I recently purchased a lens through Amazon Warehouse Deals. The lens was supposed to be like new, but had a small scratch on the front element, so I returned it. It was delivered to Amazon on June 15. Normally, Amazon has been great about issuing refunds, but not in this case. The process has been slow.
I contacted Customer Support this past weekend and was told that the refund would be issued by today. Well - no refund as of yet. Contacted Customer Support by chat today and the agent was pretty much useless and just told me that it could be another week, but really did not help. Then, I got on the phone with another agent who was a lot more helpful, but still could not issue the refund. What he did tell me was that because the item is valued at over $1,000 Amazon will can take from two weeks to 30 DAYS to refund the money AFTER the item has been delivered back to them. Which also means that one may be stuck with a large charge on the credit card bill if the refund takes so long.
This is very disappointing as I have never had a problem with Amazon returns in the past. What this means for me is to not use Amazon for large purchases any more.
So, this post is just to let people know what is going on with Amazon right now. I am surprised by it and definitely unhappy.
neilvan wrote:
"This is very disappointing as I have never had a problem with Amazon returns in the past. What this means for me is to not use Amazon for large purchases any more."
Thanks for sharing, it does seem a little reactionary however... You say you have never had a problem with Amazon returns in the past yet this one issue will make you not shop there anymore?
What I stated was that I would not shop there for large purchases. This idea of taking two weeks to 30 days after receiving an item from the return shipper to get a refund is absurd. Having a large dollar item on one's credit card bill and not having it refunded promptly is just wrong.
I took a look at Amazon's return and refund policy after I posted my initial comment. Nowhere in there does it say that there is a price cutoff for the amount of time that it takes them to refund. There can be longer refund times for certain types of payment, which do not apply in my case. They state explicitly that they issue a refund within seven days of receiving the returned item. All of this stuff about it possibly taking 14 to 30 days is not part of their policy as stated in the info that I found.
hopefully your CC is not the Amazon sponsored - if indeed not, get them onboard. Escalate to supervisor with your bank/CC and explain it all, offering proof. It's likely that your CC will take you out of the hook, once they can confirm it all
Bacalhau wrote:
hopefully your CC is not the Amazon sponsored - if indeed not, get them onboard. Escalate to supervisor with your bank/CC and explain it all, offering proof. It's likely that your CC will take you out of the hook, once they can confirm it all
It is the Amazon card, but I will call today and see what they will do. Thanks for the suggestion.
Abuttolph wrote:
It is the Amazon card, but I will call today and see what they will do. Thanks for the suggestion.
You don't need to call them. Just dispute the transaction online. Chase will automatically take it off your statement while they "investigate". The "investigation" takes at least 2 weeks and by then your refund will be in.
Was this an item sold by third party but shipped by Amazon? I have never had a refund on an item sold by Amazon take more than 48 hours to issue. I never order third party stuff on anything that costs more than $200 or so.
GroovyGeek wrote:
You don't need to call them. Just dispute the transaction online. Chase will automatically take it off your statement while they "investigate". The "investigation" takes at least 2 weeks and by then your refund will be in.
Was this an item sold by third party but shipped by Amazon? I have never had a refund on an item sold by Amazon take more than 48 hours to issue. I never order third party stuff on anything that costs more than $200 or so.
Thanks for the tip about just going online. I did not think of that. Yesterday, I was planning to contact Amazon one more time but their Customer Service was down. As of today, still no refund. Good point about the "investigation" time frame. I will get this done today.
The lens was sold and shipped by Amazon, no third party involved. I have never had an issue with timing on an Amazon return either. This situation is far different from any other that I have had with them.
As far as buying third party items, for me that depends on the seller ratings and what I can find out about them in places other than Amazon's reviews. I have had good experience buying higher-priced items from third party vendors on Amazon, but I do check them out ahead of time. There are so many that are no good or dishonest vendors on Amazon and it pays to research them first.
the CS bot can't do many things, so if your situation is off-script you might get somewhat stuck. Yeah, these days is hard to actually talk with a real CS human, but they can override and expedite if needed.
the timing for refund is absurd.
Abuttolph wrote:
I recently purchased a lens through Amazon Warehouse Deals. The lens was supposed to be like new, but had a small scratch on the front element, so I returned it. It was delivered to Amazon on June 15. Normally, Amazon has been great about issuing refunds, but not in this case. The process has been slow.
I contacted Customer Support this past weekend and was told that the refund would be issued by today. Well - no refund as of yet. Contacted Customer Support by chat today and the agent was pretty much useless and just told me that it could be another week, but really did not help. Then, I got on the phone with another agent who was a lot more helpful, but still could not issue the refund. What he did tell me was that because the item is valued at over $1,000 Amazon will can take from two weeks to 30 DAYS to refund the money AFTER the item has been delivered back to them. Which also means that one may be stuck with a large charge on the credit card bill if the refund takes so long.
This is very disappointing as I have never had a problem with Amazon returns in the past. What this means for me is to not use Amazon for large purchases any more.
So, this post is just to let people know what is going on with Amazon right now. I am surprised by it and definitely unhappy. ...Show more →
I returned a new lens (Rokinon 135/1.8) brought directly from amazon earlier this month. amazon paid for the shipping back and refunded my cc in 1 week.
Bacalhau wrote:
the CS bot can't do many things, so if your situation is off-script you might get somewhat stuck. Yeah, these days is hard to actually talk with a real CS human, but they can override and expedite if needed.
the timing for refund is absurd.
It is indeed difficult to actually get the CS agents to say or do more than the very scripted dialog that they seem to be restricted to. I talked to another CS agent today. I had to go around and around with her to FINALLY get her to understand the problem and not stick to the script. I swear it seems as if they don't listen and just speak from a very specific set of pre-written paragraphs. Anyway, I explained (several times) that the refund had not been executed within the time frame promised by Amazon's refund policy and that I had spoken with several agents over the last several days with no actual resolution (this too had to be repeated a few times). Finally, she spoke with her "leader" who did expedite the refund request and the refund process actually did get started today.
I had to press pretty hard to get past the scripted stuff though and had to repeat myself numerous times. Plus, it took adding questions, wording things slightly differently, and complaining that no one was really helping and everyone just kept saying to wait X number of days. With persistence, I was finally able to get through. At least the lightbulb finally went off and she did help to get things moving forward.
Abuttolph wrote:
It is indeed difficult to actually get the CS agents to say or do more than the very scripted dialog that they seem to be restricted to. I talked to another CS agent today. I had to go around and around with her to FINALLY get her to understand the problem and not stick to the script. I swear it seems as if they don't listen and just speak from a very specific set of pre-written paragraphs. Anyway, I explained (several times) that the refund had not been executed within the time frame promised by Amazon's refund policy and that I had spoken with several agents over the last several days with no actual resolution (this too had to be repeated a few times). Finally, she spoke with her "leader" who did expedite the refund request and the refund process actually did get started today.
I had to press pretty hard to get past the scripted stuff though and had to repeat myself numerous times. Plus, it took adding questions, wording things slightly differently, and complaining that no one was really helping and everyone just kept saying to wait X number of days. With persistence, I was finally able to get through. At least the lightbulb finally went off and she did help to get things moving forward.
...Show more →
Glad to hear it's moving forward - sometimes I am able to 'force" them to get their supervisor right away; it's a bit of being pushy and assertive without pissing them off.
Bacalhau wrote:
Glad to hear it's moving forward - sometimes I am able to 'force" them to get their supervisor right away; it's a bit of being pushy and assertive without pissing them off.
Thanks. If this ever happens again, I will do that too. Some of them just won't budge, but finding the balance between politely pushing and not ticking them off definitely helps.
On expensive stuff Amazon does take a while to issue refunds. I have experienced it myself. Low priced stuff the refund is issued as soon as it is scanned by the shipper.
Another thing to watch out for with Amazon is fake stuff. New or warehouse. I had a battle with them over two $1000 optics for guns. They were Chinese knockoffs but sold as the real deal in the Warehouse. Amazon refused to credit me and take them back. "No return on this item" when I tried the return thing. Several days and calls until finally isn't an email to jeff@amazon. Somebody contacted me and made it right.
I also found out that when "fulfilled by Amazon" sellers send their merchandise into Amazon it is co-mingled with Amazon's own inventory. When you order something they just grab one from the pile and ship it. So even though you buy your stuff from Amazon you may get the knockoff from the scammer selling on Amazon. I got burnt on a SanDisk cards years back. It failed inside of a year. I sent it to SanDisk who told me it was a counterfeit card. SanDisk was pretty cool as they sold me a new card for like half price.
Abuttolph wrote:
Thanks. If this ever happens again, I will do that too. Some of them just won't budge, but finding the balance between politely pushing and not ticking them off definitely helps.
This is my experience as well, you just have to keep pushing and eventually you'll get taken care of.
Be aware of another little trick Amazon has been using lately; they will issue you a refund but on a gift card instead of your original form of payment! They did that to me a couple of times recently. It was a major headache getting them to refund my CC instead of the gift card option.
Abuttolph wrote:
What I stated was that I would not shop there for large purchases. This idea of taking two weeks to 30 days after receiving an item from the return shipper to get a refund is absurd. Having a large dollar item on one's credit card bill and not having it refunded promptly is just wrong.
I took a look at Amazon's return and refund policy after I posted my initial comment. Nowhere in there does it say that there is a price cutoff for the amount of time that it takes them to refund. There can be longer refund times for certain types of payment, which do not apply in my case. They state explicitly that they issue a refund within seven days of receiving the returned item. All of this stuff about it possibly taking 14 to 30 days is not part of their policy as stated in the info that I found....Show more →
Was this part of their return policy in place when you returned the item?
"After the carrier receives your item, it can take up to two weeks for us to receive and process your return. Certain items can take up to 30 days."
I had never had to wait more than 7 days for a refund even on expensive items, so I suspect this is a recent change.
Unfortunately, I've just found out about it and am in the same predicament - so far, no refunds for 3 1/2 weeks on a $1k monitor. I'll no longer deal with Amazon on large ticket items.
Giving this thread a bump for FM member who might not be aware of Amazon's shenanigans.
mudnut wrote:
Was this part of their return policy in place when you returned the item?
"After the carrier receives your item, it can take up to two weeks for us to receive and process your return. Certain items can take up to 30 days."
I've never had to wait more than 7 days for a refund even on expensive items, so I suspect this is a recent change.
Unfortunately, I've just found out about it and am in the same predicament - so far, no refunds for 3 1/2 weeks on a $1k monitor. I'll no longer deal with Amazon on large ticket items.
Giving this thread a bump for FM member who might not be aware of Amazon's shenanigans. ...Show more →
I don't recall at this time, but when all of this was going on, I delved into their policies and from what I could tell, there was no reason why it should have taken so long. I ended up escalating the case and after communicating with someone higher up, the refund was issued promptly. It took several attempts though. The first people that I communicated with seemed to be limited on both knowledge and what they were allowed to do. The line was to wait another day or few days, repeat. Good luck with this. You may have to bug them and request an escalation to get your refund sooner rather than later.
I have been an Amazon customer, Prime Member since Amazon came into being. Recent changes in their policies have led to my decision to only order small inexpensive items. First thing that I noticed was the overnight shipping and 3 day shipping I have used for years has now ended. Prime orders now take way longer. However, the killer was that they now if an order is "a high cost item", the only option given to me is that they have UPS issue a call tag to pick up the return. This means someone has to home until UPS comes to pickup the item. They will make 3 calls, according to Amazon Customer Service. If you miss the 3 calls, you will have to restart the return request with Amazon. These terms were given to me
on 3 different calls by 3 different agents. I am now stuck paying interest on over $1600.00 for 30 days or more. Today was the day the agent on my last call told me they would issue credit for one of the two items I returned. Nothing yet at of 5pm CST. I am completely dissapointed this suppliers changes with no warning. They used to be my most used suppier for camers & gear. Not anymore.
