A case when a buyer, intentionally, returned a different item and, in addition, their method of payment is not suitable for a refund, and, on top of everything, Amazon asks us to refund a buyer while an A-Z is still 'under review'.
I would be particularly interested to hear opinion and guidance and help from Amazon's moderators (copied!)
Order 113-7375628-0393046, FBM, a $300 designer item. The buyer opened a return request claiming that he got a wrong item. Since we take photos of the item we ship out (next to the buyer's shipping label), we sent the buyer those photos showing that we shipped the correct item. Nonetheless, the buyer cut our security tag and then returned a different pair of shoes, with the security tag detached: We have a video recording of the return.
Notwithstanding the above, we went ahead and issued some refund. The refund failed, and failed twice more. We opened a case (ID 18162065021), and were told that something needs to be fixed with the buyer method of payment. Amazon never fixes such a problem directly, sigh. We wrote to the buyer and advised, and tried a refund for a 4th time. By now, the refund shows 'applied', but actually was not completed.
On the 6th day after the return was delivered the buyer filed an A-Z. Normally, Amazon then withdraws the claim and asks us to refund. But this time they left the case 'under review'. If we refund while an A-Z is 'under review' then (per experience) we will get a defect at the ODR (known glitch of Amazon).We asked Amazon (at the A-Z) to withdraw the A-Z so we can issue a refund (for a 5th time), but it is not clear whether our messages at the A-Z are read by humans any more.
Now, we are on the 7th day after the item was returned. If Amazon issues now an auto-refund (while the A-Z is 'under review'), then, again by experience, we will get a defect.
So, we feel we are stuck and waste our time just because we had the misfortune to (1) deal with a scammer, (2) deal with a faulty Amazon system that when Amazon cannot finish processing a refund, it is considered that we actually did not issue a refund, and (3) deal with a faulty Amazon system that when a refund is issued (by anyone) while A-Z is 'under review' we get auto-defect.
Any advice, especially some help from a moderator, will be greatly appreciated.
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