Anyone had any experience of Amazon going wrong?

[kingston12]

Long story short - I ordered an expensive camera lens on Amazon Prime Day and received a small garden trellis instead.

Amazon asked me to return it, I did, and a week later they have told me that I have returned a ‘lencap’ rather than the original item, and therefore won’t get a refund.

Customer services just seem to be going around in circles, so I have asked my credit card company to step in.

I have ordered thousands of items from Amazon over the years, and never had this problem. Do I have anything to worry about given I have no proof of what was actually sent?

[anonymous-user]

You may have
Did you by chance keep the original box it came in or the label that was on the box. If so a weight may be quoted somewhere on the label that is too light for it to be a camera
If you get my point

[VEIGHT]

Yes, for the first time last week.

I received an electric omelette maker. Not in error of something else, just arrived out of the blue!

[anonymous-user]

Unfortunately there customer service is rubbish. Did you pay by CC better chance there.

[kingston12]

techiedave said:

You may have
Did you by chance keep the original box it came in or the label that was on the box. If so a weight may be quoted somewhere on the label that is too light for it to be a camera
If you get my point

I sent the whole thing back in the original packaging, after being told to do that by the customer service
representative. I took a picture of the item in the box, but that is not proof of course.

Edited by kingston12 on Monday 22 July 22:05

[kingston12]

VEIGHT said:

Yes, for the first time last week.

I received an electric omelette maker. Not in error of something else, just arrived out of the blue!

That’s what I’m worried about with this one. I assumed the trellis was instead of my actual order but it might have just been additional.

It was addressed to me and the original order said it was delivered at that time.

[renalpete]

Yes I had a very similar problem. Find the well hidden option on the site to speak to a human by phone, and keep telling them you are not satisfied with their response and want to escalate the issue. I talked to a couple of people then a few days later got refunded for a very similar 600 quid Amazon warehouse "lens".

[kingston12]

Thesprucegoose said:

Unfortunately there customer service is rubbish. Did you pay by CC better chance there.

Yep, paid by Amex and it is rather easier to get the point across to their customer services.

Amex have been excellent on the few occasions I have had a problem in the past, but it has been with smaller amounts, smaller companies and I’ve had much more proof of wrong doing.

[S1KRR]

I know its dodgy. But with hindsight you'd have been better just telling them your item (camera) hasn't arrived and left it at that!

Years ago. Amazon. Electric toothbrush ordered. 2 were delivered in separate boxes. Trying to do the "right thing" and return 1 to them confused the fk out of them. Wouldn't bother again

Similarly

Ikea wardrobe ordered in a million boxes. Also delivered mixed in, was a chest of drawers (in a different colour sadly) that wasn't ordered at all. Again trying to get them to come and retrieve it was a nightmare.

In future. Any large companies that send me stuff I don't want, I will not tell them. Keep it and then sell it on eBay few months down the line.

[kingston12]

S1KRR said:

I know its dodgy. But with hindsight you'd have been better just telling them your item (camera) hasn't arrived and left it at that!

Years ago. Amazon. Electric toothbrush ordered. 2 were delivered in separate boxes. Trying to do the "right thing" and return 1 to them confused the fk out of them. Wouldn't bother again

I must admit, it has occurred to me that may have been a better course of action. As it is, I have wasted a week, they have ‘disposed’ of the item that i returned and I still haven’t got a refund!

[JamesD74]

Had a similar issue last year. Also with an expensive camera lens funnily enough. Got it sorted in the end but took a few weeks of chasing and escalating beyond their first line customer service.

I still use Amazon a lot but not so often now for high value purchases.

[kingston12]

JamesD74 said:

Had a similar issue last year. Also with an expensive camera lens funnily enough. Got it sorted in the end but took a few weeks of chasing and escalating beyond their first line customer service.

I still use Amazon a lot but not so often now for high value purchases.

Just to round this off, I have finally had confirmation of refund today, but it has taken countless escalations, several failures to call back as promised and a complete lack of any accurate communication by email which would have been required for my credit card company to get involved.

I'd still rather have had the lens at the price they were offering it at, but the priority was getting the refund.

Like you, I'll be trying to make big purchases elsewhere going forward, but I'll still be using Amazon a lot for the smaller stuff. I'll probably be swayed by prices again on the larger items in the future though...

[AC123]

Sounds like they've got someone pinching camera lens' to me...

[StanleyT]

S1KRR said:

Years ago. Amazon. Electric toothbrush ordered. 2 were delivered in separate boxes. Trying to do the "right thing" and return 1 to them confused the fk out of them. Wouldn't bother again

Funnily enough, about 3 years ago I had my Amazon guy knock on my door and give me my parcel with my Phillips Sonic electric toothbrush in. Three hours later, he knocked on the door with an identical sized package. I took it in and opened it, another Phillips Sonic toothbrush.

I meant to look at my account to see if I had accidentally ordered two but got distracted. Next day my Amazon guy knocks on the door. Another similar package. Yep another toothbrush.

So I go check my credit card account, my Amazon account and I've definitely ordered only one.

So just to be sure I leave it a few days, still no more transactions on my credit card, and I go onto my Amazon account and get live chat up, speak to the agent who creates me two return labels "Can't I just send them as one???". Not possible apparently and I send them back.

Six days later I get two refunds for the two parcels sent back. Cue no end of contact on live chat trying to get the refunds unfunded, as the agent had done effectively what I'd do if I normally returned an item so they refunded. No amount of persuading was going to make them see different. I tried raising a formal complaint to see if a higher level being would take back their money (due to missing parcels I'm a believer in parcel-Karma) but no, they apologised, gave me a £10 credit voucher and a months free extension to Amazon Prime.

[sparks_190e]

Yep, had the wrong Blu-ray sent before. They apologised, sent the correct one and told me to keep the one I had in error. This was many years ago now and actually come to think of it, might have been play.com...

[mr_fibuli]

I got a parcel from them with 3 copies of The Santa Clause on DVD last summer. I just put them in the box for Cancer Research rather than trying to return them.