Amazon presents itself as the most “customer-centric” company in the world, but a growing number of customers describe their shopping experience as horrible.
There are people who can’t get refunds after receiving wrong items and there are people who miss on the best deals because Amazon’s algorithm hides lower-priced products from third-party sellers and displays its own overvalued products.
A customer who put only his first name on a product review forum accuses Amazon of deliberately shipping wrong products to profit from non-returns.
“I am sure that many Amazon customers have experienced the same problem at least once. You place an order of say $1000 and you receive a completely different item worth about $300. If you contact them, they ask you to return the wrong item and get a refund. However, because you have opened the received item or you don’t contact within the specified period, or you are busy or overseas, they refuse to offer partial refunds or any options. I recently bought an ASUS laptop (ORDER # 002-3400421-3523416) worth about $700 and they sent an HP laptop. After settling the case with Amazon product support, I ordered another ASUS laptop, and got another HP laptop (ORDER # 111-6679183-8417836). When I contacted, they eventually escalated to what they call a leadership team who apologized but refused to take back their products or offer any full or partial refund because I was overseas on a trip. I offered them to take the HP laptop if they adjust the price because it is listed at half price on Amazon. They just ended the chat and they are not reachable now via the product support. By the way, I had contacted them just two days after the receipt of the item and mentioned that I had left the US on a trip to Europe. I asked if they could either wait for my return or at least refund the price difference between what they sent and what I ordered. They basically block your access to the support chat or they stop answering your calls after you report problems. Scott E from their support leadership team kept copy-pasting "I'm so sorry, but we can't offer any additional insight or action on this matter."” says Emily on the forum.
“Just look at their strategy. Have you ever heard of a case when a customer receives a wrong item which is more expensive than their original order? How come everybody receives much cheaper items? Doesn't it all suggest that it is a deliberate act? If they randomly send wrong products and if just 1 or 2 in 10 can’t return, or they open the package without knowing it is a wrong item and Amazon refuses to accept the return, how much extra profit can they make? Just imagine that Amazon has 35 orders per second, according to 2015 data. Isn't it called a fraud? ”, he adds.
“I found out that a very large number of customers who had similar experiences like me have joined a social media group to coordinate efforts for a class-action lawsuit. ” .
Many more customers have also posted on Amazon forums accusing the E-commerce giant of locking customers out of their accounts or restricting their access after they file complaints.
In July this year, Amazon was accused by customers of reluctance to stop fraud on customers’ accounts after they were charged hundreds of dollars for items they did not order.
