Posted on 05/23/2018 4:48:16 AM PDT by rightwingintelligentsia
Amazon's flexible return policy may not be as risk free as you think.
The company bans shoppers for violations, which include returning items too often, according to The Wall Street Journal. Some users aren't told what they did wrong.
Amazon boasts free and easy returns for several of its items, which has pushed many brick-and-mortar stores to offer the same policies as they struggle to compete with the e-commerce giant. But it turns out Amazon's return policies may come at a price.
Dozens of people have taken to Twitter and Facebook to complain about Amazon closing their accounts without warning or an explanation, according to the Journal.
Paul Fidalgo wrote about being "exiled" from Amazon for "excessive returns." Other people noted they had also been banned from the site for similar reasons.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnet.com ...
I roast my own coffee beans.
I order almost all of my unroasted beans from Amazon because they have an excellent selection for the best price.
Last year, I ordered a 3 lb bag of unroasted beans and they arrived on the very date they were to expire (unroasted beans are generally good for a year or so).
I contacted the seller, who replied there was nothing they could do. So, I contacted Amazon and requested a return.
Amazon told me to keep the beans and they refunded the full price I paid for them.
That’s customer service.
The walker did look like it had not been used. Whomever returned it did have a dark sense of humor.
Good. I hate it when people use things and return them like it was a rental. Women do this with expensive dresses. You can go to outlet stores filled with expensive dresses that have been worn and returned dirty.
Grrrrr.
Once I ordered vitamins and a book but they sent me a triple roll pack of masking tape and a set of competition badminton birdies. ??? How in the world they made that mistake I have no idea!!! Anyway same thing, they apologized profusely, refunded my money, sent the originally requested items for free and told me to keep the tape and birdies.
A good while ago I worked a second job at a Lands’ End outlet store. Lands’ End has a very lenient return policy. One day a woman walks in and returns a pair shoes almost completely worn to the bone. She said the shoes didn’t meet her expectations. She got a full refund.
In my opinion, that was fraudulent. We all know there are people who will abuse the system to their financial and personal benefit and try to get over on retailers. Unfortunately, sometimes innocent people get caught up in a retailer’s effort to protect themselves and hopefully a good customer service department can sort through that.
Between returns and thievery I sometimes had to wonder how walmart made any money. I know how they did but I imagine the prices would be even lower if this kind of stuff did not constantly happen.
Find a cash receipt in the parking lot. Go in and find item. Sneak up to customer service and return the item. To be fair walmart caught on quick to this.
I brought back an Iron that didn’t work and I didn’t have the receipt and I paid cash.
the Walmart CS went out back to the date and approx. time that I bought it on the system and brought up the video of me purchasing it and could see the cash exchange and brought up the receipt in the system and refunded me my money.
My wife buys a lot online and ends up returning a lot to the local stores. She would prefer to buy at the local store but they never seem to have a good selection of sizes and colors so the retailers bring its upon themselves. Ultimately they get a sale but end up having to process returns which I guess then just stocks their stores.
The one that gets me is Sears with Land’s End. If you buy something from Land’s End online and return to Sears, they automatically mark it clearance because they have no where to stock it and just want it out of the store fast.
One time I ordered one of them straps that helps you keep your yap shut while sleeping, and got the new Ben-Hur movie. I figured out that the third-party seller must have had a label issue, as my order number from them was one-off from the label that came with the movie. Felt sorry for the sap who bought Ben-Hur and got my yap-shutter.
I’ve bought hundreds of items, big and small, including clothing and electronics, from Amazon and Ebay without touching or seeing them first. My only disappointments have been a pair of bluetooth headphones and a pair of reading glasses that weren’t of the quality I expected. There are usually reams of reviews and specs for items available online, so in most cases one isn’t buying blind. I never go to brick and mortar stores unless I need something immediately. Online shopping is a matter of convenience.
“Dozens” of people complained! Out of how many customers? Sheesh...tempest in a teapot.
I took some items back to Wal-Mart a couple days ago. Wow, was that hard. There was a woman in the lobby with a printer and scanner on her hip. She took all the items out on the FLOOR of the lobby, scanned each item, and printed a return tag which she appled to each item. These are temporary tags that the clerk at the register will take off, so I got a stern warning several times “do NOT take these tags off and be sure they don’t touch or they will stick together.”
After that ordeal, she walked me to the Customer Service Desk about 15 feet away where another somewhat surly clerk proceeded to scan every item a SECOND TIME. She scanned the little temporary label, not the UPC code. Of course, a couple of items jostled in the bag so their labels got stuck together and fell off the product. She got discombulated at that and nearly accused me of being an idiot shopper.
After she finished scan #2, she credited my credit card and then had to use an ink pen to manually line through each item on the paper receipt. I thought they were going to ban me from Wal-Mart.
It probably took 20 minutes. That was absolutely the worst, most inefficient return experience ever. The highly vaunted “Wal-Mart IT efficiency” was nowhere to be seen. She explained that this was a security precaution to avoid people in the store from taking unpaid for items to Customer Service and getting a refund. So every shopper is treated like a criminal. Real nice.
Amazon returns? Jump online, get a return label, print it, slap it on the box and mail it.
Maybe some author will write about my experience.
Good thing I don’t buy shoes online. There’s a 90% chance they might be returned.
In Indiana, we used to have a store called Service Merchandise. It was like a brick and mortar Amazon. It didn’t have as much as Amazon. I liked the store, but they went out of business here.
I had a similar experience. I mistakenly ordered 2 instead of 1 of an item. When I asked how to return it, they told me to keep it. No problem.
While I’m here - I frequently order from Walmart.com. I got an order of canned food and personal care items that looked like an elephant had stepped on them. They were OK to use, but I thought I call and mention that they weren’t prepped for shipping very well. Walmart told me to keep them and sent me a whole new order (and it was a lot), for free.
I bet there are a lot of people who order 2-3 of an item to see if it fits, don’t like the color when they see it in person, etc. I try to think about my choices and read the reviews. If I feel uncomfortable, I don’t order. Simple. I rarely have a return.
The worst is when people buy something, use it once and return it for a full refund. Happens all the time.
I disagree, slightly: The problem is "buying with intent to return". That's theft. It's wrong, and people who do it should be shunned if not prosecuted.
One problem I have found with Amazon is when a buyer has a question about an item, Amazon provides a “Ask the community” section which I have used frequently and you would not believe some the answers you get back. Some have nothing to do with your original question and others are totally opposite of reality.
Amazon should require that sellers only can answer these questions and that alone would reduce returns.
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