Despite my girlfriend and others telling me that I should never use Amazon for which I get all the bla bla, I continue to use them as it is so simple and with free next day delivery. Everything I purchased over the years has been of good quality and a good price, so I am very happy.
Now, last wednesday I bought something, not cheap - 170€, it arrived Thursday and tried to use it on Friday. Zilch. No response. Dead. Not happy! I went into my Amazon account to complain bitterly and quickly found the returns section. I hate form filling so psyched myself up for a calvacade of mails to print out a returns label, go to post office etc etc. But no! A drop down menu of why the return. I selected ‘not working’ from a host of others - do not like it, too expensive, etc. So far so good. Then bing - an email from Amazon with a QR code and a simple instruction to pack my item and take it to the local Mondial. This I did, where the polite assistant flashed the code, reached to her printer, pulled off a sticky label, took my package with a polite goodbye and sent me on my way.
An hour later, bing - another email from Amazon that my money is being transferred to my card!
My post is: What is there not to like about Amazon? They have my undying business despite the objectors. But I do seriously ask, they must be open to a lot of baseless returns and abuse if it is this simple to return something on a whim, no?Should I care though?!
To counter this, and feeling on top of the world, decided to fill up the car, went to a Total place who declined my Revolut card, then a second time by which time I had a few gathering around the car asking the usual questions about horses, and the card declined a third time. Highly embarrassed, I had to drive off under the ignominy that I could not afford to feed said horses. Arrived back home to a message from Revolut suggesting that I might remember to unfreeze my card before using…
With the level of customer service in France its hard to believe that Amazon couldnt take over. I dont like that idea but its becoming ever more a reality. In the UK, I try to buy elsewhere but even the simple act of getting something delivered some companies turn into hard work. Not all though, some have stepped up their game and give a 1 or 2 hour window of delivery time. I got seriously fed up with the stay in all day routine just a few years ago and then a text message saying no one was in! A gift for a company like Amazon. In the UK you dont wrap the item for return, I did this once and the shop unwrapped it!
Maybe if the Gov had given the contract for PPE to Amazon and not their friends the Mones it could have saved the tax payer a fortune?
The margins on a lot of Amazon’s products are so small you’ll often find they will just refund you and tell you to keep the item because it would be prohibitively expensive for them to ship it back to their warehouse. They are very well known for closing accounts of people who they deem to be returning/ refunding too much, and it’s very opaque exactly what ‘too much’ is, some people can return items every month for years and be fine, others can return 3 items in a year and get a ban, so they don’t just take everything back without issue. It also seems to vary from country to country how easy and smooth the process is.
I only use them for items I can’t source locally (usually from the manufacturer’s Amazon store front) or where the local vendors of Item X want 50% more for the same item.
On the 2 occasions that I’ve had a faulty or incorrectly supplied item arrive, the returns process has been very painless to use.
Box it back up, attach the printed returns label and drop it off at their nearest collection point.
Must admit to using amazon.fr quite frequently without any problems, until recently… One order they split in two, using 2 different deliveries (colissimo and colis prive). No problem ever with the first, but colis prive always want more information before they can deliver without saying what more they need , and still waiting after 2 weeks . All amazon.fr say is contact the delivery company…
Hmmm, well yes. It is in Amazon’s interest to offer largely quibble free returns.
That said, they have (as noted above) measures to identify “serial returners” who might get warnings and/or bans but the criteria are opaque and any appeals process handled entirely by Amazon with little recourse to external arbitration. That might be fine if someone is genuinely abusing the service but looking around onlne at least some claim they have been acused of too many returns having not used the return service at all.
The returns process has failed for me a couple of times - in principle it sounds easy to just scan a QR code at a drop off centre but once when I did that I was told they couldn’t handle it, which left me in a bind because nowhere else was remotely convenient and I just did not have time to go anywhere else (once you are committed to a drop of centre you can’t switch back to “print me a postage label”)
My wife and I were also less impressed when she tried to order something yesterday - her account does not have Prime but it seemed impossible to removed the “try Prime for 30 days” offer, even clicking “no thanks” it stubbornly remained, irremovable, in her basket (in the end we ordered the item through my account but it makes it even more llikely I’ll cancel the French Prime account when it comes up for its annual renewal in June).
Actually it’s quite easy to order the wrong thing on Amazon - although I buy through them a lot, one of my gripes with them is the search system which shows a lot of irrelevant items half the time, or things that are almost what you are looking for but not quite.
Cables for electronics is one example - with the myriad of different USB plug types and specifications it can be easy to pick the wrong one, especially if you are in a hurry.
Or something can simply be not quite what you expected - I bought a fairly expensive Zhiyun camera stabiliser (gimbal) from Amazon earlier in the year after doing lots of research, watching YouTube reviews etc. - but when I got it I found it was too heavy and the design made it awkward to use.
Not broken, nothing actually “wrong” with it, but just not suitable for me. Amazon took it back and refunded me, no problem.
Yes I’m sure some people abuse the system but I find it really valuable that they are so accommodating.
Workers not allowed a union, and injury rates reported to be double that of equivalent industries. Without even mentioning the $20 billion profit and tuppence tax. I could go on, but I know that you all think that their convenience is worth it so would be bashing my head against brick wall.
A friend probably makes 300 orders per year between home and work. I’m not sure 3 returns out of 300, either because the wrong item was delivered, or it arrived damaged etc, would be exactly excessive? Or are you asking why someone would only need to return 3 items per year?
ok, fair point, I probably buy about 30 items a year and can’t remember the last time I needed to return anything.
I find if I google what I want I get a more accurate search. For example the other day I was looking for a pack of A3+ semi-gloss Epson photo paper. I only needed 20 sheets. Amazon kept giving results for 100 sheets and of lots of different makes. Google came up with it immediately - first line - and not Amazon - so on this occasion I’m going to a paper specialist. I guess most of my purchases on Amazon these days are repeats - one-click.
Fair comment, but buying from a bricks and mortar store doesn’t necessarily mean the goods come from a reputable source - lots of clothing is made in Bangladesh, China, etc where worker’s rights are non-existent.
Worker reviews are mixed but then they are for most employers.
I guess the reason people tend to be harsher on Amazon because they are perceived as being better able than most employers to be able to afford to give their workers a better package?
Easy to do with the Amazon customer services. That sort of cock up used to occur when I logged into prime to watch a film in France, gave me 30 days etc but I already have an account so when I got charged for the second account they undid the process and refunded.
You have the distance selling rules in the UK, automatic right to return anything without reason within 14 days, because you didnt physically have it to view as you would in an old style shop.
If that is UK and not some other place being compared like for like then it soon comes up on the accident stats for the HSE or local inspectors, fortunately
True - but with some retailers you have to return mail-order items at your own expense - these days Amazon UK don’t even require it to be returned in the original packaging.
That said I do try and use the original packaging as you never know what the numpty in the local convenience store that acts as an Amazon drop-off is going to put it in.
It should be easy enough to cancel the “free” Prime - but the point is that we shouldn’t have to and if you forget, then it’s automatically charged after the 30 day period is up.
As it was charged to me to, however they reversed it and refunded. Yes should be easier but can you imagine people joining and leaving and joining and leaving. At least thia gives them some control. Still shouldn’t be adding bloody adverts to Prime though in the face of having to pay to stop them!
