Customer Fraud on Amazon is insane!
What is going on with the mass amount of customer fraud recently?
I have been getting more and more returns where the customer uses the product heavily for most of the month, then returns it in unsellable condition extremely used.
or
The customer returns an empty box / returns the completely wrong item, and Amazon just issues the refund and makes us sellers eat the loss.
This is crazy and needs to stop. I am losing thousands and thousands of dollars per year to this fraud.
When I open cases Amazon just says "they don't accept fault for customer damage." Ok then stop refunding them if they are clearly committing fraud and damaging the items.
I am posting this for awareness, even though I doubt Amazon does anything.
Customer Fraud on Amazon is insane!
What is going on with the mass amount of customer fraud recently?
I have been getting more and more returns where the customer uses the product heavily for most of the month, then returns it in unsellable condition extremely used.
or
The customer returns an empty box / returns the completely wrong item, and Amazon just issues the refund and makes us sellers eat the loss.
This is crazy and needs to stop. I am losing thousands and thousands of dollars per year to this fraud.
When I open cases Amazon just says "they don't accept fault for customer damage." Ok then stop refunding them if they are clearly committing fraud and damaging the items.
I am posting this for awareness, even though I doubt Amazon does anything.
38 replies
Seller_zGoDlPZLneGhF
The amount of return fraud I am seeing this year is astounding.
We are up over 500% compared to this point last year when it comes to return fraud. I get returns every single day with the reason(s) being "No longer needed" - "bought by mistake" - "Item defective or does not work"
People seem to be using my goods for their weekend sporting events, vacations, events, etc - then they open a return request to get their money back. I'm in electronics so this is nothing new to me, but the rate at which I am seeing this happen is far beyond the normal "cost of doing business"
Something is going sour here though, it's never been anywhere near this bad, especially in the middle of the year. This type of fraud usually happens during the holiday season near exclusively for us, now it's plaguing me almost daily.
People seem to have lost any kind of ethicals/morals and the customer base is becoming increasingly rotten. This year alone I've had buyers message me racist remarks because I did not haggle with them over the messaging system, had my business and safety threatened because of a carrier delay causing a package to be 1 day late (buyer looked up my phone number and called me), and countless claims on INR while I ship with UPS (which provides photos upon delivery).
I simply do not see this being a viable avenue in 5 years. Especially as a small business owner.
Seller_bLpzUne3tRjkG
This is unfortunately all par for the course with Amazon. I would never recommend selling here as a way to make a living. I only do it as a hobby to recoup some of the money I have spent on books over the years. I have seen references to some kind of class action lawsuit due to the facilitation of fraud by customers, but I suspect that if that were to happen, the result would be the end of third-party selling on Amazon.
Seller_Sram36TnVt73c
And the longer this recession lasts, the worse it will get....
Seller_GMDa6MxkJwkCv
I would appeal because in their policy you are entitled to $$ if you receive a materially different or used item for a return.
Seller_4HaNDbfs1w2Ft
@KJ_Amazon@Glenn_Amazon@Michelle_Amazon
Seller_fCIR3BQSIoPb5
I've been seeing the same thing the past few months. My return rate has doubled over the past few months and much of it is fraud. Amazon is going to need to get this under control or their sellers are going to go out of business.
Seller_qmhnxumPbV3pL
You should be able to file a Safe-T claim on these returns.
Seller_a1uEWiswwVpNl
We get a lot of '' I have never received the parcel '' complaints.
I mean we do sell from our non Amazon store x10 the amount and get fewer reports.
So clearly, the customers feel they can use the system and therefore are abusing it.
Seller_OEXTZlrEJxOck
Buyer fraud caused us to stop selling on Amazon in 2019, and its now 10x worse. Fraud is rampant on Amazon, and its far in excess of the cost of business. Sellers are treated like trash here, run away.
Seller_zlRAIXo8Q9cJ1
This is not new. It is the absolute norm and standard on Amazon. For repair parts and components it is and has been really bad since Amazon leveraged the return process in favor of easy and automatic. If you wanna steal legally, but it on Amazon. It's the easiest thing for an anonymous buyer. There is no recourse for the buyer and the seller pays the tab.
