I mean we all know this, that Amazon is bad at basic math, but here’s what it seems to boil down to: Customers returned things, tracking proved it, Amazon never issued refunds, MAYBE to the tune of “Hundreds of Millions.”
Now if these were FBA 3rd party items, I wonder if that refund is coming out of the seller account.
According to the article, some of those refunds were reissued refunds after RFS where the tracking did not show the items were returned and the purchase was re-charged.
The article also did not say who was funding those refunds, but from the context of the article, specifically Amazon taking a huge financial hit, it sounds like Amazon is paying. However, knowing Amazon as we do, the only way to be sure of that is to see whether or not we have mysterious charges show up on our accounts.
It also looks like Return to locker customers were hit, as the items were scanned in at a locker but never scanned in at a warehouse
“Following a recent internal review, we identified a very small subset of returns that were unresolved because we could not verify that the correct item had been sent back to us,” Amazon said in emails to multiple customers, which were reviewed by Bloomberg. “We could have notified these customers more clearly (and earlier) to better understand the status and help us resolve the return. Given the time elapsed, we’ve decided to err on the side of customers and just complete refunds for these returns.”
On top of simply not refunding kiosk returns, Amazon also evidently refunded and then recharged some kiosk returns that ultimately were not received.
I get that Amazon was trying to decrease return fraud, but there’s got to be a better way to do so while also ensuring that non-scamming, honest customers are not caught in the net.
And yes, I hope that Amazon is funding all of this, not any 3Ps.
I actually just filed a Safe T claim on a kiosk return and they granted it after it hasn’t had any scans (past the initial one that says electronic notification that a shipment is being sent) 3 weeks later…don’t think they’ve done that before.
Well that’s the thing. When sellers ship something, nothing short of tracking showing delivery, preferably with a notarized deposition from 3 witnesses, is accepted as discharge of our obligations. You can fudge that a little with Buy Shipping INR protections, but only sometimes.
When it comes to a buyer returning something, just the initial pickup scan is usually enough to get them their refund, and the seller usually has little recourse.
Of course, when it comes to Amazon on the hook for returns without delivery tracking and not third party sellers, they get a little more aggressive. But the items were not scanned as delivered. So… who is actually responsible?
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