Warning about Amazon policy

[GA Russell]

I am troubled about an Amazon corporate policy that I have recently learned.

As those of you who have been following the bargain box thread know, I ordered with some Christmas money the Sonny Rollins Prestige box. Here are the details:

I paid for the box with my debit card. The box didn't arrive, so I received a refund. About two months later, the box showed up. So I informed Amazon, and gave them instructions to charge my gift card ballance. I specifically instructed them not to charge my debit card.

I received a reply that said in effect, "Thank you for being honest and telling us that the order arrived. We have gone ahead and charged your debit card."

After a series of emails and phone calls, I find that it is Amazon corporate policy to use the original payment method in such cases, and they refuse to bend on this issue.

What troubles me is that they went ahead and charged my debit card despite my specific instructions not to. I wonder if that's illegal.

At the very least, I'm surprised that they did not inform me of their policy before acting.

[Jazzmoose]

Personally, I would make it my policy to contact my bank and have the charges reversed, if possible.

[papsrus]

I'm guessing if you have the debit card as your default form of payment, there's legalese in there that gives them the right to tap it. They should make it right though and credit the debit card from your gift certificate balance. No reason not to.

[Big Wheel]

Not an excuse for this policy, but a likely explanation:

If Amazon is anything like my former employer, they may not have a good way to alter transactions once they are pending in their system. Once a purchase is "booked," it is tied to a specific form of payment (that is, credit card) in the database and the system has not been designed in a way that allows for easily untying the two, for manually booking a second transaction for the same item, or for easily dealing manually with your credit card number. There are probably also security and accounting reasons for this - you want to minimize your employees' access to customer payment info, and I'm sure there are all kinds of rules about how you process charges and connect them to the systems that handle your company's finances.

For us, this kind of technical limitation meant that our policies were very anti-refund - when at all possible, give the customer a credit to their account instead, because the mechanics of processing a refund were a huge pain in the ass. (Granted, our business model was different from Amazon's and this policy was less likely to antagonize our customers than it would Amazon's.)

I am actually kind of surprised they were able to go back and finish charging you. My experience with Amazon support with a similar issue resulted in their just writing off charges, but that was in the mp3 store and I bet their billing system for mp3s was more rudimentary then.

[John L]

I had a bad run with Amazon as well. I downloaded from Amazon the Braxton quartet set on Leo from London recorded in the mid-1980s. It turns out that one of the long MP3s was highly defective with distortion that overwhelmed the music. I informed Amazon and they answered, "we have reopened the files, try downloading again." I did that, and it was the same exact MP3s. I again informed Amazon, numerous times, but got no subsequent response from them at all and no refund. Furthermore, the MP3s remained on Amazon for sale. This happened several years ago, but for all I know those MP3s are still defective.

I now try to avoid Amazon.

Edited March 9, 2011 by John L