[addicted]

I returned my unopened Apple Watch to Amazon.

Getting my money back has been a massive pain. Usually Amazon literally returns the money when the delivery person picks up the item from my doorstep.

But with this Amazon required a scheduled pickup with UPS, did not acknowledge receiving the item even though UPS showed it as received and a few weeks later they are still asking me to wait for 1 month before contacting them for any information.

Well, I filed a chargeback with my credit card and automagically the errors in their system got resolved, and the item shows as received (on the correct date 2+ weeks ago), and they are promising a refund in a week (as opposed to 2.5 more weeks).

Looks like they’re not just giving Apple preferential treatment but going out of their way to protect Apple.

[stouset]

No, they’re protecting themselves against a significant volume of fraudsters who order genuine high-value goods and return counterfeits. These people are more than capable of re-shrinkwrapping boxes after opening them.

It’s likely there’s a significant queue of potential counterfeits that Amazon needs to go through. If you bought/returned this during a period of otherwise-high volume (e.g., right after a release), there’s a particularly high chance that the volume of “real” returns temporarily swamped their normal capacity. Or maybe their capacity just lags behind what it ought to be.

Either way, they’re protecting themselves and this almost certainly has nothing to do with Apple specifically.

[Alupis]

Normally Amazon bans your account (and that means you, personally, since it's difficult to open a second account) from ever using amazon.com ever again if you successfully charge back something.

The only recourse is to pay them the charged back amount...

Experienced this first hand with actual fraud that was reported to Amazon moments after it occurred, yet still received a lifetime ban until my fraud dispute was settled.

[forty]

I banned myself from using Amazon several years ago. I feel that if everyone did the same, the world would be a better place.

[wpietri]

I now have a policy of using Amazon third. If I can get the thing I want directly from the manufacturer, that's best. If I can get it from some some less dominant vendor at a reasonable price and schedule, that's fine. Otherwise, Amazon.

Doing this for a while has increased my concern about Amazon, as a surprising number of things are only available from them.

[ThatMedicIsASpy]

And then there are shops selling on amazon cheaper than in their own store.

[wilg]

How so?

[forty]

By instead having smaller companies/ local book shops, who don't treat their workers like shit (like not forcing them to pee in bottles because they cannot have breaks etc) and also are better for the environment (in my country - France - Amazon was caught regularly destroying tons of unsold goods because it was cheapest to do this that sending them back to the original seller).

[wilg]

How about a big company that doesn’t treat their workers like shit?

[forty]

Hard to imagine in the current context of western countries, where the incentive is for publicly traded companies to try to only focus on making as much as money as possible and having products as cheap as possible, with no real incentive to treat lowly qualified workers which are easy to replace decently, or to care for the environment. We need laws to make the right incentive, which we have some in France, but reality shows that it's far from enough.

[spott]

I think it is likely that they are trying to see if the watch you returned was counterfeit before they refunded you. This is probably a difficult process as the counterfeits of Apple products have gotten really good.

When you pushed them, they bumped yours to the front of the line.

[ryanjshaw]

Why would determining the counterfeit status of the returned item delay the refund process?

[rtpg]

Because they don’t want to give you money for a counterfeit, then have you disappear?

[ryanjshaw]

Ah so scammers are ordering real products, paying full price, and returning counterfeit products that cost them less than the real product, getting a refund on the full real product price then selling or keeping the real product - got it!

If the scammers keep the real item, they effectively get a real product at counterfeit prices. If they sell it, they make the difference between real and counterfeit in profit less shipping.

[stouset]

Yep. And counterfeits are good enough that you need dedicated personnel to be able to confirm high-value returns are legitimate and not knock-offs.

[hollerith]

Does a good counterfeit Apple Watch actually do everything a real watch does, e.g., respond like a genuine watch after you install an arbitrary app on it and start using the app?

(If so, I'm guessing they made the cheapest genuine Apple Watch look on the outside like a more expensive one.)

[rtpg]

That seems to be the idea from what I see. I really have no idea how this all works in practice though.

[addicted]

That doesn’t explain their systems showing them not even having received the product for about 10 days until literally the day we filed the chargeback.

[jeromegv]

May be their system is configured to auto refund when it’s received. So they “hacked” the process so that it doesn’t show received up until they complete inspection.

[DougBTX]

Maybe a case of semantic drift, the difference between “received package” and “received product”. If the customers are honest those are the same thing, if not there may be a step in between.

[Eisenstein]

If you are interested in continuing to do business with Amazon I would do some research into how they treat customers that have filed chargebacks against them. I don't personally have experience with this but it is probable that you will end up on their shit list and any further customer service actions may skew outside of you getting any benefit of the doubt or other considerations.

[userinanother]

Their customer service has gone to shit. They don’t really give concessions and they now hide the chat link and force you to interact with a bot that spits out misinformation.

[addicted]

Thanks for the heads up.

[vkou]

It's surprising that your account wasn't banned for initiating a chargeback.

A chargeback is a nuclear solution, where you make it clear that you're going to have a third party dictate terms to the merchant. Most merchants respond to that sort of behaviour by dictating to you that they will no longer do business with you.

[b112]

While you may be accurately depicting the situation, as viewed by some merchants, it's not the reality.

A merchant enters into the world of credit card payments knowing full well chargebacks are a thing. And most people won't go there, unless the merchant won't act appropriately.

For example, Amazon. A black hole of information. It's very hard to even find a 'contact' button that doesn't lead to a chatbot with relentlessly circular menus.

They funnel you into multiple choice hell, and the wrong choice gives a lame answer, with no way to chat a person. You have to restart the whole menu process to try a different tact.

Amazon actively, aggressively tries to ignore you. They do not provide customer service except under duress.

Note that they keep doubling down on this! Year after year, it is harder and harder to get resolution for outside the box issues they cause.

I know so many people that have no idea how to ever contact amazon, if something bad has happened. That have tried, and get lost in menu hell.

And even if you manage to get past this, and finally start chatting with an actual person, they have a very hard time helping you if the problem is outside the box.

You'll have your chat session "transferred" to someone else, and have to explain all over again. Yup, they can read the log but often don't. I've had a chat session with 4 or 5 transfers, and then had it die.

Leaving me to start all over again.

Amazon is the worst for customer support. The worst. They deserve chargebacks.

And the post you're replying to was right to do so. If the merchant cannot give clear, concise answers, and explain what is happening in your specific case, it's on them. And amazon chat personnel will just cite company policy.

We all need to say that we don't care, Mr Merchant, if you're trying to scale. If you're doing so as "cost saving measures". Screw you, Merchant, provide customer support!

And it's getting to the point that we should legislate this, specifically for large corps.

[helsinkiandrew]

> Amazon required a scheduled pickup with UPS, did not acknowledge receiving the item even though UPS showed it as received

I'd guess that the box had been physically received by Amazon but it hadn't been opened/validated/checked by the relevant department to ensure that it was the watch they had sent you and not a knock off/brick.

[edgan]

This seems to be their new MO on any high dollar return.