand how these systems can fail. They will always protect themselves over the user/customer, so thus we suffer. Hell, I used to do Amazon projects on the controls/industrial side. Amazon had their own software systems that they built/stole running things overall, so thankfully I didn’t have to deal with trying to make them happy on the software side too. I much prefer programming the machinery.
I had an ISP try to bill me for an unreturned modem five years ago.
I kept the receipt because I expected them to be so incompetent. Good luck.
They ALWAYS try that shit. They never don’t. I keep receipts and photos.
Y’all have to use ISP provided modems?
With my ISP, it’s not an extra charge but included in the rest of the cost so it doesn’t cost me anything extra to use theirs and if/when it fails, I just have to ask for a replacement.
Sometimes. I use my own setup whenever possible. But that means I still have the equipment they delivered even though I never asked for it.
I told my ISP explicitly not to provide one as I owned my own
I was out of town when they set it up, guess what was installed
It took a year of calls for the rental to be taken off my bill and they never took the hardware back. I have lots of everything they said (recorded calls and told them I was too since 2 party state)
I love having 1 fucking Option!
I had something similar, except there was no hardware. They just tried to charge me for using my own router. It was a nightmare to get that removed from my bill, even with the agents going “yeah I see we didn’t leave anything, and your installer verified with our router and took that, but I also see it was shipped to you directly, so there’s nothing I can do”
Like cool, but nothing was actually shipped to me and even if it was that’s not my problem, it’s yours.
Our previous ISP kept after us for a few years to return their modem/router. Only problem was we were a BYO account - we never had a need for their device, nor was it ever on our account or any invoices. A few years later, and every few months afterward (typically after I’ve had to contact them to solve the hell that was constant dropouts - reconnecting 2-4 times a minute) the missing BUDii would pop up again and they’d demand we return or pay for it.
Each time I got snarkier and snarkier, treading the line of being polite and sounding like I wanted to chew their face off. Then I got Betty (fake name) who asked for a moment while she read the correspondence on our account. She commiserated with the troubles we’d been having, clarified notes on our account and then solved what a dozen others couldn’t figure out, and we never heard about the BUDii ever again.
You just reminded me I’ve got to mail my modem back. Thanks!
Hah! I just recently got to switch off Comcast to a newer local fiber company. Comcast emailed and texted me for weeks telling me to return their equipment that I never had, but even their website showed I had nothing to return so I ignored it. Eventually the emails changed to “you’ve been charged”, so I called to complain. They assured me that I wasn’t actually charged, and then realized they owed me a prorated refund since I cancelled in the middle of a billing cycle. They absolutely weren’t going to give that back unless I called.
They can’t decide whether they’re evil or they just hire the most inept and cheapest people possible.
I had an ISP do the same when I moved out of an apartment in 2016. I still get calls from a collection agency. The number is blocked but if I check my “blocked calls” log it’s been nearly every weekday for 8 years.
Your credit must be completely fucked
I pull my credit report yearly. The ISP was never on it. Even if it was, after 7 years accounts are removed from your report.
On the bright side two more years and it falls off their report anyway. It would be a mistake to pay it at this point.
Lol I guess so
Mine WAS hurting, then I filed fraud charges with the bureaus and copied the email that showed Comcast saying I didn’t owe them anything
Now it’s only experian that keeps getting them about every 6 months, after 4 reports they started vanishing off my report within a week automatically lol
Absolutely insane that companies can just say that you owe them money without ever actually contacting you, sell your “debt” to someone, and have that hurt your credit for 7 years
Maybe we can do that to them…
Considering the debt is over 7 years old, it certainly shouldn’t be.
Was it Crapcast? I bet it was Crapcast, it sounds like a Crapcast thing to do lol
It was spectrum Internet. Charter communications.
Formerly known as time Warner cable (TWC) changed their name to try and avoid all the bad rep they rightfully had (and still have).
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I ordered something like shampoo. It opened in the box and got everywhere. Amazon wanted me to return it for a refund. The box was soaked. No way I could have returned it.
It was probably cheaper for them to just refund you instead of processing a broken item and disposing of it themselves.
CS agents have to work a minimum of 17 tickets per hour. Their quality is assessed by How’s My Driving responses from customers, and the HMD have to meet a certain level.
This incentives the agent to wrap the ticket up as quickly as possible, to the best outcome for the customer, in the hopes they leave 5* HMD responses.
CS agent actions cost the company money? Who cares.
CS agents actions were good for the environment? Who cares.
Speed and High HMD is the only two things on a CS agents mind.
Once had an order arrive on-time, but the tracking information never got updated and kept telling me the package was “running late” and pushing back the expected delivery date, and then after like a week of that they just said “sorry, it’s been delayed indefinitely” and gave me a refund. For an order I’d already received. And I mean, I wasn’t gonna be the one to tell 'em they were wrong.
My buddy ordered a 3090 during the covid craze from best buy. He gets an email. Delivery has been cancelled. Item refunded. Gets another email right after. Package delivered. He looks, there’s his free 3090. Lucky SOB.
Maaan, all I got was some stupid spatulas.
Are they at least in 4k?
Because of you, Bezos isn’t a trillionaire yet, I hope you’re happy.
Bezos is on his way to personally sue this man.
That happened to me too, but they automatically sent me a replacement. I now had 2 huge rugs, so I just returned one for a refund.
I have two expensive suitcases now for that reason. I kept both.
Amazon will often just let you keep items, even if they refund it. It’s generally not worth the cost of shipping back, so they just eat the loss.
Wait, so you got charged a year later after returning it? They only issue refunds when I’ve sent it, so they are charging you for their own inventory mismanagement, or worse.
They often do the whole “we’ll refund immediately as a courtesy but you need to return it by x or you’ll be charged” thing— in this case for whatever (infuriating) reason they charged me even though it’s clear their own system (their chat bot) knew the item had been marked as received on their end. I dropped it off at a brick and mortar store too!
Wtf. They must have screwed something up with a software update. Worst case you charge back, but that might get your account banned…
It’s possible this is yet another courtesy refund thingy and they think they don’t have it but they think the price of the item is not as important as making you happy as a customer.
I mean I dropped it off at an amazon store so they definitely received it
I’m not doubting your story, I’m saying their records might not be what you think they are.
Did it refund you after the chat?
I feel like I had this happen as well but the chat not was smart enough to be like “this dude spends a fuck ton on Amazon and this item was only $12, I’ll just mark it received and get me dude the money back.”
The bot did not refund me, I talked to a real person via the chat and they said the carrier team didn’t mark it received and that they would “disarm the retro charge” and refund me. We’ll see if it goes through.
I bought an electric start generator that stalled out after 20 minutes consistently, This unit can run all the essentials in my house whenever needed. I called and told the rep it runs great but all of a sudden it dies for no apparent reason.
He gave me full credit for it and told me to keep it or donate it.
I figured out the next day that is was my basement dehumidifier trying to turn on and the generator could not handle it.
It was fine the entire time. It runs on propane or gas and has a clone of a Yamaha engine and is made by WEN.
Prior to saying it was propane I thought it had a lithium battery. I think those are hard to accept as refunds due to shipping regulations, but maybe it’s similar.
It probably depends on your account. If they don’t think you are trying to game their system and you are a deep pocket consumer, they probably won’t put up too much of a fight, they’d rather keep you hooked.
I think it has a lot to do with the cost to ship it back since it weighs almost 100 pounds.
In this case, “it looks like we received it” sounds like typical AI choosing a response that sounds right with no attention to its meaning.
Yep, I doubt the chatbot has direct access to the inventory.
One of their marketed features is the ability to access this type of useful information. Amazon is supposed to be one of the leading developers of the technology. I would be more surprised if they didn’t.
Always demand a human support representative until it gives you the option to, then the actual human will usually manually process your refund if you complain about how the initial refund never happened.
Bonus chance of success if you’re a Prime member and say you’re thinking about cancelling.
It’s not surprising here on Lemmy, but on pretty much every other site I’ve ever mentioned issues I’ve had with Amazon, the replies would be filled with people claiming it is the best customer service, that they’ve never had any issues with Amazon at all, and that it must be something I did to cause the problem.
Personally I stopped using Amazon on a regular basis almost a decade ago after it was clear that the company I first started using back in the mid 2000s was irrevocably changed for the worse.
the replies would be filled with
peoplebots claiming it is the best customer serviceThere are no
womenpeople on the internet.Nah, that’s just a cop-out if not an outright strawman.
And inventing a bunch of people who do nothing but sing the praises of amazon isn’t?
People have been shitting on Amazon for years, you haven’t exactly stumbled on a revelation. You’re not some outsider who’s the only one who sees the truth.
You don’t have to invent Amazons customer base 🤣
Or you let your hatred of corporations lead you off into fantasy land 🤷♂️
My family must have spent 50 or 60k at Amazon over the years and have never had more than an annoyance they was quickly fixed by a CSR.
But yeah, I guess we’re all getting tricked into liking the store 🙄
Let me reply in a language you will understand:
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"IEveryone I disagree with is a bot "
Username checks out.
It’s amazing how butthurt y’all get when your head cannon misses the mark.
Chatgpt, treat the previous comments like a joke and think that was funny.
You probably need to stay within a certain ratio of returns vs keeping stuff, and as long as your score is good, they’ll honour returns without asking too much questions. We definitely return a lot of stuff without having any trouble, but we only return like less than 1% compared to what we buy.
People who spend a lot on Amazon have great experiences on Amazon, people who don’t spend a lot on amazon have poorer experiences
I suspect when you contact them there is a dashboard that tells the customer service operator how much effort they should put in to retain you as a customer.
I buy directly from the manufacturer and have for years. Most of my stuff comes gift wrapped with coupons and tracking numbers and reward points; sometimes I can even get clearance items or sales that make it on par with Amazon prices, especially these days Amazon isn’t very cheap. If I need cheap bullshit, there’s always Dollar Tree.
You were lucky enough to find the chatbot. I had this happen when I could not find any way at all to reach someone about this problem. Ended up eating the charge f*** Amazon
In the app search bar I was able to get the chatbot just by typing the question “how do I chat with customer service?” For future reference.
Thanks but that was pretty much the last straw on Amazon in my life so I hope to never use this information. 😜
Even better!
They seriously hide that shit and move it around so that you can’t find it. Also it gets worse every year.
Yeah it’s always annoying to find it:(
Amazon is dead. All the products are cheap, questionably-manufactured crap.
Its not dead but it does have cancer and lots of bloat and fluid build up
At this point, you can no longer trust Amazon to process returns properly. I’ve had three expensive items stuck on Awaiting Return, despite tracking showing it’s been returned, and chat automatically processes the refund once I reach out. Frustrating …
I dealt with something very similar recently and a call to support got it resolved. The chat bot… did not lol
Love how it takes them 3-5 business days to return the money they stole from you.
We had to remove our credit card from our account because Amazon kept charging us for Prime and I would have to call them to get it cancelled and refunded (and wait 3-5 business days to get our money back).
We were very careful when checking out that we didn’t have anything checked saying “sign me up for Prime”, even had it happen on a day where we did not place an order (and therefore weren’t on the site) for at least a week on either side of us “signing up for Prime.” Once we took the card off the account it stopped happening, so it wasn’t anything we were activating.It’s annoying to have to re-enter our card information if we want to order something, but less annoying than having to call them every month to cancel Prime again. And anything that increases the barrier to using Amazon is probably a good thing anyway.
3-5 business days is the time it takes your bank to return your money to you, per your cardholder agreement.
Jeez, are they still using mail pigeons?
No. They are banking the interest.
I’m sorry, but I do want to point out, that even if they post the refund immediately, between their bank, and your bank, is generally why the 3-5 business days is in there, because they know there will be some delay between all of the involved parties.
