High-value Amazon orders 'switched for cat food', say customers | Hacker News Reader

High-value Amazon orders 'switched for cat food', say customers

bbc.co.uk

55 pointsrwky16 comments

Lol, so I used to work in the live events business. We would have to order and ship many PA speakers to various trailers when the equipment would break, generally to a hotel where one of the event staff was staying. We would tend to order from Amazon since the event staff wouldn't be in the same spot for long.

One of the times, we ordered a 500-watt Behringer PA speaker; these are around 2 feet tall. While sitting and eating dinner, my phone kept ringing repeatedly. I eventually picked it up only to have the event manager say "Hey, so I got the speaker...but upon opening the box it's full of dolls from the movie Frozen".

The box had all of the Behringer branding on the outside, was sealed, and had the styrofoam to protect the "speaker", but inside...all Elsa.

The strangest part was the Amazon rep didn't ask for the dolls back or even for proof; they simply reshipped the speaker the same day.

In the US it’s actually illegal for them to require that you return mistakes like that thanks to the FTC.

Yup, just was a funny thing to have happen. I remember saying "wait, what?" then to have the Amazon rep not even ask for a photo of proof, just accept it and move on.

In Canada, was asked to ship back some exercise supplement.

Asked politely or required? In the US I believe they’re free to ask, they just can’t force you or require that you pay for shipping.

That seems to be a misunderstanding of the law: https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/56ziq2/laws_re...

Do you think the dolls added up to a similar weight of the missing item? If not, that'd be an easy way for Amazon to tell something was off beforehand.

Because so much stuff on Wish dot com is fake, they also don't want you to send things back. They just ask for a picture and description of what you received instead of what you expected to receive, and then the money is returned to you right away.

Amazon is getting to be as bad as wish dot com, and to my mind, that is really sad.

So what's actually happening here? Amazon is allowing fraudsters to sell on their site, or someone within Amazon is switching products before they're delivered. I would have thought this could easily be avoided by only ordering from authorised sellers.

From the CCTV phone delivery story, it sounds like fraud by some delivery drivers?

That one does.

The one in the shop sounds a bit more suspicious to me. Who goes to collect an Amazon parcel from the Amazon Hub drop-off point and then opens it on the counter --conveniently in front of the CCTV camera-- rather than waiting til you get home, or into your car?

If I was investigating that one, I'd suspect a scam worked out between shop-keeper and customer.

> I would have thought this could easily be avoided by only ordering from authorised sellers.

If only. Search for Amazon commingling. There's no way for you to know which seller's box gets sent to you.

Is the only with 3rd party sellers?

Does it happen with other retailers like Best Buy or Target?

Are they buying for below market prices?

So many questions…

This happened to us at work this week. We ordered a bunch of 5g modems and got a bunch of knee braces.

I wondered where my cat food was going.

My cat broke a tooth on his bowl of cameras.

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