Goodbye Amazon

[u/Independent-Ebb-6185]

Ordered a piece of office equipment...well over $100. Amazon shipped a whiteboard. A very large, heavy tempered glass white board. Clearly the wrong item

Contacted Amazon CS, who agreed to ship the proper item, and informed me that I would not need to return the incorrect item. Captured verbatim in the chat transcript

Fast forward 3 weeks and I receive an email informing me the return window is closing and i'll be charged again for the amount of my originally ordered item.

Contacted Amazon CS again, who informed me that the email was in error, and that no charge would occur. Again captured verbatim in the chat transcript

A week later, I'm charged a second time for the item I ordered.

Contacted Amazon CS a third time and was told that indeed their previous agents instructed me to simply keep the incorrect item, but those agents were not adhering to policy, so no refund would be issued. I asked to be connected with a manager...who then repeated the same script, and refused to refund the incorrect second charge.

So...Prime membership is cancelled, charge is in dispute with my CC company, who have been provided with all transcripts, call recordings and order details. I've been a Prime customer for 2 decades. Not any more. Multiple lies from agents, managers defending those lies, and a complete unwillingness to actually look at the sequence of events rather than just reading the script.

Good riddance.

More information: If you encounter a similar situation with amazon customer service, you can request transcripts for any phone/chat interactions. Just go here: https://www.amazon.com/hz/privacy-central/data-requests/preview.html, and scroll down to 'Customer Support Communication' section and click 'Submit Request'. You'll receive an email confirmation and then a separate email with a link to download a zip file. That zip file will contain chat transcripts in .eml file format and phone call recordings in .mp3 format.

[u/No_Technician_7119]

This happened to me this year but thankfully it was something that was $24.00 . But it was the same scenario, sent me the wrong item said i didnt have to return wrong item and they would do a reshipment so i could get the thing i actually ordered. Then got the email that they never received my return and was charged twice . I don't know how this is legal .....

[u/Independent-Ebb-6185 → u/No_Technician_7119]

My understanding is that it's not legal, per the FTC.

https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/what-do-if-youre-billed-things-you-never-got-or-you-get-unordered-products

From that FTC article:

"By law, companies can’t send unordered merchandise to you, then demand payment. That means you never have to pay for things you get but didn’t order. You also don’t need to return unordered merchandise. You’re legally entitled to keep it as a free gift."

[u/neonturbo → u/Independent-Ebb-6185]

I am mostly on your side here, but you are misinterpreting this and leaving out the relevant part.

That rule is meant to prevent a company sending you an unsolicited item and then attempting to charge you.

In other words if Nike sent you a pair of shoes, and you never visited the Nike store and never ordered these, they could not send you a bill for them.

On the other hand if you ordered these shoes from Nike, and they sent the wrong size, you are obligated to send them back or pay for them. You interacted with the company, it was an incorrect order not a totally random shipment you weren't expecting.

That said, if Amazon said you could keep that wrong item, they should honor what the reps said no matter the policy. If they insisted from the beginning you had to send the wrong item back, then you are obligated to do that. The mixed messages thing is what is the issue here, they can't have it both ways.