Amazon Is Banning People For Making Too Many Returns (businessinsider.com)

Amazon -- which for years has maintained the standard for free returns online -- might now ban users for making too many returns. From a report:The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday documented complaints that the e-commerce giant had barred customers who had returned items. Amazon apparently failed to alert the customers that they had returned too many items before the bans. The Journal spoke with two people and cited dozens more online who said they had been barred from Amazon, as well as others who received emails from the company after returning some items. The two people who spoke with The Journal seem to be part of a wave of hundreds of people who were barred from Amazon in late March and early April, as previously reported by Business Insider.

Comments

Learn from this!

[Anonymous Coward]

Use new lines, not carriage returns!

Hopefully,

[Kaenneth]

Hopefully this includes the people who replace new PC hardware with old fraudulently.

Re:Hopefully,

[omnichad]

They already track serial numbers for big ticket items.

Re:Hopefully,

[jellomizer]

Do they track all the components in the big ticket items?
Take out the new RAM put in old RAM. It doesn’t need to be compatible just as long as it fits. Then sell the new ram at its market price.

Re:Hopefully,

[omnichad]

I doubt it, but whenever they figure out that's happening, they'll find the person in common among all the serial numbers involved. It's traceable even if it's not discovered right away.

Re: Hopefully,

[AnnaZed]

The problem of computer hardware scams is tiny next to the problem of women returning clothes that they wear for a couple days and then return. (Which most women actually believe is okay).

I don't know a single solitary soul (male or female) who thinks that is "ok". Just sayin'

Good

[iamhassi]

I've read of some people buying and returning the same item every month so they never had to actually pay for it since Amazon kept giving them a full refund.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you buy something that is legitimately defective, there is no reason to return it. I'm pretty old and I can count the number of times I've returned something on one hand, and have fingers left over.

Re:Good

[Thelasko]

I've read of some people buying and returning the same item every month so they never had to actually pay for it since Amazon kept giving them a full refund.

It's on the internet, so it has to be true!

Re:Good

[gravewax]

yeah me too, but then I don't buy clothes and shoes over the internet. I imagine people that do would absolutely need to do a lot of returns.

Re:Good

[Ogive17]

But would it surprise you?

There's always a few assholes who ruin a good thing for the rest of us.

Re:Good

[Green Mountain Bot]

I agree to a certain extent, but there are times when you order something thinking it's going to be what you need, but it turns out to not do what you need it to do, even if it isn't defective. For example, a guitarist might order a certain overdrive pedal based on rave reviews, but when it shows up, it doesn't produce the sound that particular guitarist wants to get.

Re:Good

[vux984]

Yeah, but you probably don't buy things you aren't sure about.

Suppose you buy clothes or shoes though, people will order two sizes with the intention of trying them on and keeping just the one that fits better.

Other times, the material is thinner than expected or quality is otherwise lower than expected, so they just get returned it outright.

Re:Good

[dgatwood]

Unless you buy something that is legitimately defective, there is no reason to return it. I'm pretty old and I can count the number of times I've returned something on one hand, and have fingers left over.

I wish the number of times I bought something that was legitimately defective was small enough to count on one hand (even in binary). I once bought the Stargate SG-1 collection on DVD, and the discs were so badly scarred right out of the box that it took... I SEVEN sets just to successfully build one single complete set, by mixing and matching discs. I posted photos online.

This is, unfortunately, not particularly unusual these days. Manufacturing quality turned to crap a long time ago.

Re:Good

[war4peace]

Of course there is.
I ordered a blanket online, for my wife, the pictures and description both stated that it's brown with white spots. Beagle-style colors, to be more precise.
What we received though was a purplish+off-white blanket, similar in design but with different colors.

Now, does this qualify as defective? It worked perfectly, did what a blanket should do, but the colors were wrong.

If you include things such as lower quality materials, improper size (for clothes), wrong colors, then I apologize. However I don't consider these as "defects", but still worthy of returns.

With that being said, yes I agree there are abusers and they need to be swiftly banned.

Re: Good

[fluffernutter]

Because if you were buying it in a guitar shop, they would never have refused you to try the pedal first, and a large reason why Amazon is so big is that they want to give the experience of a real store. Ergo, Amazon needs to decide whether they want to continue their success by going further than any other internet sales company or not.

Re:Good

[hawguy]

Unless you buy something that is legitimately defective, there is no reason to return it. I'm pretty old and I can count the number of times I've returned something on one hand, and have fingers left over.

There are lots of legitimate reasons to return a product that's not defective -- maybe you don't like the size, or the color, maybe it doesn't work well for the intended purpose, maybe it came in too many pieces and you don't feel like assembling it, maybe it's not compatible with the accessory you were going to use it with, maybe you just bought the wrong product (or made a duplicate order) and didn't realize it until it arrived.

The drawback of online ordering is that you don't always know what you're buying until it arrives, so Amazon has to expect a certain level of returns.

Re:Good

[YukariHirai]

If it's not what was advertised/described, that's effectively defective from a consumer viewpoint: either way you're not getting what you think you're getting. Australian consumer law actually codifies this.

Re:Good

[sexconker]

The DVD issues were a result of them attempting to ship the discs through an unstable wormhole.

Re:Good

[F.Ultra]

Ah the good old days when they thought that they could send DVD sets with the discs mounted in the box instead of sending each disc in a paper sleeve.

Re:Good

[F.Ultra]

How would that even work, Amazon sure as hell can track who made the first return?

Re:Good

[aaarrrgggh]

A picture and minimal description is often insufficient to make a purchasing decision. I have returned a few items where I bought the wrong thing, or where it simply didn't fit. But, I generally keep the things that I knew going in were likely to be crap, but I needed a retail therapy fix or something.

"failing to meet needs" is a reasonable justification for returns. If you return 2x what you keep though, you might expect some repercussions.

Re: Good

[omnichad]

Freeloading? Even if you're a Prime member and they advertise "Free Returns" in bold print?

Re:Good

[AmiMoJo]

Same experience, it's surprising how often stuff from Amazon is junk. 3rd party sellers seem to be the worst - maybe they just keep sending stuff out rather than processing it on the first or fourth return.

A lot of stuff isn't as described either. This seems to happen when some 3rd party starts selling a popular item but shipping something different. They rely on good reviews if the genuine one.

Re: Good

[Anonymous Coward]

I buy and occasionally return items via amazon for the same reason I do at box stores and other online stores. Sometimes products are not satisfactory or. Or as advertised and are permitted to be returned per the return policy. Though this tends to occur more with amazon than stores because you cannot see of feel the product before you buy it.

I live in a rural, remote area where the nearest decent electronic store is 100 miles away, and the good stores (or area where there are many decent such stores/choices) are >200 miles away. So more often I am forced to buy online effectively "sight-unseen" trusting reviews and product photos. The result is that sometimes what you order is not what is advertised or a poor fit. That's the name of the game with amazon. For example, I purchased a premium set of headphones from amazon, and when I tried them on I found immediately that they didn't fit my head and further the head band shape cut into my head. The description did not say "only fits round wide faced, headed people; not for use by cone heads". I immediately returned them because for what spent I should not be in pain by simply putting them on my head. Had input based them from a physical store (200 miles away) I would have known without having to buy them first.

Re:Good

[John.Banister]

Another legitimate problem is if they don't ship what you ordered, like when I ordered green tea and they shipped black tea.

Re:Good

[nasch]

According to Amazon it is a legitimate reason. You can return something because you just didn't like the way it looks when you saw it in person. Heck "no longer needed" is one of the options for why you're returning something. You may have to pay return freight, but they'll take it back.

Re: Good

[AmiMoJo]

This is actually enshrined in EU law. When buying things at a distance (mail order, internet) you have no opportunity to inspect the goods before they arrive. Thus you can return them for any reason within a couple of weeks of receipt.

No need to include the original packaging either, which is handy because it often requires destroying to get the product out anyway.

If the item isn't defective or different to the description you have to pay return postage, otherwise the seller picks up the tab.

Re: Good

[lsllll]

Everything *within reason*. Returning every other item that you buy in a short amount of time is not within reason. It's like when you go to a buffet that says "All you can eat". It doesn't mean you get to empty all of the steam trays of shrimp. Or how "free refills" doesn't mean you get to come in every day and sit for hours having drink after drink.

Also, Amazon Prime doesn't apply to third party sellers, who often get shafted by buyers who do that.

Dude, what the fuck are you talking about? When the buffet says "All you can eat", I can certainly empty all of the steam trays of shrimp. If they serve caviar, I can go and eat all the caviar they put out there, and then ask for some more after I've finished the container. It's ALL YOU CAN EAT. What part of that don't you get?

Re:Good

[dgatwood]

I'm pretty sure a paper sleeve wouldn't have helped. It looked like they didn't let the resin on the discs harden adequately before putting them into the cardboard slots, so part of the plastic came off when you pulled them out, and part of it got scarred while they were sliding them in. Either that or they didn't use enough hardener in that batch. Either way, it was pretty clearly a plastic fabrication mistake, and they would have stuck to a paper sleeve just as easily. :-/

Re:Good

[war4peace]

BUT if a retailer wants to advertise that they take no returns

Illegal in the EU for remote-ordered items (everything you buy online and never see in person until you open the package containing it).
Legal for items you buy or pick-up in person.

Re:Good

[Dog-Cow]

Your ability to post on slashdot is not a legitimate reason for you to exist. You should be returned to sender.

Re:Good

[Dog-Cow]

I am sorry I don't have the details to hand, but several months ago I read of a clothing store that had to stop taking returns. I believe their clientele were mostly Jewish Orthodox women who would buy something to wear to a celebratory event (wedding, bar mitzvah, etc.) and then return it.

That kind of of crap happens.

Re:Good

[MachineShedFred]

They do. I know someone that will buy 3 sizes of an item knowing full well at least two will be returned. This is the nature of buying clothes over the Internet where you cannot 'try before you buy' in a dressing room.

If people are getting the boot for that, then Amazon is inviting everyone to not buy clothing or shoes from them ever again, and may as well shut down sales of clothing.

Re: Good

[MachineShedFred]

And you'd be surprised to know that there are people in America who don't think that way either. Don't be a stereotyping douche.

Re:Good

[thegarbz]

BUT if a retailer wants to advertise that they take no returns and I don't get what I expected it's on me. I knew the terms.

And even if you wanted to you can't sign away your rights in countries where you have them.

There is something called reputation.

Yes. It is something that is majorly stacked in favour of any company with critical mass. Jeff Bezos can go on live TV tomorrow and eat a baby and at most it may put a speedbump in Amazon's share price. Just look at Paypal's reputation. It is THE WORST! Yet it still ends up being the largest payments provider in the USA.

Re: Good

[ArsenneLupin]

Still, you've got to actually eat it. No doggy bags. No preparing your lunch picnic at the breakfast buffet. And no leaving unreasonable quantities of leftovers on your plate, that they'd have to throw away. We have a Chinese buffet place around here where they post that they can charge you extra if they notice that you waste food.

Re:Good

[ArsenneLupin]

Hey, if "no longer needed" is a legitimate reason to return an item, does that mean it's ok to order an expensive TV set before the superbowl (or other sports event), and return it after the event? Or order an expensive gala dress, and return it after the party you wore it to? Or an air conditioner, and return it before winter (... to buy another one next spring...)? And I assumed that the crackdown on returns was targeting exactly those kinds of customers...

Maybe they should reword that choice as "arrived too late - no longer needed", which is probably what they intended.

Re: Good

[ArsenneLupin]

Hey, go low on the trademarks. It's not because the discussion is about commerce that every other word is a trademark.

Re: Good

[ArsenneLupin]

Why did you feel the need to flag every other word of your first sentence as a trademark? May I return those defective (TM) signs? :-)

Re:Good

[Cederic]

I only started buying items from Amazon in 1999 but in over 500 orders since I've had a similar number of returns and exchanges.

I've also claimed a refund for one non-delivery, which was granted with no fuss. I had to write to them three months later to let them know the Post Office had finally delivered it.

Given many of my orders were for multiple items I don't think this is unreasonable, and I've always been able to articulate the reason for the return (and it's always been more than "I don't like it").

So I'm not expecting a ban from Amazon, but it would be interesting to understand the extent to which the banned people are returning items.

Re: Good

[Joce640k]

No need to include the original packaging either, which is handy because it often requires destroying to get the product out anyway.

Whenever I buy something speculatively (which I do occasionally) I always make extra effort to not destroy the packaging.

If it comes with a separate mains cord I'll normally use one of the dozens of mains cords I already own to test it instead of the one in the box, etc.

If it goes back, it goes back just the way I received it (or as close as I can get).

Re:Good

[Whibla]

There is something called reputation.

Yes. It is something that is majorly stacked in favour of any company with critical mass. ... Just look at Paypal's reputation. It is THE WORST! Yet it still ends up being the largest payments provider in the USA.

Just to play Devil's Advocate, there is a plausible alternative explanation for this, partly predicated on the fact of its size / market penetration. It goes like this:

Firstly, most people, not all but most, are pretty lazy. By this I mean for every action they might take there's an 'activation energy' that must first be reached. This activation energy comes to us through need and emotion. If we have no need and no strong feelings about something we simply don't do it, because the activation energy for the action is never reached.

Secondly, reputation can only be based on things we 'hear' about from others. If we have a direct experience that then can translate as reputation to others, if we chose to share that experience.

When we combine these two things we can make a number of 'logical' deductions. Firstly, if you use a service and it met your expectations you're not likely to think anything of it, rave about it, rant about it, or even mention it again. If the service was awful you will want to vent, and may well have enough emotional 'energy' to do so. Since venting only really works if it's to someone else directly or if it's persistent in a public place we are vastly more likely to be exposed to the negative experiences of others than those that simply met their expectations. The larger the company the more negative experiences they will engender - even if the overall percentage goes down, through better systems for example, the actual number goes up.

Larger market share -> more negative experiences -> more negative reviews -> lower reputation.

In other words, it's not so much that reputation in general that drives market share, but that increased market share correlates with a bad reputation.

Re:Good

[mbourgon]

That may be your limited experience. Not mine by a long shot.

Specifically, I was recently trying to buy a pair of wireless earbuds. Turns out there's a bug with iOS - the volume is too high. I went through about 4 pairs trying to find one that worked. Couldn't buy these brands locally, so I'd search reviews, ask a question "does it have this bug", order, test, email the vendor, return, and try again. The ones I settled on don't QUITE have the issue, but 1 volume is still a bit too loud.

Re:Good

[jabuzz]

Depends. I buy shoes online and have never had to return them, well apart from the pair where the sole starting coming away after two days, but that was not for fit, they where faulty.

On the other hand I am only on my third style of shoe (well main every day ones that is) in over 30 years now. I can still also purchase the older two styles if I wanted. So new pair of shoes, hop on the Clarks website order them up for delivery to store. In a couple of days pop out at lunch and pick them up. Basically I know if I buy a particular size of Clarks shoes they will just "fit". It is so much better than going in., them not having my size in stock in the style I want coming back a few days later etc.

Clothing is a bit more hit and miss, but mostly I can order stuff up and it just fits. At least from the retailers that I use.

On the other hand for women it is a complete nightmare. The idea that you can get the same pair of shoes even next year is a complete none starter, let alone 30 years later.

Re:Good

[drinkypoo]

If something isn't what was advertised you should be able to return it. BUT if a retailer wants to advertise that they take no returns and I don't get what I expected it's on me.

That's not what the law says. The law says that if they use false advertising, that's fraud and they duped you out of your money.

If you want to eat it when someone deliberately takes advantage of you, that's your business, but since that's harmful to society we have laws that say you don't have to. If someone refuses a return on goods sold under false pretenses, you can take them to court.

Re:Good

[Spazmania]

There's an old TV ad about a Internet bubble startup that's only going to sell products to people who have a laser-focus on what they want to buy. The point of the ad was to remind folks that they can hold the item in their hands before having to pay money at a brick and mortar store.

There are lots of items where you can't be sure it's what you wanted before you actually have it in your hands. Clothes and parts that might not fit right. 80% confidence of compatibility. That sort of thing. Without generous return policies, it's not safe to buy them online. And Amazon really wants you to buy them online.

Re: Good

[AmiMoJo]

I try to as well, but you can't do much with blister packs and the like.

Re:Good

[e3m4n]

this shit happens in brick and mortar stores all the time. I can't tell you the number of times I have had to go back to a store because an item was in the wrong box, or returned previously and obviously broken, or a consumable used and returned as new. Examples:

HP inkjet printer ink - bought some overpriced hp brand ink jet ink only to have to drive back to the store because someone returned it with their empty, used, cartridge and then used rubber cement to re-seal the container flap to appear unopened. Rubber cement is similar but definitely not identical to the box glue used in packaging so the evidence, once reopened was telling.

toilet seat - yes, apparently at a lowes, someone decided they didnt want to pay the extra cash for a nicer toilet seat so they took a box for a low end cheap seat and swapped seats so they paid the lower cost, leaving the next consumer to deal with the wrong item when arriving home.

upright carpet shampoo machine - purchased an upright shampoo machine at a big box store that was in the weekly ad for 30% off. Took it home and unboxed it to discover the tell-tale signs of repackaging such as: torn open instruction manual, missing plastic cover over the electrical prongs, less than perfect bundling of the power cord with twist tie, obvious dirt and wet hair on the cleaning brushes, missing sample cleaning solutions, etc.

table top reciprocating saw - purchased a table top reciprocating saw to cut laminate wood flooring only to unbox and discover it was full of saw dust and worn blades were it was used and then returned prior.

its to the point now where any time I buy anything, I am always checking the box for any sort of tampering. I wont even buy it if I see two layers of that circular plastic tape that goes over the edge to indicate that its been opened if the underneath one even appears slightly torn.

Back to amazon; I have returned my fair share of things that were either DOA or died within a week. Only once have I had an item arrive defective and the packaging inside was torn, proving that it was sold as new when it was clearly returned. Returned items must be sold as open-box, not new. I suspect the reason I am not on any sort of ban is likely either A) the number of returns to trigger a ban must be excessively large enough that no reasonable person to trigger a ban or B) It is based on a ratio of purchases to returns and because I purchase so much stuff from their site, it falls within a metric of reasonable. If its the latter then less than 1 percent of my purchases get returned. I should also mention I almost always return them for the exact same item because I actually want the item to work as advertised. I have only ever returned 2 items for refund simply because they were nothing like advertised.

Re:Good

[e3m4n]

as long as 'spite' is not your reason for returning an item, then clearly they wont take the return then.

Re:Good

[e3m4n]

My wife does this and it drives me absolutely insane. She is constantly ordering shit from catalogs and then having to return them. Sometimes the damn return packaging sits around for weeks upon weeks because she forgets to return them. To further add to my frustration, she pays the return shipping and the restock fee's amount to, when combined, nearly 50% of the original cost. She might as well have a habit of buying scratch-off tickets if she's going to throw her money away like that. With all the textiles sourced in other countries, there is no chance that the same marked size is going to fit the same, ever. Ive seen cases where the exact same shirt in the exact same marked size was actually two different sizes. Most likely the cheap labor has poor quality assurance and the wrong tag got sewn in. With shoes and clothing, you almost have to try it on first. With shoes I have had luck only if I were ordering a replacement of the exact same shoe, such as a Vans mid-top. Even when the style changed slightly the Vans will fit exactly alike. But thats the hold-out and certainly not the default rule.

For a while Lands End was less annoying because you could order it online and if it didn't fit you could return it to Sears for a full refund and not deal with shipping etc. Most Sears have closed their doors so its back to dealing with shipping again.

Re: Good

[e3m4n]

as long as the manufacturer is fine with that sort of return policy I see no issue. At the carrier level I have manufacturers constantly offering to send me high priced shit all the time for a 30-day evaluation. I usually refuse to accept the eval because i rarely have enough time to give something a 30 day honest evaluation and even less time to dedicate to rolling it into limited production in the first place. I think they count on this to boost their sales. Its like a sick high-end version of the Columbia Music Club crap from the 80s where they kept sending you the tape and you had to keep mailing it back every month otherwise you just bought some crap album you never wanted.

Re: Good

[e3m4n]

those buffets actually just have a problem with wasting food. If someone were eating it I think they'd be fine. My wife has one of those relatives that goes to a buffet and fills their goddamn plate with shit and then decides they don't like the taste of something so they leave the plate on their table and try something else. I've literally seen this person have 3 full plates of discarded food on the table as they went back to the line _again_. It makes me want to slap the parents that raised this person. If they weren't sure if they were going to like something, try a damn tiny amount before committing yourself to a whole fucking plate. Its not like you only get to make one trip to the line.

Re: Good

[e3m4n]

No soup for you!

Re:Good

[MoarSauce123]

What would help is for the clothing industry to stick to proper clothing sizes. I have shirts ranging from medium to extra large...and they are all the same size!

Re: Good

[Botched]

And the polar opposite is china's Alibaba, where I ordered a present for my wife. The third-party merchant marked it as shipped on the main alibaba website, but did not actually send it. After some complaints, they assured me it had been sent. And after I waited a month and realized it had not, going to the alibaba website revealed that if you have not contested it within 2 weeks of the SELLER-ENTERED shipment date, you do not have the option to contest it. No links to click, no email, no ability to complain, no customer service number. Nothing, you blew it the second you gave them your credit card.

Re:Good

[e3m4n]

I have run into this a lot lately. When I am looking at an item I am unfamiliar with, I read the reviews. I especially focus on the 1 and 2 star reviews. Anyone can fake a few hundred good reviews. I try to see what they complain about and see if its something I might experience, or if the person is just a general complainer type. Recently I have noticed that sometimes there is a discrepancy because another seller is selling a _similar_ but not same item which essentially makes it a counterfeit. Im not even talking name brand shit either. I recently bought a pair of lapel microphones there were of chinese manufacture, but even this brand was being counterfeit. Looking at the pics, the original manufacturer replaced one image with a warning of counterfeit and said 'if you didn't buy it for $28.88, you aren't getting a PowerDeWise brand, you are getting a knock-off" which helped explain the 1star reviews that said it arrived in packaging nothing like the pictures. The counterfeiter was listing it for $27.99 to exploit how amazon's system works. You have to select 'see all sellers' and find the PowerDeWise seller to get the real one.

The end of the story was that I likely avoided a half-assed knock-off and a returned item hastle. I might have even assumed that the product listed, itself, was bad, if I wasn't aware there was a counterfeiter doing this. BTW the mic worked better than expected. The clarity of my voice when filming from my phone, when its several feet away on a tripod, is amazing. No background noises, no obvious sound quality issues that come from audio being recorded at a distance.

Re:Good

[e3m4n]

what about used shit? does it still apply? Selling a used piece of furniture thats advertised as 'some wear' and then 'no refunds, no returns' would be a reasonable gamble. I would not expect to be able to demand a return because the chair had some scratches in it. Only if the chair was in pieces or missing a leg, unable to actually function as a chair, would I expect to return a clearly worn and used item. Especially if there were pictures that showed every angle and surface.

Re: Good

[Rastl]

Everything *within reason*. Returning every other item that you buy in a short amount of time is not within reason. It's like when you go to a buffet that says "All you can eat". It doesn't mean you get to empty all of the steam trays of shrimp. Or how "free refills" doesn't mean you get to come in every day and sit for hours having drink after drink. Also, Amazon Prime doesn't apply to third party sellers, who often get shafted by buyers who do that.

Dude, what the fuck are you talking about? When the buffet says "All you can eat", I can certainly empty all of the steam trays of shrimp. If they serve caviar, I can go and eat all the caviar they put out there, and then ask for some more after I've finished the container. It's ALL YOU CAN EAT. What part of that don't you get?

You're both right. You CAN sit there and empty the shrimp tray for an entire day. But the owners can also say you're banned from the restaurant after that.

Re:Good

[dyslexicbunny]

I've known folks who would do that at REI with their generous return policy.

Buy gear, use it for a reasonable lifespan until it doesn't work, then return/exchange it. REI has since changed its policy. Fuck those kinds of people.

Re:Good

[Thelasko]

But would it surprise you?

Absolutely not.

There's always a few assholes who ruin a good thing for the rest of us.

That's how urban legends work. They prey on our understanding of how the world works to gain credibility.

I'm not saying people don't do this. I'm saying this story has all of the hallmarks of an urban legend.

Re: Good

[parkinglot777]

Everything *within reason*. Returning every other item that you buy in a short amount of time is not within reason. It's like when you go to a buffet that says "All you can eat". It doesn't mean you get to empty all of the steam trays of shrimp. Or how "free refills" doesn't mean you get to come in every day and sit for hours having drink after drink.

Also, Amazon Prime doesn't apply to third party sellers, who often get shafted by buyers who do that.

Dude, what the fuck are you talking about? When the buffet says "All you can eat", I can certainly empty all of the steam trays of shrimp. If they serve caviar, I can go and eat all the caviar they put out there, and then ask for some more after I've finished the container. It's ALL YOU CAN EAT. What part of that don't you get?

The problem is that those who foot the bill are NOT Amazon but rather those seller on the site. Thus, your buffet analogy doesn't work here because it would mean to be the ingredient suppliers who pay for the all you can eat, not the restaurant itself.

Re:Good

[nasch]

Hey, if "no longer needed" is a legitimate reason to return an item, does that mean it's ok to order an expensive TV set before the superbowl (or other sports event), and return it after the event?

I don't know about Amazon, but stores like Best Buy have a window around the Super Bowl during which TVs cannot be returned. I assume they would exchange a defective model.

Or order an expensive gala dress, and return it after the party you wore it to? Or an air conditioner, and return it before winter (... to buy another one next spring...)?

If the return policy doesn't say otherwise, sure. Do it too much though, and you risk getting banned as we see here.

Maybe they should reword that choice as "arrived too late - no longer needed", which is probably what they intended.

That might be another option, I don't remember. I don't return stuff often.

Re: Good

[tepples]

It's Slashdot's incompetence at processing Unicode input, even to convert it to a legacy encoding that lacks the characters that have in the past been used to break Slashdot's layout.

Re: Good

[lsllll]

I completely agree with not wasting food. It's a different story if you take a piece of sausage, take a bite and decide you don't like it and leave it on your plate, but whole plates and doing it over and over is completely out of line.

Re: Good

[lsllll]

This is a straw man argument. Obviously there are people in the U.S. that don't think this way, either, and there are people in the rest of the World who think this way. But that has nothing to do with what I said.

Re: Good

[lsllll]

I agree. And this is usually posted that they'll charge you for the food you don't eat. I've never seen them charge anybody that I've eaten with, even though we have left small quantities on our plates at times. It all comes down to preventing wastefulness.

Re: Good

[ArsenneLupin]

Well, even though ASCII is a subset of Unicode, and thus any ASCII text (such as yours) is technically also Unicode, I'd have strong doubts that Slashdot would break on that. Slashdot supports the subset of Unicode that is called ASCII just fine. And even the slightly larger subset Iso-Latin-9. Or else, all comments would be littered with these extraneous (TM) flags.

So methinks fortfive tried something funny there...

Re: Good

[tepples]

Curly quotation marks and apostrophes are in the set (Unicode minus ISO Latin-1). Recent versions of the keyboard program included with iOS automatically insert curly quotation marks. Slashdot misinterprets the code unit sequence that Safari sends for curly quotes as code units for a sequence of code points including the trademark symbol.

Re: Good

[ArsenneLupin]

Quotation marks (0x22) and apostrophe (0x27) are in the Ascii set. And if iOS or Safari break them, how is that Slashdot's fault? Get a non-broken phone, or use your computer!

Re: Good

[fortfive]

It's U+2019, you insensitive clod!

Re: Good

[ArsenneLupin]

On my calendar, it's still 2018...

But I'm sure, even by next year Apple won't have fixed this, and the iPhone will be as broken as it is now.

Re:Good

[F.Ultra]

Yeah I get all that, just wondered how people could get away with it or turn it into a habit since Amazon should be able to see who it was the returned the item first and thus know who it was that commit fraud. While a single instance would be hard to prove, any one trying to turn this into a business should be quickly found out. But that of course requires Amazon to give a shit and they perhaps don't (or didn't)

Brick and mortar stores are of course more susceptible to this (but less to with people turning it into a business).

Myself I have never had this happen to me which of course says nothing at all.

Re:Good

[F.Ultra]

Ah I see. Closely related to the Disc-rot that happened with the early pressings where the didn't glue the dual layers together very well so they started to slide apart some years later.

Re:Good

[war4peace]

It doesn't matter.
If I, the buyer, was unable to assess the item personally, and agree with its features (or lack of), then I am covered under the same return law as everyone else.
This law has turned sellers into very honest companies, especially for refurbished items.

More than once I have bought second-hand IT items advertised as having "light scratches", only to find out I could not see any scratches whatsoever. And monitors with "2 dead pixels" never had more than 2 dead pixels.

Re:Good

[Bengie]

I need anywhere from a size 10.5 to a 13, depending on the shoe style.

Re:Good

[lsatenstein]

Unless you buy something that is legitimately defective, there is no reason to return it. I'm pretty old and I can count the number of times I've returned something on one hand, and have fingers left over.

I have returned two items. One was a hard disk that was mailed to me within a bubble envelope. It didn't survive a full format.
The second was a battery charger that went up in smoke, when it should not. I did reorder the same model, and it was OK, except the battery clip broke at the hinge. I went to the local store and just replaced the clamps, I was happy with the charger and still am.
Two defective products. Two products exchanged for replacements.

Re:Good

[AmiMoJo]

Amazon really needs to take note when stuff is found to be fake. At the moment they seem to ignore it.

Re: Good

[AmiMoJo]

Alibaba is the business to business site. Try AliExpress instead for consumer purchases.

AliExpress gives you at least two months to contest. It's a slow and crappy process but it does work.

Re: Good

[TimothyHollins]

The VAT was implemented long before the open purchase clause. Hence it is not quite possible that it was the internet buying that caused the increased prices unless "them" stupid Europeans have a time machine or two stashed away somewhere.

Re: Good

[Green Mountain Bot]

and why should that be a reason to return the item?

From my post you responded to:

... it doesn't produce the sound that particular guitarist wants to get.

You simply can't tell if it works for you or not until you actually hook it up to your rig, and you can't do that until you have the item physically in your hands. Look at the return policy of any music gear supplier, and you'll find that they all allow for this. It's good customer service.

Re: Good

[Green Mountain Bot]

If you own a store, you can set that rule for your store. But you don't get to tell Amazon, Target, Kohls, Nordstrom, Guitar Center, etc. that they are wrong for being less restrictive in their return policies than you think is appropriate.

Re:Good

[Green Mountain Bot]

That is not a legitimate reason to return an item.

Which online music store do you own? I'll be sure to avoid it and stick to any of the rest (ie, all of them) who allow that sort of return.

You should have done your research before you made the purchase, so too bad for you.

You must not have any experience with an electric guitar rig (which is fine - most people don't). But research only can narrow down the options. You can't tell if something is going to be the right piece of gear for your setup until it's actually in the setup interacting with the other pieces of gear you have. Fortunately, every music gear provider I have ever bought from, be it meatspace or online, gets that and accommodates it.

Re:Good

[Green Mountain Bot]

It depends on the seller's policy, now, doesn't it?

It's an outrage

[Kohath]

Amazon is acting rationally.

Re: It's an outrage

[orlanz]

Exactly, in the past two years Amazon service has gone to the dogs. I probably return 1/10 items we buy. Rarely is the return not defective in a certain way. Off colors, wrong specs, bent pins, clearly well used, etc. Also sometimes it is days to weeks late. I have had them explain that it is 2 day shipping, it doesn't include the time it takes to ship out?!? And estimated delivery is not always accurate. Or the lack of tracking info means it will get to me tomorrow?!?

Spend hours on Customer Service and they are more than happy to extend your Prime subscription or return the product that is lost in transit for a week as "compensation". I still need the baby food, diapers, gift, or relay circuit! And I don't want to reorder and pay the current higher price! Amazon said it was available under Prime for a certain price; they should stand behind what they say.

I think they have moved onto AWS and left retail on autopilot.

Re: It's an outrage

[sexconker]

I have had them explain that it is 2 day shipping, it doesn't include the time it takes to ship out?!? And estimated delivery is not always accurate. Or the lack of tracking info means it will get to me tomorrow?!?

Yet the final checkout page says "Guaranteed Deliver By...". Screenshot it every time.

Re: It's an outrage

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the fuck are you buying baby food from Amazon?!

Re: It's an outrage

[Anonymous Coward]

My guess is Amazon Family: Up to 20% off diapers, baby food, and more.

Re: It's an outrage

[Cederic]

clearly well used

baby food, diapers

ouch.

Re:It's an outrage

[e3m4n]

its not amazon technically. In fact when you bought the item, I can probably guarantee that at least one, if not more, of the sellers were actually selling the real product. Recently some 3rd party sellers are listing counterfeits with the same part numbers so they get listed under the real item and benefit from the real item reviews. I think, going forward, its important to list the name of the seller in the reviews. That way people can avoid that seller as long as they utilize the 'from other sellers, possibly without free prime shipping' link that will list all the sellers (and which ones are prime shipping).

Re: It's an outrage

[e3m4n]

I have suggested that they have two icons for prime. AmazonPrime in blue, if its in stock in a warehouse where you can get it within 2 days. And AmazonPrime in grey if its still free shipping, but due to the nearest warehouse, it might take an extra day or two. It can be confusing to select free 2 day shipping, but it not arrive in 2 days, only to discover the 'guaranteed delivery by' statement was actually 4 days later. So much stuff arrives in 2 days (hell sometimes even within 1) that I just assume it will be in the day after next.

Re: It's an outrage

[e3m4n]

I would be careful about babyfood due to the counterfeit problem. 5years ago I watched a news video about the counterfeiting issue _within_ china. They were counterfeiting shit like toothpaste and baby formula. Some parents had their babies die because the formula they bought had no nutritional value and the babies starved to death. Given the way counterfeiters are exploiting the listings of legitimate products by listing their fake at a lower price to get the sale, you run a risk of toxins or something of no nutritional value.

Re: It's an outrage

[e3m4n]

its not even amazon's policy. The sellers are listing counterfeits using part numbers of legitimate items. Then they sell it for a few pennies more so they become the seller that gets picked first when you select 'buy now' or 'add to cart'. The only way to select a specific vendor is to select the link that says 'other sellers on amazon' or 'new & used (x) from $price'. I think amazon is going to have to start adding the seller in the reviews for verified purchases. They are already verifying the review came from someone who actually purchased a product, it would be trivial to track the seller and list it in the review.

Free returns?

[Lab Rat Jason]

This seems at odds with the bold face type that says "free returns" on many clothing items and other things that must be seen in person to decide if you really want it. It would almost seem like they are enticing you with a no-risk proposition with the transaction... only to ban people who are actually utilizing it.

Re:Free returns?

[omnichad]

They also didn't expect people to go and buy 50 items and return all but one. But the fault lies with them for not being clear about what they want to offer. And they have plenty of profit to just own up and announce a policy change rather than blame their customers.

Re: Free returns?

[kenh]

So 'Free Returns' means 'Infinite number if Free Returns'?

Non-defective returns cost retailers money, retailers are not in the business of loaning out their products.

Re:Free returns?

[Aereus]

I'm going to assume the people banned were doing a truly excessive amount of regular returns, but it would be nice to see the actual numbers for these people. They were probably abusing the system by buying say, 3 sizes of clothing for each garment they wanted, then returning the two that weren't the best fit. Doing that over and over again for years.

Re:Free returns?

[DedTV]

From better articles about this, it appears a large number of the bans were actually people who used returns as part of a fake review scheme. They'd 'buy' something, review it as a 'verified purchase', then return it at the last possible minute to get discounts, freebies or pay outs.

Re:Free returns?

[Baloroth]

They're banning "hundreds" of people out of the hundreds of millions of customers they have. These are people who are abusing the system, and they deserve the bans (well, maybe some of them don't, but I strongly suspect they all do). People like that are the reason why companies have to institute less lenient return policies, and by banning them Amazon can prevent abuse of their policies while still allowing people who may have legitimate reason for returning items to do so. In other words, Amazon can offer those free returns precisely because they ban people who abuse them, not because they ban people who use them.

Re:Free returns?

[CohibaVancouver]

But the fault lies with them for not being clear about what they want to offer.

I suspect part of the problem is the rules are "soft."

If you bought 500 different things from Amazon over the year, and returned 50 of them, that's likely fine.

But if you bought the same thing every month, returned it, then bought it again - In effect "renting" it for free, then you might get banned - Even though you're doing four times fewer returns than the first example.

Their systems are looking for people that are 'abusing the system,' and that's a lot harder to write into a clear policy.

Re:Free returns?

[fluffernutter]

I often need to try a few sizes when I go to a store. Often a certain style just doesn't fit properly, period. Personally I wouldn't order clothes off the internet for this reason, but for a company wanting to sell clothes off the internet they should expect this.

Re: Free returns?

[cyn1c77]

So 'Free Returns' means 'Infinite number if Free Returns'?

Non-defective returns cost retailers money, retailers are not in the business of loaning out their products.

Obviously, the people banned did not get infinite number of free returns!

The point is that there is no limit discussed in Amazon's terms of service for either their Prime membership OR their Free Returns section. So if there IS a limit, there is a reasonable expectation that customer would be made aware of that limit before they exceed it and get banned for life from Amazon.

That said, Amazon appears to disagree. Here is the termination section of their Prime Membership terms

Termination by Us:
We may terminate your Prime membership at our discretion without notice. If we do so, we will give you a prorated refund based on the number of full months remaining in your membership. However, we will not give any refund for termination related to conduct that we determine, in our discretion, violates these Terms or any applicable law, involves fraud or misuse of the Prime membership, or is harmful to our interests or another user. Our failure to insist upon or enforce your strict compliance with these Terms will not constitute a waiver of any of our rights.

Re: Free returns?

[Lab Rat Jason]

But free returns are specifically offered on things that have a lower likelyhood of suitability based on product type. I've never seen it available for electronics, appliances, tools, etc. But I see it all the time on clothing and housewares. I'm not sure how they decide when to offer it and when to not offer it, but it is clearly used as an advertising tool to increase the comfort level of a buyer who's "appreciation" of the product will certainly be dependent on the details that can't be captured in a photo or a sizing chart. The retailer is saving money hand over fist by not needing to provide clerks and dressing rooms... so someone is clearly leveraging that into a way to get more sales... I'm just saying that without publishing a guideline about how many returns is appropriate this seems at odds with the way it is marketed.

However as others have pointed out, it seems likely that this is a different kind of abuse above and beyond just a picky buyer.

Re: Free returns?

[Monster_user]

If you can't write it into policy, then your employees can't follow it, implement it, or enforce it. Policy interpretation follows a lowest common denominator theory. Every side with a stake in the implementation will push the interpretation as far as they can get away with.

Re:Free returns?

[epine]

These are people who are abusing the system, and they deserve the bans (well, maybe some of them don't, but I strongly suspect they all do).

It's not good enough that some of the maybe don't, but certainly have almost no recourse if Amazon has screwed the pooch, whether by mistake, or malice, or malignant DNA.

Google's no appeals whatsoever policy sure had an evil smell.

And I generally think that Google has done okay on being a mammoth corporate entity, navigating the post–Gordon Gecko apocalyptic landscape.

OTOH, pretty much everything Amazon does has an evil smell, or is capable of producing one further down the road.

Bezos gonna Bezos.

Re: Free returns?

[CohibaVancouver]

Your explanation is too simplistic - When you have advanced software systems looking for people engaging in 'fraud' or 'gaming the system' those systems are looking for a wide-ranging set of behaviours which aggregate together to indicate something.

If a rep from Visa calls me up and asks me to confirm a few purchases, he likely can't articulate the policy that caused Visa to suspect fraud - Other than in general terms. Likely it's the same here.

Re:Free returns?

[arth1]

Part of the problem is that too few sizes and cuts are offered.
SML just doesn't cut it (no pun intended). The stores that offer selections based on things like shoulder width or sleeve length are getting rarer every day.

The worst waste is probably for socks and underwear. If it doesn't fit, it's not like they can repackage it and send it to anyone else. After it gets returned, it gets destroyed. For online stores in particular, where adding a "details" section doesn't take up precious wall and shelf space, why can't they add measurement details in the descriptions? One or two sales extra out of thousands looking, or one or two fewer returns would make up for someone measuring and jotting it down.

Re:Free returns?

[Miamicanes]

I'd argue that it's MORE expensive for them if you order 3 articles of clothing (one item, three sizes) and return two than if you order 21 articles of clothing and return 18. Most of the shipping cost borne by Amazon is for the package itself... the marginal cost of adding one more items is fairly low.

To give an even more extreme example of potential clothing-related problems, suppose you bought Levi's jeans from Amazon. Levi's pair-to-pair consistency is basically nonexistent... you can try on 5 pairs of nominally-identical jeans in the same nominal size, and every single goddamn one will end up fitting differently. Which is why I don't wear Levi's, and wrote them out of my life years ago. I don't have the time or patience to try on endless pairs of jeans to find the one pair that actually fits, knowing that they probably WON'T fit after I've washed them anyway (I miss the days 20 years ago when the Gap's consistency was SO GOOD, you could literally run into the mall on you way to the airport, buy 3 pairs of jeans to wear on the trip, and get on the plane with absolute confidence that if you wore size 33/31 in regular cut, the three new pairs of 33/31 regular-cut jeans would fit exactly the same way the earlier pairs did. Sadly, Gap is almost as bad as Levi's now.)

Re: Free returns?

[serviscope_minor]

Non-defective returns cost retailers money, retailers are not in the business of loaning out their products.

On the other hand not having physical stores all over the country where customers can actually see the goods before buyig saves them vast amounts of money.

Re:Free returns?

[Anonymous Coward]

The worst waste is probably for socks and underwear. If it doesn't fit, it's not like they can repackage it and send it to anyone else. After it gets returned, it gets destroyed. For online stores in particular, where adding a "details" section doesn't take up precious wall and shelf space, why can't they add measurement details in the descriptions? One or two sales extra out of thousands looking, or one or two fewer returns would make up for someone measuring and jotting it down.

I don't know what these complaints are about. Amazon Laundry Prime is the best. All I know is I haven't had to do laundry since getting prime. It rocks. You just file for an exchange, toss it back in the box with the label they give you to print and leave it out for the UPS guy to pick up. Next day or so, you have a freshly cleaned and securely "wrapped for your protection" set of clothes back. They're like brand new!

Re:Free returns?

[Daralantan]

I've posted about this on here once before, but I used to work at Bed, Bath, and Beyond when I was in college. We had a return policy of more or less "Return anything at any time for any reason." Even if it was something purchased 5 years before.

The only time I ever heard anything about excessive returns eventually being blocked were when we had customers who had returned over 150 items or so.

Otherwise the system was abused heavily in a ton of ways. Ways such as:

1) Someone would buy an item with a 20% off coupon. Next day they would return it w/o receipt and state that they paid cash.... so they would get extra store credit.

2) Someone would buy an item (we'll say a toaster oven). 5 years later the new model would come out. They'd return their dirty used toaster oven saying it wasn't heating right.... for full price... then buy the new one with a 20% off coupon.

3) Summertime! We have a bunch of outdoor furniture during summer. Customer buys $500 of outdoor furniture. A week later "the color didn't match" and they return (obviously used for a party of some sort) furniture with food and drink stains on it.

4) And of course the thieves. Steal something, return for credit... Steal something and also buy it then just return it, etc etc. We had a lady who probably committed insurance fraud as well. She bought a $2,000 espresso machine and returned it unopened a month or so later. Paid for by cash and returned by cash.

Re:Free returns?

[e3m4n]

without knowing who got banned and why, can you even make such a statement? Someone doing shady shit and getting banned is just as likely to lie about the reason for getting banned for a return. Unless you know of someone who got banned, and can reasonably be assured they were not abusing the system or outright fraudulently using the system to commit theft, its entirely speculation. I return things from time to time. I never get banned. My non-returned items outpace my returned items 100:1. My returns are usually exchanges.

If someone made 100 purchases and had 95 straight-up returns, not exchanges, got banned, I dont see this as a bad thing. A returned item can never be sold as new and costs the seller for the shipping, return shipping, and profit differences between a new item and a used/open-box one. At some point this becomes fraudulent if the intent is to avoid actually paying for items while retaining use of them. I am sure there is a metric to determine when enough is enough. Lawsuits and legal action is expensive. Its a lot cheaper to just ban and take the loss to avoid future losses.

Re: Free returns?

[e3m4n]

and more importantly lets say there was a hard ratio. Disclosing that ratio only enables fraudulent people to walk right up to that line without actually crossing it. If the ratio is 'if you return 3 items for every 1 you retain' you can still commit a relatively large amount of fraud by ensuring you continue to buy, and keep, other items in order to continue to defraud the sellers.

Re: Free returns?

[e3m4n]

see my previous post about disclosing the metrics that determine fraudulent use only allows the very people your trying to prevent from defrauding you to avoid detection. Amazon is in the business of making money. They are not going to ban someone they clearly are making money off of. Rest assured that the people getting banned are either committing fraud (returning something besides the actual purchased item), or returning so many items that it is costing more than the amount amazon is making. As long as the amount of profits gained from you exceed expenses spent on returns and lost revenue, you are extremely unlikely to get banned over a return policy.

Re:Free returns?

[bingoUV]

Wow! You must have their source code , for such detailed insight into its behaviour.

Re: Free returns?

[bingoUV]

Rest assured based on what evidence that you just provided ?

They are in the business of making overall profit. Along the way, a few racist decisions to sacrifice some unlucky people are not at all a diversion from that purpose.

Re: Free returns?

[kenh]

On the other hand not having physical stores all over the country where customers can actually see the goods before buyig saves them vast amounts of money.

And that's why Amazon is frequently the lower-cost option for consumers. Condoning policies like unlimited returns would eat into their profits, forcing Amazon to raise prices, potentially shrinking their cost advantage over competitors.

Re:Free returns?

[CohibaVancouver]

Wow! You must have their source code , for such detailed insight into its behaviour.

Do I have their source code? No.

Have I worked in the field of user-behavior analytics? Yes - Which is exactly what this is.

Re:Free returns?

[bingoUV]

Got it. Every software in "the field of user-behavior analytics" works exactly the same.

BTW I have written a search engine for my 23.2 MB personal notes. That qualifies me to comment on how Google works internally. Source code shmource code - what matters is that I comment on it with confidence.

https://www.theguardian.com/co...
http://ide.mit.edu/news-blog/b...

Clothes

[Thelasko]

I guess I won't be buying clothing from them. The stuff is never the size they claim it is.

Re:Clothes

[reboot246]

What I do is order one of an item of clothing (pants, shirt, socks), and if that one fits, I order more of that item in various colors (shirts) or just more of them (e.g. blue jeans or slacks).

It also helps to order the same brand because once you know how they size items, you can almost bet the next ones you order will be the same size as the first one. For example, Wrangler jeans' sizes are consistent within the Wrangler brand.

they've done this for years

[Anonymous Coward]

I come to this place for actual news. Amazon has done this for years.

Re:they've done this for years

[drinkypoo]

I come to this place for actual news.

You're coming to the wrong place, then. You must be new here.

Re:Not Surprised

[omnichad]

Changing "Verified Purchase" to "Item Returned" would be fair. But if the star rating is 3 or higher, it should be deleted anyway. Let them leave a high review when they get a replacement.

Deleting all negative reviews on a return just leaves positive reviews behind and skews it heavily.

Online shopping

[b0s0z0ku]

Online shopping will always have more returns than brick 'n mortar. You can't actually examine the item, try it on, whatever before buying.

Why not incremental?

[Tablizer]

Rather than make it all or nothing, what about ramping up a "re-stock fee" based on total quantity and/or value of returned items in the last N months? The more returns, the higher the fee.

Re:Why not incremental?

[quantaman]

Rather than make it all or nothing, what about ramping up a "re-stock fee" based on total quantity and/or value of returned items in the last N months? The more returns, the higher the fee.

Much better to look at the ratio than raw volume, no need to conflate their best customers with abusers.

Re:Why not incremental?

[Tablizer]

I agree, with caveats. There are 4 factors (at least) to consider: time period, monetary value of returned items, quantity of returned items, and total value of all customer purchases (within time-frame).

If you make the computations too complicated, customers will get upset and/or confused, which wastes clerk-time for explanations. Whatever formula is used, it has to be relatively simple to convey.

Re:Why not incremental?

[Tablizer]

So there's no middle-ground?

Amazon returns

[bobstreo]

If I buy something and it's defective, I'm going to return it.

  If Amazon is selling junk, or "refurbished" items as new, that's a problem.

But now I'm concerned that if as usual I order and pay for 1 of an item and receive 200 of them, whether I should just keep them so I'm not mis-categorized as a serial returner.

Re:Amazon returns

[Megol]

Do you often make up illogical reasons to complain? Because ...

Re: Amazon returns

[houghi]

I learned the difference between use and abuse when I was 6 or so.

Hundreds! Hundreds I tell you! An outrage!

[Anonymous Coward]

Out of tens if not hundreds of millions of customers, Amazon bans a few hundred bad apples?

And it's NEWS?!?!?!

Free Rental service abuse

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who sells on Amazon.

Some US customers in particular see Amazon as a free rental service, "buy" the item, use it for a week or two then return it with full refund.

With extra handling charge etc. this only needs to happen a couple of times for a sale to be a loss.

I have a little Phillips AirFloss thing

[rsilvergun]

I bought from Best Buy with the extended warranty. The things are notoriously fragile and it keeps dying on me. I'm following the instructions to clean and maintain it (it's not that hard) but about every 6-12 months it dies. I'm on #3 right now and Best Buy keeps replacing them.

I don't _want_ to replace the thing. It's a pain to drive all the way to BB every few months. The thing is so bloody convenient when it works I don't want to give it up though.

My point is there's a lot of nice but fragile/shoddy products out there. And that's from BB. I can't even imagine how shoddy a lot of the stuff on Amazon is.

Re:I have a little Phillips AirFloss thing

[arth1]

I don't think this was about Amazon banning people for having items replaced, but people returning items.

And only those returning a large percentage of their purchases, compared to most customers. I have little sympathy for greedy fucks who intend to game and exploit the system, because it's everybody else that pays the price.

Youtube Un-boxers

[bryanbrunton]

There are people on YouTube who have channels devoted to unboxing Amazon items that they clearly have no intention of ever keeping.

Many of the reviews are truly low on content because you can tell the person has unboxed his/her 50th item that day, and they don't have the energy or knowledge to say anything of value.

Amazon isn't in the business of allowing these people to profit from free returns.

Re:Youtube Un-boxers

[thegarbz]

This is one of the most bizarre trends I've seen on Youtube. Why does anyone give a shit what it looks like out of the box? I'd much rather a Youtube video of someone who has used something for 2 months and then tells me about it afterwards. Or even better, not have to watch a youtube video.

Re:Youtube Un-boxers

[dargaud]

I guess it's for items that just came out and that nobody has yet. An early review is always useful in your decision to buy or not.

Re:Youtube Un-boxers

[tlhIngan]

This is one of the most bizarre trends I've seen on Youtube. Why does anyone give a shit what it looks like out of the box? I'd much rather a Youtube video of someone who has used something for 2 months and then tells me about it afterwards. Or even better, not have to watch a youtube video.

Because there are uses for unboxing videos - checking to see what's in the box, for example.

However, there's a ton of fake reviews on YouTube because ... youtube money. You forget YouTube pays "creators" for videos, and it seems a lot of people are basically creating a lot of content. Sometimes they'll review stuff and return it, because reviews will get them clicks and money without costing them a whole lot of money to pay for it.

It's just the way it is.

And EU law has nothing to do with it - Amazon bans these people, which means they can't order anymore stuff period. They may be able to return what they bought, but they can't buy anymore stuff. EU law is happy - they got their returns, and the store basically stops them from buying stuff. Real stores have banned abusers from their premises as well, so if you can't buy, you can't return.

Return abusers are the worst of the lowlifes that do nothing but drive prices up with needless returns of perfectly good product. It costs everyone money - you and I through higher prices (the store has to return the opened product back to the manufacturer, and that isn't free - the shipping and handling is built into the prices you pay), manufacturers who have to repackage the product as refurbished because it's no longer new, everyone because a refurbished product can't sell for as much money as new, etc. And yes, it's why consumer policies like these do drive up prices - if I make a product for $50 retail, and now because an abuser forces me to sell that item for $40, everyone has to eat the $10 less that product makes over a new one (or if someone bought it to use it, rather than return it), plus all the shipping.

It's why all stores have those irritating ID policies too. Too many people are banned from returning stuff at retail for abuse, so now they do it online.

Re:Youtube Un-boxers

[bill_mcgonigle]

Well, that's an odd edge case. Each of those people is doing something that will be a direct loss to the manufacturer and Amazon, yet one can argue that an "unboxing video" ought to be a standard feature of any mail order product listing in 2018 and both Amazon and most manufacturers fail there. These people doing it for YouTube might be cheaper than any employee arrangement that they could invent. Amazon might consider letting this one slide, despite the direct costs if they have enough data intelligence to see an uptick in sales on these items.

Re: Youtube Un-boxers

[mapkinase]

What the heck are you talking about? Unboxing is an ad for an Amazon item!

Why the heck would Amazon ban unboxers?

Re:Youtube Un-boxers

[thegarbz]

Except the usefulness of these "unboxing" reviews is lower than a high resolution picture of the product on the website.

I'm not against reviews, but these are not reviews. Hell the few unboxings I've seen never actually use the product but just comment on the nice colour of plastic, and how well it resists the saliver the "reviewer" is droolling on it. Hell I've seen someone comment on the exact plastic material the power plug is made out of, but would he dare plug it into the wall? Hell no.

Re:Youtube Un-boxers

[thegarbz]

Because there are uses for unboxing videos - checking to see what's in the box, for example.

That stuff is usually written on the outside of the box or on the website. Something which you can look up far faster than watching some teenager crap on about where the box came from and what motivated him to get said box and make a video.
Sub question: Why would you need to know what's in the box? Pretty much every product has what it needs in the box, and where the box contents are variable looking on youtube is not at all preferable to actually reading the order page.

Also what does EU law have to do with it or was that directed at someone else?

Thank God

[Anonymous Coward]

I work retail and the amount of stupid is unreal.

The whole I can return this at some point has completely removed personal responsibility. You can do whatever with said item, void even, the return policy as long as you pitch a big ole fit. That is all it takes for most items. Make sure to yell " I can get a better deal elsewhere or online!"

Then you get the coupon losers. Cancer upon them.

If you ever wondered about why checkout lines take forever and why there are so few people on the sales floor when you are there, thank these kind folk. You are just in the way of their get rich quick scheme. And they will raise hell if you say anything.

Go early to find people out on the floor. Give them maybe some slack for poor people skills as they are there at this time to avoid people.

Just some advice from nobody,...

Not legal everywhere

[manu0601]

That will not be easy to implement worldwide. In some jurisdictions, the law guarantee free (beyond postal fees) return of anything purchased remotely.

Re:Not legal everywhere

[jarkus4]

They are banning the users from further purchases, but they still respect return policy for old ones. In general there are no laws to force someone into doing business with you.

Re:Not legal everywhere

[JackieBrown]

The EU has a law stating Amazon has to sell items to people that return too many items?

An American Thing

[labnet]

This seems like a USA thing.

If you buy something and you have opened the package and the item was undamaged and as described, there should really be no right of return unless you pay a restocking fee. How is fair on the retailer if you made a bad purchasing decision. Retailers have bought this upon themselves.

Re:An American Thing

[jroysdon]

Plenty of other reasons to return a product. My most recent return was a cell phone holster that lost a pin in the stand, which then caused it to fall apart. Looking at the product reviews after, I saw many reports of this. It wasn't a big purchase ($13), but its the principle: don't sell junk that falls apart in 3 weeks of normal use. Of course I returned it. Another couple weeks and I'd have been beyond the 30-day return window.

I like Amazon

[WinstonWolfIT]

They've improved immensely. I ordered a bridging router that didn't meet my needs and all I had to do was tape a return label to the box and I had a refund in my account within an hour of dropping it off. They seem to aggressively curate third party vendors, as the quality and consistency of items delivered has been stellar in the last couple years. I'm still angry about the one-click patent, but the centuries of time saved driving to B&M... yeah I can live with that.

Hit ebay too

[slashmydots]

I wish they'd do the same to half the dumbass customers I sell to on ebay. They have had some of the stupidest reasons I've ever heard in my entire life to return something. You can't even imagine, trust me.

Read the full article

[XSportSeeker]

Rather than this unbalanced snippet.
http://www.businessinsider.com...

I'm not saying Amazon is totally right on this, specially if there are clients who were wrongfully banned... but there are plenty of reasons why Amazon would ban people for repeated returns, and the situation isn't as clear cut as this snipped is making it sound.

Basically, they have people who abuse the return system to get money from retailers in exchange for positive reviews on the product. Amazon is not the only one doing this, and it's becoming a widespread problem for online shopping.

Best Buy does this too.

[antdude]

http://www.google.com/search?q..."best+buy"+ban+returns

I am sure many others too!

People buying GPUs and returning bricks

[poity]

Actual cement blocks. I for one have no sympathy for them.

Only in American

[Martin S.]

This wouldn't be tolerated in the UK (or wider EU which all have similar regulation). We have distance selling regulations built into consumer rights. I do find it very odd that so many American posters seem prepared to bend over for Corporate rights over.

On the whole these regulations do favour the good companies and I've never had any issue with Amazon UK, but no end of trouble with ebay suppliers and ebay ignorance of consumer law.

https://www.which.co.uk/consum...

Return abuse

[Daralantan]

This reminds me of one a while back that made me wonder how much some sellers were screwed by returns. I'd ordered something that was shipped by amazon, but it turns out this was from a 3rd party. It was messed up and didn't work correctly so I requested to return and replace it. Amazon said that it was a 3rd party so they couldn't replace it, and just plain gave me money back. Without being able to verify my claims or anything by a replacement.... it made me wonder how often someone could just say something from a 3rd party didn't work, and would get money for it no matter what?

Not saying I'd do it, was just thinking it'd suck to be a seller and have this happen a ton.

Re:That would be fraud, so they should use the cou

[iamhassi]

Call the police for what? For accepting a return? Stores do not have to accept returns, that was Amazon's choice.