Amazon's new refunds policy will 'crush' small businesses, outraged sellers say
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Bought a new induction cooking pan. A nice one at $90. Didn't really pay much attention to who was selling it, just bought it like I do everything else from Amazon. It took about two weeks to arrive because it was from an independent seller, and was not 'Prime eligible'.
When it arrived, I took it out of the box and was immediately disappointed. It was really heavy, and the handle was shaped and angled in a way that made it hard to maneuver such a heavy pan. It'd be really difficult to do the usual flip and toss motions when cooking things.
I didn't want to spend $90 on a pan I would hate using, so I put it back in the box and requested a return.
That was when I found out exactly what the independent seller's return policy was. 1) I have to pay for return shipping (USPS best price was $38), 2) I have to pay them for the original 'free' shipping as well (no idea how much that was), and 3) I also have to pay a 25% restocking fee for an item in perfect resell-able condition. So in returning my $90 pan I figured I wouldn't get more than ~$30 back. I decided between being out $90 and having a pan or being out $60 and having nothing, I might as well keep it.
So I suppose that was a win for the seller - they successfully discouraged me from returning the item, which I'm sure would have cost them money. But it also discouraged me from buying anything on Amazon that isn't Prime, and it doesn't reflect well on Amazon that I had an experience completely contrary to their customer service values.
In the UK we're protected on two levels: firstly the "Distance Selling Regulation" means we have the right to cancel many contracts/purchases made not-in-person within 14 days of delivery.
And secondly, if a good is faulty, not as described, or unfit for purpose then we have a right to a refund under those terms also.
Probably because of these already strong rights, Amazon UK (and most retailers) go beyond that and simply offer a 30 day "no questions asked" return policy in most cases.
I didn't realise until now how much I took it for granted!
Whether the UK will keep those protections is something we'll see.
A lot of sellers will try to strong-arm you but if you just do the chargeback/claim they have no option but to eat the loss. Creditcard companies and PayPal thankfully nearly always back buyers, tilting the power balance back to the consumers' side :)
Do you really think "I bought something sight unseen and now I don't like it, waah" gets you special snowflake protection? There is no hint that the item is faulty or not as described.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/15/pdfs/ukpga_20150...
"I bought something sight unseen and now I don't like it, waah" will indeed entitle you to a full refund within 14 days under most circumstances.
I'm glad Amazon changed their policy.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...
Still shop at Amazon, but I definitely think more before buying bigger ticket items and I comparison shop now. Even though this policy change is great, I don't feel that I can revert back to my previous behavior of just mindlessly buying stuff at Amazon because of faith that they'll take care of you.
I am still especially wary of buying from 3rd parties on Amazon unless it's a throwaway item, and we refuse to buy anything that isn't Prime.
> Your request meets one of our A-to-z Guarantee conditions below: [...] You want to return an item internationally and the Seller does not (1) provide a return address within the UK, (2) provide a pre-paid return label, or (3) offer a full refund without requesting the item be returned.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeI...
I didn't realize how great that was compared to the UK!
30 minimum required by law. Not maximum.
REI is unusually customer-friendly, because it's a consuner cooperative. Most US stores do not offer anything like a year no-questions-asked return policy (30 days, many-questions-asked is more typical.)
I'd rather purchase stuff without being able to return it than pay a price that includes my statistical risk of returning things.
First of all, the Consumer Contracts Directive replaced that in 2014, no?
Second, how exactly would this have protected the buyer? Maybe no restocking fee and only difference between free and basic shipping? In EU, does seller HAVE to pay for return shipping?
Third, you know that "protection" isn't free, right? You're paying for that in terms of higher prices and lost economic opportunities.
Finally, the pro-EU, anti-US condescension laced with pity is so tiresome and ignorant. We get it, things work differently there. Some are better, some worse. It's hardly paradise.
(For the record, I've lived in the US and the EU.)
Buying from an independent seller on Amazon is similar to buying on eBay. You're taking the risk of not having the customer service that large corporations can afford.
Plus, Amazon customer support will often help out with claims where the seller is in the wrong (e.g. item does not match description).
Never had a problem returning anything ordered online. Ok one should nonetheless read the terms before ordering.
No, that would be rather dull. But in terms of returning stuff you bought on the Internet, it pretty much is: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Rights_Directive_20...
"The current varying lengths of the withdrawal periods both between the Member States and for distance and off-premises contracts cause legal uncertainty and compliance costs. The same withdrawal period should apply to all distance and off-premises contracts. In the case of service contracts, the withdrawal period should expire after 14 days from the conclusion of the contract. In the case of sales contracts, the withdrawal period should expire after 14 days from the day on which the consumer or a third party other than the carrier and indicated by the consumer, acquires physical possession of the goods."
> And secondly, if a good is faulty, not as described, or unfit for purpose then we have a right to a refund under those terms also.
None of this applies here, OP simply wasn't happy with their purchase. Does it really make sense for the seller to have to pay out of pocket for round-trip shipping on a heavy iron pan because OP didn't bother reading the listing or looking at the pictures?
I did this recently with an item I ordered. I paid extra for the non-prime eligible 2nd day shipping. It didn't arrive until after 6 days. I filed a claim, and without having to wait for the claim process, Amazon immediately gave me the option to close the claim and receive a gift card for the amount I paid without returning the item.
Maybe the buyer has to have "Prime" though?
I read carefully, and did not see anything to suggest the item was not as advertised. I saw someone complain that they did not like various aspects. Absent an explicit money-back guarantee of satisfaction, I see no reason why the vendor should have to cater to every buyer's demand.
But that's my own subjective feeling, and I imagine others put their range higher or lower based on factors like distance to UPS store or Amazon locker, or how much they logistically have on their plate.
These sorts of shipping policies used to be the norm, until Amazon realized that people value free shipping more than an equivalent discount.
You would buy a ring (looks like a real diamond!), and when it arrived you realize "hey, this is just cheap costume jewelry" and send it back. They'd happily refund the price and express hopes you'd be happier with future items.
And they didn't care about the return, because they were charging you $8 (or whatever) for non-refundable shipping and only paying the shipper $1.20. So in the end they made $6.80 for selling you nothing.
In your view, how much should you have paid for shipping for an item that you didn't want? Nothing?
Should the seller be responsible for shipping the item both ways?
There is already very little margin in selling commodity goods, especially when you consider Amazon takes 15% of gross value as a fee. Shipping in many cases changes the order from profitable to money-losing. If you try and price it in, you can't compete on cost which begs the question of why bother selling on Amazon in the first place.
The crux of the issue is this, though: Amazon doesn't give a shit about 3rd party sellers, nor can the 3rd party sellers provide the same level of customer service as Amazon can, mostly due to economies of scale. The whole 3rd party seller program is a testbed for Amazon, a research program to see how they operate and how Amazon can do it better and as soon as they realize how - the 3rd party sellers either get priced out by a race to the bottom with Amazon itself (they go directly to suppliers and cut everyone out) or by policies like these, which are ripe for abuse or eat further into seller margins to the point of operating at break-even or slightly in the red.
As a last note: Whenever I buy on Amazon, I buy Prime. The incentives of customers and 3rd party sellers are incompatible. If I were a customer for the goods that we are selling, I would never buy from our company.
Instead, I'll either avoid the independent sellers, or just to to Sur le Table. So how do these sellers win?
The majority of 3rd party sellers by volume own their own websites outside of Amazon. The ones you described are tiny mom&pop stores that come and go by the thousand every year.
It's more of a platform to see what works and what doesn't, at the expense of small businesses who wanted to sell on Amazon. At least that's my perspective. A 3-5% margin may be fine when you run a 100B business, have economies of scale and a world-class brand, but the same will spell disaster for a small business.
There are also a lot of dishonest 3rd party sellers who come and go like a swarm of locusts. Maybe they "win" in the short run by selling counterfeit goods and not honoring Amazon policies, but in the end they will lose also when Amazon bans non-prime fulfillment of orders (that day is coming sooner rather than later, my guess is before 2020)
If Amazon's purchasing experience was smoother, I'd be doing less paranoid research ahead of time, looking up the company, trying to figure out if the reviews are fake. If only Amazon could shape up how much buyer's disadvantage I'm experiencing on their store, I'd be buying more often and more confidently, especially from anything other than popularly reviewed items.
Amazon needs to shape up their game because, yes, ordering online is convenient, but you can shop online at Walmart AND get the offline return assurance. And most stores price match Amazon now.
"My Advice To Anyone Starting A Business Is To Remember That Someday I Will Crush You"
http://www.theonion.com/blogpost/my-advice-anyone-starting-b...
But in all seriousness... as a consumer, I shop on Amazon to not think twice about having to deal much with returns, shipping, etc.
I understand that this is probably painful for a lot of people who built up businesses on the Amazon platform, but this is something that also seems pretty obvious.
I can understand sellers frustration, but to my mind that's the price of having your products featured on Amazon. I've never encountered a third party who has refused a refund, so in reality I don't know if that much will change for them, unless there's a huge amount of abuse of the returnless refunds.
at some point I think the answer to both of these questions will be no, and then I'd expect the good customer experience to erode pretty quickly as Amazon realizes they can squeeze as much profit as they want out of customers and retailers.
ecommerce is too large a field, with too easy entry, to be a monopoly.
Mostly it let's Amazon hire fewer people in support department - they don't have to deal with the occasional refused return ("I dropped this glass item on tiles and it broke into a million pieces, I'd like my money back. Do I have to ship it back to you?" - paraphrased actual return request)
The only other plus side I see is that customers can ship the return immediately. Not much of a difference as sellers are now required to respond within 12h (7 days a week, including holidays) and if they fail to more than 5-10% of the time (I don't remember what the exact target is now) they risk having their Amazon account closed.
From consumer point of view it's not a good thing:
- it offers no new customer protection. sellers are already required to accept those returns (unless customer shoots themselves in the foot - see example above) and provide a prepaid shipping label (in most cases). Amazon enforces that
- it removes the option seller has to accept a return that is out of policy
- it increases the number of unnecessary returns (and having to reorder). Often a one sentence explanation/hint is enough
- it doesn't make the cost of shipping to customer refundable, unless the customer lies about the reason why he's returning the item. Right now those false claims account for at least 3/4 of all returns (source: my wife runs a business that does part of the sales through Amazon, other sellers we know having the same problem)
- it generates extra costs for sellers. that cost is ultimately paid by buyers
From seller point of view it's not a good thing:
- makes fraud easier. For a larger seller that's simply a cost of doing business that will be shifted to buyers anyway. For a small seller it can be end of business if for example a Chinese company that copied their product decides to make a couple dozen fraudulent returns (not that uncommon)
- removes an option to use your own cheaper shipping label - even sending just a few hundred package a month gets you really nice discounts
- removes an option to use your own shipping label that makes the return safer (like extra insurance or using a courier). ANYTHING customer ships back makes Amazon consider it a valid return - even if it's damaged, something completely different, etc the seller will have to provide a refund. It's next to impossible to stop that refund
- removes an option to receive feedback from the customer making the return to improve in the future
We should ultimately facilitate a marketplace where both business and customer have confidence in their transactions, rather than lingering suspicions that they don't understand the deal and will have to eat the cost.
Wow, I can literally just say "I don't like it", and there's a chance they'll literally just give me my money back, but let me keep it?
Tuft and Needle lets you donate the mattress to a local shelter and get your money back.
Basically, evidence it was destroyed was sufficient.
For example, Amazon delivered an item of mine to the wrong address. They refunded me even though I didn't return the item.
[1] I don't know about FedEx or UPS but probably against their TOS.
[2] This is also eBay's policy as well - http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/money-back-guarantee.htm...
>If a buyer suspects that an item is counterfeit, and there are strong indicators that the item is counterfeit, we don't require the buyer to return the item to the seller. The buyer agrees to cooperate with us to ensure the proper disposal of the item. In such instances, we refund the buyer for the full cost of the item and original shipping, and the seller reimburses us for the refund. The buyer may not sell the item on eBay or elsewhere.
There was no alternative course, it felt maddening, especially considering I had submitted photos and knew there was no chance for their resale.
Search ps4 dual shock controller on walmart.com.
Beats headphones
Apparel.
Etc
Running shoes for instance: when I was last buying a pair of trail trainers the brightly coloured version of the shoe I currently prefer was being offered considerably cheaper than the all-black-except-high-vis-strips version. This was from the same sellers too, it wasn't due to the listing offering items from multiple outlets as is sometimes the case.
I would have preferred the darker version but I'm perfectly happy not to care about colour to save a bit of cash to spend on something else, but if I had paid the extra, as someone buying a fashion item to match an overall look might well do, and not got that version anyway I'd be expecting a cost-free replacement.
Do you mean the legal definition[1], more or less as in "unsafe"? Because if so, the reason they are likely telling you to discard defective product is so it can't be used as evidence in a liability case in the instance an unsafe product has caused any harm.
This does not imply "unsafe".
>Product defects arise most prominently in legal contexts, where the term is applied to "anything that renders the product not reasonably safe"
But as a guess, if you're a new account, maybe 2 or 3 times. For every year you've been a member, probably 1.5 times that number per year up to some max (let's say, 7).
I suspect Amazon's decision process, when you request a refund or return, may have something to do with your purchase history, and also the return and defect rate of the product in question.
I've had that same feeling, and I sort of cynically wonder if that's not the point. It is difficult to have ire for a seller when you feel like you've just taken advantage of them.
I ordered a 3-pack of baking mix, one of which was damaged in shipping. They couldn't accept the damaged material and insisted on shipping out a new 3-pack. I got five packs for the price of 3.
That's cool, I guess, but didn't I just get rewarded for the shipper's mistake? That doesn't feel right.
Some examples from my life:
I've bought a book from eBay that was advertised as the wrong edition. When I complained (I wanted a specific edition and I made sure the listing was for the edition I wanted) the seller told me to just donate the book and gave me my money back. It was a cheap used book, it would probably have cost more to ship it back than the seller would have gotten reselling it.
I ordered cat litter from jet.com. Cat litter was crushed and broke open during shipping and spilled everywhere. I took a picture and asked for my money back. They didn't ask me to ship the litter back even though about 60-70% of the litter was usable (and I used it). It would have been a mess to ship back litter like that plus expenses.
Edit: just thought of a third example. My parents ordered an armoire from Wayfair that must have been dropped badly in shipping, the side was extremely bowed out. The thing was like 5 feet tall and really heavy, it was solid oak. They just shipped them a new one because a return of such a big item would have been totally infeasible without sending a truck or special courier service. Some rando on Craigslist was really happy to come pick it up so he could fix it.
I've had this happen on a defective basketball backboard (and adjustable armature) that I purchased, and on a car battery that wasn't defective, but was no longer needed because the car it was intended to go into when I ordered it was destroyed in a fire before the battery arrived.
In the first case I expect it was the size/price to ship it back. In the second it may be because of postal regulations but I'm not positive (they shipped it to me without a problem, but perhaps they don't want to risk return shipment on an item that may or may not be defective so they have a blanket policy).
Both cases required me to contact Amazon directly because the items were not listed in the "return this" section of their respective orders.
Part of me says that the person receiving a refund has no right to the item anymore and should return it on principle, but other side of me realizes it's just a waste of shipping and handling resources when I was having the item trashed anyways. As long as Amazon is actively trying to prevent fraud, I'm not really concerned about this policy.
I've had this happen with multiple companies. (Wrong t-shirt, warranty replacements on some items, credit card extended warranties, a couple of ebay sellers where the item was defective, etc.)
Definitely something I wouldn't abuse, and I hope others don't abuse, because it increases the efficiency of the system - both by reducing impediments to buying things and by reducing overall cost when things go wrong.
I contacted amazon customer service and, at first they wanted me to ship the one filter back, so I would receive a full refund. I told them that I'd like the other 4 shipped to me, and that I need to keep the 1 filter as I was planning on doing an oil change that day. BTW, 1 filter costs like $5, so the cost of shipping it back would have outweighed the benefit.
They refunded me and told me I don't have to return the filter.
There are a number of items whose quantity is listed in the title/description rather than the item quantity when you add it to your cart. I think this causes confusion at their warehouses, and the pickers/packers are messing up. I had the same issue happen with a set of 2 pillows, only 1 arrived in the box... amazon shipped me 2 more free of charge.
Their customer service has been spot on. Considering I spend probably a few grand a year buying stuff from amazon, I'd expect no less from their customer service.
The good news: I still have the replacement pair a year down the line, and they work well.
So I called Amazon and explained and they refunded the money before I knew what was happening. I said ok thanks, what should I do with the camera? She said you can throw it in the trash.
Of course since they made me a customer for life They’ve done quite well from me.
Beyond Amazon specifically, the big picture trend is that any marketplace of 3rd-party sellers which includes eBay, PayPal, Uber, Airbnb, etc will always tilt the advantage towards the buyers.
E.g. Buyer scams sellers by claiming he got a bad product and Paypal will instantly issue a chargeback without any investigation.
If sellers try to change the balance of power by shifting to a platform that's more favorable to sellers (e.g. p2p OpenBazaar, craigslist, etc), they'd have to calculate the revenue loss from a smaller marketplace (less buyers' eyeballs). It's going to depend on the type of items if the loss is worthwhile.
E.g. If you're a seller that happens to have the unreleased iPhone 8 prototype to sell, you can use OpenBazaar to sell it because there would be plenty of buyers that don't need refund assurances from Amazon. If the item gives the seller leverage, the seller could also demand more buyer-unfriendly terms such as mandatory payment in Bitcoin instead of Paypal.
When it's not a multi-sided platform, that's when rules can tighten up to favor the seller instead of the buyer. E.g. Costco stops generous 90-day returns on big-ticket electronics and computers because buyers were "renting" video cameras for free.
(Cynical conspiracy hat on: it's possible Amazon expected the sellers' backlash and they don't care because this new policy was their way to cull the "weak" sellers that couldn't take the financial hit from returnless refunds. E.g. The "returnless refunds" policy would drive away shady Amazon Marketplace sellers that scam buyers with faulty USB-C cables: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10508494)
Basically my word vs the seller's, as things tend to be in online disputes. Not a lot of money spent, so it's not a huge issue, but makes me lean towards hotels unless Airbnb is much cheaper.
As a seller on many of the other platforms mentioned (and as a CC merchant), you are correct. Good luck winning any dispute. Best course of action is to simply try and get the product back and take the hit on shipping.
eBay found out very early on that having a great marketplace for sellers is worthless without having a compelling buying experience. What good is a flea market if no customers come by, or your reputation is so bad that buyers avoid you?
When you get as big as Amazon it's reasonable to expect some concessions to the people who use your platform, just like if you get as big as GM your workers will want to unionize.
Amazon is basically a monopoly, I'd like to know how you imagine a small business competing against them. And why should a small shoe/fidget-spinner/alibaba-reselling business need to build their own shopping website anyways? "Platforms" should be free.
This really isn't all that different than what Walmart has a history of doing. Become your biggest source of business, then force you to lower the price or lose it all.
If your supplier raises prices you can become unprofitable, if your distributor changes policies you can become unprofitable, if FedEx raises prices you can become unprofitable, if price of gas goes up you can become unprofitable, if your rent goes up you can become unprofitable, if taxes go up you can become unprofitable, if laws change you can become unprofitable, even if a local employer closes you can become unprofitable, if a competitor comes in and undercuts you you can become unprofitable, etc.
It's not fair to criticize a small business for not building up, from scratch, the infrastructure and customer base that Amazon has. Especially when many of these small businesses wouldn't even be feasible without Amazon's infrastructure.
That said, Amazon should also provide buyer metrics to sellers so sellers can choose to sell items to customers unless that buyer has a "bad rating" (i.e. they do a lot of returns).
This has a chance at being good for everyone if done correctly, but it seems like only half the equation has been implemented.
Don't care in the slightest about the third-party vendors' complaints. Amazon can control THEIR SITE how they want to control it. They own the site. Don't like their policies? Take your shop elsewhere.
I already stopped trusting third-party vendors on Amazon a LONG time again.
And that is ultimately bad for consumers.
For example, find a coffee grinder sold by Amazon (note, not Amazon Warehouse Deals)
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_hi_eb?rh=n%3A1055398%2Cn%3A2...
IMHO.
And I am telling you all this as a person that hates shopping in person.
I don't know if similar applies to the US, but at least in the UK you get stronger protections when buying online (because you can't inspect the item before hand). If I buy stuff in person, then find it is not suitable for what I need, I might be stuck with it depending on the store (assuming it is as described and not faulty). If I buy it online, I can just send it back (possibly paying postage costs, but most places offer free returns).
For instance I've got a external hard drive on its way back to Amazon because, after testing, found that the performance isn't up to snuff. Had I purchased it in person, I may not have been able to return after use (because the packaging doesn't make any claims regarding performance, it'd be difficult to claim it is faulty/not as described).
Bigger marketplace/choices
Convenience - I don't have to wait until the store opens. I don't have to drive around to 10 different stores for 10 different products
Not everyone has has easy access to the stores they need to go to
Price
Time - I can order a pan while waiting for a client to arrive or commuting on the train.
Search and comparison tools
(There's disadvantages too, of course.)
I broke my rule recently yet again and purchased a "new" book on Amazon from a third seller that was about 1/2 the price of any Amazon shipper for the same item. When it arrived the book was not only not new, but was seriously damaged. Pages were all stuck together where the book must have been wet at some time, a bunch of the pages were torn. This thing was damaged so badly that I about 1/3 of the pages aren't even readable. I contacted the seller and they told me they would send a replacement "right away". That was a month ago and still no replacement, but they have a "no refunds" policy.
=============Edit=========
Here's a picture of this "new" book. The packaging was not damaged at all so this had to be an issue with the reseller rather than USPS.
(Was this shipped from India by any chance? Mine was.)
This was shipped from Michigan.
Small businesses and large ones too are being forced to become sharecroppers for Amazon if they want to stay in business.
I suppose some people might return an item because they changed their mind or misjudged what they needed, but I online shop a lot and I've literally never demanded a refund for something like that. Surely it can't be that bad...
That's a huge risk that's been known from the beginning, though. I feel for these sellers, but building a business that's 100% dependent on a 3rd party (especially one like Amazon that you're also in competition with to some extent) seems like a poor situation to place yourself in.
Walmart has been making an aggressive effort to recruit sellers. They'll use this mistake by Amazon to their advantage. It'll also open up opportunities for other platforms such as eBay and perhaps something that doesn't yet exist. This is a mistake of perceived power by Amazon, I imagine they're going to make a lot more of them in the coming years.
And yeah, obviously didn't get to read the article due to that idiocy. :(
Basically it seems like the only thing a buyer can be sanctioned for is simple non-payment.
The "referral fee" ranges from 8%, to 15% (common), and up. Up can go pretty high, but mostly for Amazon's own stuff.
Ebay's are mostly just in the 10% range: http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/fees.html
I haven't used Amazon to buy or sell anything since. And you know what? It's great! I use Discogs (and my local music store!) for music, Alibris (alas, no good local book stores remain) for books, Newegg for electronics. I haven't yet found a great source for ordinary household goods online, but the local Home Depot/Costco/Target have me covered. When they get drone delivery and a good online experience, I'll be stoked.
In truth, I don't think Amazon can really compete within these niches. They get away with it because of an incredible focus on reducing transaction friction, and because they are usually "good enough" in so many categories. My worry is that Amazon will expand their monopoly, and then really start abusing it's customers, and they won't have anywhere to go.
I guess I'm just saying don't wait for them to try and screw you out of $250, give up Amazon for a month, and see how it goes! I think you'll be surprised.
They don't have the range of books that amazon does, but they beat amazon on price often enough to make them worth checking (and every so often, they really undercut amazon).
I recently had a run-in with their support department when they shipped me a book that was a) a photocopy of the original b) with a damaged cover.
They were not willing to take any responsibility for this and made it very clear that they did not want to replace it.
So I've soured on them.
Pirate books supplied by reputable online retailers certainly has been on the rise. No Starch suffered it recently. It does seem to be technical books more than others, although I'm surprised it was a photocopy; usually it's just a reprint of the PDF version.
I worked for BrickLink for a time (a niche online marketplace for adult Lego fans) and I was surprised at how smoothly that place ran, which is actually a big reason to prefer niche marketplaces if they exist. Community, and reputation, means something there, whereas with the huge world-spanning monster markets you're just another face in the crowd, which is great news for criminals who know that police can't and won't pursue online property crime.
> Our research shows that orders with messages responded to within 24 hours receive 50% less negative feedback compared to orders with messages responded to after more than 24 hours... Timely, high-quality responses to customer inquiries are an important factor in customer satisfaction and can help prevent negative feedback or other order defects and claims. While scores that do not meet our standards generally do not result in the suspension of your selling privileges, slow response times can lead to negative feedback and claims, which can impact your selling privileges.
So it sounds like buying on Amazon is great way to avoid merchants who ignore support requests. Thanks for the info.
Certainly I wouldn't do business with someone like you who feels that fraud is justified when some arbitrary condition you place on the other party isn't satisfied to your liking.
This is completely unjustified and against site guidelines.
I had something vaguely similar with Play-Asia about a year ago. Part of an order arrived damaged, and after three weeks of back-and-forth with support was no closer to receiving a replacement item or refund. I ended up filing a PayPal complaint (specifying that only part of the order was in dispute, and that I was only seeking a refund on a single item), but Play-Asia completely ignored this -- PayPal issued a refund on the entire order as a result.
BTW, why did the buyer wish to return the item? If the item had developed a fault, I'm not sure his claim of "Item not received" is _wholly_ unjustified.
>Certainly I wouldn't do business with someone like you who feels that fraud is justified when some arbitrary condition you place on the other party isn't satisfied to your liking.
Read the comment you are replying to, it does not say that and it does not imply that.
This pisses me off because it obscures the simple fact that Amazon had all the information it needed to see that he had actually received the item, but considered it "not delivered" anyway. It was fraud on the buyers part, theft and stupidity on Amazon's part for not seeing it, and it's emminently stupid for some random on the internet to say that ignoring an invalid return request deserved this response.
As a customer, I love dealing with Amazon. This doesn't mean that I'd enjoy being their partner, supplier, employee or anybody else they deal with.