Hacker News Reader

Comment by bombcar | Hacker News Reader

Amazon has done this once in a while, but I can't figure what triggers it.

Weight... There was a time my friend was rather displeased with Amazon with how they treated their small company. So they wrote a script to find all the heaviest items they had that allowed 1 or 2 day shipping. Over the course of a month they ordered nearly 2 tons of safes and other heavy objects with express delivery options. They returned most (yep they sent them the label to ship back a 500 lb rifle safe) but gave away some of the safes to friends and donated some of the furniture.

Most of the SKUs they ordered are no longer eligible for prime delivery. This was several years ago.

Anecdotal, but I heard from a friend that one of his friends was able to get a $2000 laptop on Amazon by complaining that the screen was cracked (it wasn't) and they were told to just keep it. They were then issued a full refund.

It's definitely not just weight - I ordered two different sizes of high-visibility mesh vests (basically almost weightless) and when I went to return one, Amazon told me to keep it. I think it was about a $10-12 item.

The only other time this has happened for me was with some wine glasses; one out of the four in the package (single stock unit) was broken and they said I should keep the item. I guess in general they're not interested in receiving broken glass returns.

On the other hand, I got a hair pomade in a small glass jar that broke during shipping. I tried to get a refund option without returning, but wouldn't let me. So I sent a plastic bag full of hair pomade and broken glass back to Amazon...

I wonder if it's just done by product category or something; e.g. different assumptions for stemware vs hair-care.

The only reason to ask for the 3 glasses back would be to make sure you don't intentionally break one (or claim one was broken) to get the remaining ones for free.

Whether it's glass or not, as soon as it's not resellable as the original product it becomes worse than worthless. There is no sane way for them to deal with a SKU of "3 glasses", total quantity: 1.

OK sure; but they ask for returns of stuff that's just plain dead-on-arrival, which is just as bad, if not worse.

I ordered some batteries for portable two-way radios. Some of them arrived completely dead (zero volts; high impedance at the charging terminals) and sure enough they want them back even after I indicate they're bad.

Huh, that's so odd they must have a more sophisticated algorithm now... 5-7 years ago it was all about weight from my observations.

Did similar non-maliciously. I was on a remote island and wanted a standing desk - they're heavy AF. Amazon sellers kept cancelling the order.

...amazon warehouse on the other hand worked no questions asked despite questionable economics

I tried to return a king size mattress to Amazon, now I have an extra mattress I got for free.

This is relatively standard for mattresses. Too many regulations surrounding their resale so many places will just ask you to "pretty please" donate it so they can write it off as a donation.

I find it odd that one item has so many regulations but others that I consider in the same category don't. I can return towels and bathing suits for example. Why are mattresses so heavily regulated like this but other items with similar surfaces for problem are not?

Price is probably a factor. Mattresses are expensive, making it more worth to screw people over with them, and making it worse for the person who got screwed.

1) regulations rarely make that much sense, but also

2) bed bugs

Specifically, bed bugs are very, very hard to kill once they infest something like a mattress. When they are dormant, they're almost invisible and almost indestructible. There is no effective way to remove an infestation from a mattress that doesn't either destroy the mattress or involve very toxic and/or illegal chemicals. (DDT was really the only effective pesticide for them, but that turned out to also really fuck up ecosystems, so we banned it)

Those items are probably never resold. They just throw them.

Mattresses are big. They stand out when left on the side of the road.

Sometimes it's shipping costs. I bought a treadmill and the heartrate monitor was flaky so I called Amazon to get a return label and I was offered something like $250 to keep it.

I believe you are right. I tried to return a heavy trailer lock as it was the wrong size. Full refund and they did not want it back.

I assume it's shipping cost. as well I bought a Timex watch for about 30 to 50 euros, and the calendar broke on it in a couple of weeks. Contacted Amazon.co.uk before I went to bed, and the next morning they told me to keep the watch and they'd send me a new one.

I'm guessing that me shipping that watch from Finland to the UK would've cost way too much.

I did have to ship in a broken Seagate HDD back to Amazon.de on their dime though, so it's not just them not wanting broken goods back. Although that might also be Seagate wanting it back for warranty purposes even though I went through Amazon?

I think warranty process, whether it's sold by Amazon vs fulfilled by them (the latter being charged for return shipping, likely) and whether they think it's "actually OK and can be resold" all factor into it.

What would be sneaky would be for UPS to sell Amazon things that look to the customer like a return label, but they just throw it in the trash without shipping it ...

I tried to return a $4 allen key and they told me to just keep it. Couldn't have weighed more than 100 grams.

How much would the return postage cost?

> can't figure what triggers it.

That's the most important part of it. If people could figure out and trigger it intentionally, the whole model would break.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com