Amazon Returns

[a.twiddler]

I try not to buy any more than I can help from Amazon. Their selling is less than transparent, "free" postage is often only if you sign up for Prime which isn't obvious until you check out, clicking on anything is likely to sign you up for Prime if you don't read everything carefully. If they want to offer Prime, fine, but they should at least make it clear. Some years ago I accidentally signed up for a 30 day free trial through just this stealth system and though it wasn't hard to sign out of it they seem to count on people forgetting to actively do that at the end of the free period. Why should it be such an obstacle course?

I agree with previous posters, too that Amazon don't seem to be too fussy about vetting the sellers they include on their site. Apart from buying Amazon -only items rather than things from Affiliate sellers you might as well be dealing with Aliexpress with the amount of stuff that could come from anywhere.

 

[bonzobanana]

I recently cancelled Prime after having Prime membership for more than a decade. Amazon is becoming more of a tat bazaar with its affiliate sellers and items of dubious provenance.

These vampire payments add up. £9 a month is £108 per year or about £550 over 5 years plus many people have other vampire payments and they can all add up over time and lead people to debt. I have 4 Amazon accounts and get free prime trials perhaps once a year on each account and that is more than enough for me. I don't find much to watch on prime and I only need free postage around Black Friday etc.

 

[Tenkaykev]

These vampire payments add up. £9 a month is £108 per year or about £550 over 5 years plus many people have other vampire payments and they can all add up over time and lead people to debt. I have 4 Amazon accounts and get free prime trials perhaps once a year on each account and that is more than enough for me. I don't find much to watch on prime and I only need free postage around Black Friday etc.

Coincidentally I have need of a 5 metre USB extension lead. I have just looked on Amazon and saw one for £5.99 with a notice that if I spent t total of £25 I would qualify for free delivery. I clicked through to the checkout page to check delivery cost and saw that delivery was free ( I double, double checked that they weren't autorejoining me to Prime nefariously )

 

[vickster]

There’s often no delivery fee if you’re prepared to wait a few days and collect from Amazon counter in a corner shop or similar

 

[welsh dragon]

I try not to buy any more than I can help from Amazon. Their selling is less than transparent, "free" postage is often only if you sign up for Prime which isn't obvious until you check out, clicking on anything is likely to sign you up for Prime if you don't read everything carefully. If they want to offer Prime, fine, but they should at least make it clear. Some years ago I accidentally signed up for a 30 day free trial through just this stealth system and though it wasn't to sign out of it they seem to count on people forgetting to actively do that at the end of the free period. Why should it be such an obstacle course?

I agree with previous posters, too that Amazon don't seem to be too fussy about vetting the sellers they include on their site. Apart from buying Amazon -only items rather than things from Affiliate sellers you might as well be dealing with Aliexpress with the amount of stuff that could come from anywhere.

Sorry to disagree with you but it does clearly say free postage on orders over £25 only. And it always says after the trial period you will start to be charged a monthly amount. I always made sure I added a note on my calendar on the day before the expiry date to cancel the free trial.

 

[vickster]

Sorry to disagree with you but it does clearly say free postage on orders over £25 only. And it always says after the trial period you will start to be charged a monthly amount. I always made sure I added a note on my calendar on the day before the expiry date to cancel the free trial.

You don’t usually even have to wait to cancel. You can do asap and it’ll tell you which date it’ll switch off. Subs are often like this (other than free Apple music deals which will switch off the moment you cancel)

 

[a.twiddler]

Sorry to disagree with you but it does clearly say free postage on orders over £25 only. And it always says after the trial period you will start to be charged a monthly amount. I always made sure I added a note on my calendar on the day before the expiry date to cancel the free trial.

Oh come on now. That's the whole point. It does clearly say free postage on orders over x amount. How many times do you then come across "free postage on this item" only to find at checkout or just before "only available with Prime"? Whether it's easy to leave Prime or not, it should be a case of having to positively request to join rather than have to make the effort to leave after somehow joining by default due to misleading wording or layout. Basically, it's unethical, and deliberately misleading. It also depends on customer inertia, and inattentiveness , as it's often the case that customers may forget to cancel after a free period until a payment has been taken. There's a lack of urgency inferred by having 30 days grace. This is not by accident, it's not a benign thing, and the errors work in Amazon's favour.

I would think there is a certain psychology behind this. Amazon do not have a good reputation when it comes to looking after their workforce, paying their dues in tax, and apparently in being fair to their customers. What's worse is that some items actually do have free postage, without needing Prime, despite being below the usual threshold for that incentive, further muddying the waters. So feel free to disagree away, but dodgy pracices are dodgy practices, however you care to dress them up.

 

[welsh dragon]

Oh come on now. That's the whole point. It does clearly say free postage on orders over x amount. How many times do you then come across "free postage on this item" only to find at checkout or just before "only available with Prime"? Whether it's easy to leave Prime or not, it should be a case of having to positively request to join rather than have to make the effort to leave after somehow joining by default due to misleading wording or layout. Basically, it's unethical, and deliberately misleading. It also depends on customer inertia, and inattentiveness , as it's often the case that customers may forget to cancel after a free period until a payment has been taken. There's a lack of urgency inferred by having 30 days grace. This is not by accident, it's not a benign thing, and the errors work in Amazon's favour.

I would think there is a certain psychology behind this. Amazon do not have a good reputation when it comes to looking after their workforce, paying their dues in tax, and apparently in being fair to their customers. What's worse is that some items actually do have free postage, without needing Prime, despite being below the usual threshold for that incentive, further muddying the waters. So feel free to disagree away, but dodgy pracices are dodgy practces, however you care to dress them up.

Calm down before you burst a blood vessel. Good grief.

 

[albion]

The worst thing is the attempted scam they do on nearly every purchase, hoping you have not noticed the costly delivery upgrade for your free delivery item.

 

[Electric_Andy]

Oh come on now. That's the whole point. It does clearly say free postage on orders over x amount. How many times do you then come across "free postage on this item" only to find at checkout or just before "only available with Prime"? Whether it's easy to leave Prime or not, it should be a case of having to positively request to join rather than have to make the effort to leave after somehow joining by default due to misleading wording or layout. Basically, it's unethical, and deliberately misleading. It also depends on customer inertia, and inattentiveness , as it's often the case that customers may forget to cancel after a free period until a payment has been taken. There's a lack of urgency inferred by having 30 days grace. This is not by accident, it's not a benign thing, and the errors work in Amazon's favour.

I would think there is a certain psychology behind this. Amazon do not have a good reputation when it comes to looking after their workforce, paying their dues in tax, and apparently in being fair to their customers. What's worse is that some items actually do have free postage, without needing Prime, despite being below the usual threshold for that incentive, further muddying the waters. So feel free to disagree away, but dodgy pracices are dodgy practces, however you care to dress them up.

I agree. I am a Prime member so I don't have any problems, but my Dad has fallen foul of this. He went to check out and didn't notice that it defaults to "subscribe and save" for some items, which he of course clicked through and was then signed up to Prime. Yes you can avoid this if you read properly but IMO you shouldn't be led to confusion when all you want to do is pay

 

[a.twiddler]

The worst thing is the attempted scam they do on nearly every purchase, hoping you have not noticed the costly delivery upgrade for your free delivery item.

That too. It happened to me once, a long time ago. Never again. It's a bit much expecting customers to have to double-double check everything, every time, to make sure they haven't routinely tried to move yet another goalpost once you've spotted the previous one.

 

[wiggydiggy]

I've not bought anything at all since last December, I tend to buy post free in batches when they give me a months free trial on Prime. I wonder whether their threshold for closing an account is based on number of returns, total value, or percentages of what you buy.

I'd love to do that, but clothes don't last 5 minutes these days.

The last returns I did I stopped trying to find a phone number for them, and just used the online chat, I could have been talking to a computer for all I know but it worked well.

Oh come on now. That's the whole point. It does clearly say free postage on orders over x amount. How many times do you then come across "free postage on this item" only to find at checkout or just before "only available with Prime"? Whether it's easy to leave Prime or not, it should be a case of having to positively request to join rather than have to make the effort to leave after somehow joining by default due to misleading wording or layout. Basically, it's unethical, and deliberately misleading. It also depends on customer inertia, and inattentiveness , as it's often the case that customers may forget to cancel after a free period until a payment has been taken. There's a lack of urgency inferred by having 30 days grace. This is not by accident, it's not a benign thing, and the errors work in Amazon's favour.

I would think there is a certain psychology behind this. Amazon do not have a good reputation when it comes to looking after their workforce, paying their dues in tax, and apparently in being fair to their customers. What's worse is that some items actually do have free postage, without needing Prime, despite being below the usual threshold for that incentive, further muddying the waters. So feel free to disagree away, but dodgy pracices are dodgy practices, however you care to dress them up.

Speaking of dodgy Amazon practices I've had to remove all payment options from my mum's account as her Alexa kept trying to get her to subscribe to Amazon Music. It actually did debit 1 payment but I got it refunded. It still tries to subscribe her but at least now without a payment option she won't be charged.

 

[Mike_P]

Returned a couple of items without any problem with the refund arising as soon as the item entered the tracked return postage system. Many sellers on Amazon, as opposed to Amazon themselves, offer free postage such a new front bike light for £10.
On a couple of occasions found an Amazon tech bargain to be cheaper direct from the manufacturer, where you can trust it's genuine.

 

[presta]

I saw a guy on twitter who said he'd been given a warning after returning 10 items in a year. He reckoned that was out of about 50 items in total. (I'm assuming he meant since last April, not since January.)

 

[Tom B]

I had a spate of returning things, mostly a load of laptop chargers that I either ordered wrong or the description was less than clear.

Then I bought a few bits and bobs, the. saw better bits and bobs so ordered them. Then I ordered a battery for an hoover and ended up binning the hoover so sent it back.

Probably sent about 10 things back in a fortnight all on a prime free trial.

There was some kerfuffle with the account, but to my amazement spoke to a real person explained the circs and it all got cleared back to normal. He explained they was concerned about fraud.