“Amazon Warehouse“, for those not familiar with it, is an option you can select specifically to buy an item that was previously returned.
Amazon has done a cosmetic inspection of the item and gives it a ranking on how it appears which you see when you are buying it.
There are certain types of items where you can save a huge amount of money and get great deals using Amazon Warehouse. Hard drives are obviously not one of them due to the assumption that everything is returned for a reason. An example of a type of item that I’ve always had good luck with is pots and pans.
The interesting thing about this is assume that the tracking is in place to identify who returned the original item. What would you do?
Maybe the actual scam (I don’t mean in this specific case) is buying perfectly good Amazon Warehouse items but, knowing that they had been previously returned, claiming the item was swapped out after swapping it out yourself.
So Amazon can’t really know who to blame from a single incident. But certainly I would expect accounts would accumulate warning flags and at some point be banned.
"But certainly I would expect accounts would accumulate warning flags and at some point be banned."
They do exactly that, but sometimes, it goes wrong. It happened to me in October 2019 and I'm still trying to get out of this nightmare.
I bought a high-end desktop for $2700 from amazon, it was shipped with a GTX 660 instead of a RTX 2080Ti! The graphic card had been swapped by the previous person and Amazon blames it on me.
- They say they checked the item before sending it, they obviously didn't
- There was no indication when buying that this item had been previously returned
- They say I did this scam several times before but I order a couple of times a year and for low value. I never returned anything
- They refuse to listen to me and consider they made a mistake. The India-based chat support is entirely useless, they keep telling me "there is nothing I can do", "so sorry", etc. I sent an email to [email protected] and they tell me "we'll not be able to offer any additional insight or action on these matters, and any further inquiries on this matter won't receive a response."
I got a set of Hue bulbs for less than half price (packaging was beat up, but the contents were fine), and a pair of headphones for 25% off the new price (had a cable missing). I've also had stuff arrive in _far_ worst condition than was noted on the listing. It's a bit hit and miss.
Though there seems to be a bit of a conflict with such a system -- wouldn't every retailer want to say everyone is terrible, you surely don't want to deal with them, etc.
This really confused me when I bought an industrial label printer from them. I didn't know what "Amazon Warehouse" was and assumed it was just a used device they used in their warehouse. Didn't get around to using the device for a couple months and it turned on but wouldn't print because the motor wouldn't turn. Too late to return it, and I won't be buying anything from warehouse any more.
I have had two swaps happen to me with Walmart and Amazon. Now I’ve started opening anything more than $50 or so in front of our Ring doorbell. My thinking is what you said, don’t want to seem like a scammer.
I often wonder if Amazon even inspects returns. I will often order items with listed cosmetic defects (major scratches) but receive brand new items in sealed
packaging.
I semi-recently bought a Samsung 970 EVO from Amazon, except new (and not from a third-party seller). Instead I received a security blanket: https://i.imgur.com/DTPdhAn.jpg
The SSD box was seemingly factory sealed.
I also bought a Dyson fan recently and what came was an obviously used, yellow stained, disgustingly old model of a Dyson fan. I hopped on Live Chat, they apologized, initiated a return - few weeks later I get a semi-threatening email from Amazon telling me that the Dyson fan I sent back "wasn't sent back in its original condition" - I hopped on Live Chat and made sure everything was ok with my account (it was) - but still, ..wtf. this is a problem.
A shrink wrap machine is relatively cheap and does wonders for people running these operations. Nobody is going to check inside a "factory sealed" box.
Folks were running scams like this in the 90's. I remember a friend of mine bought a hard drive from CompUSA. Turned out it was actually a brick sealed in a box.
For the most part I do not buy anything other than media from Amazon any more - books, Kindle, CDs, DVDs, Blu-rays, games, and of course streaming. One notable exception is the Amazon Basics range of cables where I tend to go a little nuts. Again, for the most part, these are the things they were originally good for in the 90s and early noughties; these are the things they're still good for now. Everything else is Russian roulette.
In the late noughties/early onesies I went through this period where I realised I could just buy anything I wanted that wasn't food from Amazon, and it was briefly great. However, they have had a huge problem with counterfeit, poor quality, seconds, and reconditioned goods for a number of years now. If you need thing X you're much better buying it from a specialist retailer, direct from the manufacturer or - depending on what it is - even from eBay, Gumtree (or its US equivalent Craigslist), particularly for used items.
I keep telling everyone I come across, STOP BUYING THINGS from Amazon. They know they have a huge problem and refuse to face it.
I was injured in 2010 by counterfeit toiletries and since have embargoed them completely. I'm happy to buy things from the manufacture and pay shipping, at least I know with a reasonable confidence that what I am getting is going to be the real thing.
My guess: The chat agent selected an incorrect reason for the return, causing Amazon to expect the actual item back.
Whenever possible, I always initiate the return myself to avoid customer service messing things up (there is a specific return reason "received incorrect item" in the dropdown).
I got a paperlike screen protector from Amazon warehouse. When it arrived it had obviously been ripped off another iPad Pro and set on the floor. There was a pubic/pet/?? Hair under it and it was obviously unusable. Of course it still had the factory inspected seal though bc amazon drones dgaf.
There seems to be a real problem with those Samsung SSD's on Amazon. There's quite a few reviews where people even received a fake SSD, the only thing that gives it away is the connector[0]! I decided I wouldn't take the risk and bought mine elsewhere.
Electronics on Amazon in general seems to be a hit-or-miss made worse by inventory commingling. Recently bought a PS4 controller from Amazon (purportedly from Sony). Did not last 3 months. The original controller I got with the PS4 itself still works great after more than 2 years.
Similarly I had to get a refund on a 10-pack of items when I only received a 5-pack. Months later I get an email saying I didn't return all 10 that I had ordered.
There are scammers who will buy the item, open the shrink wrap and remove the item before rewrapping it to make it look like they never opened it. This becomes more difficult if there are security seals.
I was worried about getting ripped when I bought my last Samsung, so I ordered directly from their site. I don't think they use Amazon for fulfillment (unlike Anker), and all was well. Every time I order something from Anker, I worry about getting hosed.
These stories amaze me. I'm not saying they're not true, I believe you're having these experiences. I just stunned because the worst thing that happened to me with Amazon lately is their in-house delivery service has a bad track record of losing things, but I still get it in the end. I rarely have a problem with Amazon orders. Weird.
This happened to me recently with what was supposed to be an 8GB Raspi 4 in a seemingly factory sealed box.
I was trying to figure out how it was swapped, and assuming the original packaging was used, it looked like the glue of one flap may have been slit open with a box cutter and then resealed with low viscosity adhesive.
It probably also wouldn't be hard to scan an unfolded box and then print it with an altered barcode on some light container board or card stock, just a lot more effort.
Same thing happened to me with RAM. Security blanket instead of the RAM. The package had a similar graphic but was a completely different size.
It was the single most frustrating customer service experience of my life. The return was a nightmare but it wasn’t because of the counterfeit. Some weird glitch with the return label and a terrible call center employee.
This could have been a warehouse error. I would err on the side of warehouse error. A real fraud would have sent you a brick or a worthless tile of the same dimension and weight.
I recall seeing youtube videos about people who purchased pallets of returned items from Amazon. Kind of an "unboxing" video for a huge stack of returned items. Yes I was bored.
They had a few similar scenarios where people had clearly purchased expensive computer components like motherboards etc and then returned the box with some worthless motherboard in there instead of the expensive one. You can imagine some poor Amazon warehouse worker receiving the package, opening it up and seeing the motherboard "yup - looks like some computer gubbins. approved." and off it goes.
The video people seemed to react like this was quite a common occurrence.
So this makes me wonder, if amazon are bundling-up returned items into pallets and selling them in bulk, how did clearly returned items get sold back to an end user? Frankly I am amazed the scammer went to the effort of putting in a 8TB device and connecting it, rather than either returning it empty or with some random old IDE drive in it as a decoy.
This reminds me of how a friend (as a teenager in the 90s) would buy expensive video cards from Best Buy and CompUSA only to swap them out with cheap cards off eBay, re-shrink wrap the box and return for a hefty profit. I thought it was a clever, profitable hack at 16 years old but now I’m ashamed I didn’t just call this what it was: theft.
That's why Fry's Electronics--a bay area retailer--scans the serial numbers of hard drives, DIMM memory and other electronic stuff. During the return process, Fry's employees check the serial number of the returned item against what's there in the receipt. This strategy was born precisely because of the scam that Amazon is seeing now.
Way back when I was in high school, it became a fad among the tech-geeks to have our TI-85 graphing calculators modded with a "turbo" switch that would let you run some games like Wolfenstein and Tetris at better speeds. It involved cutting a hole in the back plastic casing inside the battery compartment to make room for the switch, and then soldering a few connections on the board underneath.
There was one kid who was doing it for everyone at $20 a pop, but he made no guarantees about not accidentally bricking the calculator in the process. I was a little apprehensive about having him do it since TI calculators were (and still are) ridiculously expensive, and asked him what his success rate was. He told me it didn't really matter because even if he accidentally screwed up, all you had to do was go buy a new TI-85 from Future Shop (which was like a Canadian version of Best Buy before they were actually bought by Best Buy), put the broken calculator in the box, and then return it the next day for a full refund. He would then mod the new one for no additional charge.
My turbo switch was installed fine so I didn't have to pull the scam, but I knew a few kids who did.
The reply from Amazon's support Twitter is the indication of a far larger problem in most business. Namely, it's easier to deal with the consequences of "mistakes" than it is to not make them.
e.g.
- the "fines" Google and Facebook keep getting for breaking privacy and other laws which are laughably small.
- customer support teams not dealing with serious customer issues until they get attention (viral tweet, front page HN etc)
- monopolies in most forms: e.g. the big-tech anti-poaching agreements
Generally I'm all for "it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission" but that assumes that you are acting in good faith but still sometimes screw up. It seems like "screwing up" has become a good way to ensure short-term profits and as everyone is obsessed with KPIs and OKRs at a 1-week to 3-month time frame, the incentives are all wrong.
And "mission statements" and "cultural values" are too synthetic to come close to fixing this.
> Namely, it's easier to deal with the consequences of "mistakes" than it is to not make them
What we're seeing is a widespread use of "fractional fraud".
Transactions and business lines that are 1%-5% fraudulent are unlikely to be challenged, but have a huge effect on profitability.
The best example I've seen is Bunnie Huang's deep dive on counterfeit SD cards [1]. Margins on SD cards are like 1%, so blending in defective cards at a 1% rate can double your profit. Another example is retail trade payment for order flow. A major broker-dealer was just sanctioned for front-running its clients.
As long as your defect ("mistake") rate stays below your customer's response threshold, you can keep doing it. It is impossible to overstate how important social norms are for policing this kind of misconduct.
I honestly don't think any country in the world actually cares about monopolies or the abuses by these companies. Apple no longer has to pay a fine the EU gave them. The same will likely happen to the 2 billion+ fines they gave Google.
So far, no amount of fines, or laws, has actually changed anything as far as Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Google or Microsoft are concerned. They're still in dominant positions, where AI or computer made decisions can devastate the "little guys" like being wiped off Google (or the play store removing your app), or the horror stories of businesses on Amazon.
Truth is, they're too big, and at this point, can't be stopped. Laws won't work, fines won't work. They haven't so far, and I doubt they will in the future.
Welcome to Amazon shopping for the past 5 or so years. Everything is fakes, used goods marked as new, and low quality goods with 4.7+ stars from fake reviews.
The convenience is so nice, yet about 50% of the time I'm disappointed with any purchase made on Amazon.com. But, those stock profits :heart_eyes_emoji:.
Why the surprise here. This "scam" (or theft) is as old as stores taking "no questions asked" returns. I knew someone who did this a time or two back in the mid-90's to Circuit City and/or CompUSA. I warned them that this could be traced back to them if the stores became interested enough to do so, that did not deter them much.
I recently bought a Nintendo Switch from Amazon (not a third party seller) only to open the box and find the switch itself missing. Baffled at how this slipped through.
I've ordered three Xbox Play and Charge kits from Amazon, two were blatantly counterfeit (came in a plastic bag, scratched and with no markings, I don't believe it's "OEM"), the other was genuine but with batteries manufactured four years before and pretty much DOA (probably used and sent back by someone?)
I had to order from Microsoft directly to get an acceptable product.
I just plain don't buy electronics on Amazon. I've rarely had it go well. It's usually something - anywhere from something like this, to paying full price for something that was obviously previously opened.
I had assumed this was common knowledge that this occurred. We used to experience returns like this all of the time that Amazon would accept up-front before acceptance by our warehouse. >$200 chargers returned in original boxes containing $10 chargers. There have been other stories of iphone boxes full of playdough or just anything that would weight roughly the same.
I wouldn't be surprised if there are other 3rd party fulfillment providers that rather than dealing with having had this pushed on them by Amazon, they just put that return back on the shelf and they get shipped out to other customers.
Probably more expensive to train some warehouse workers to analyze returns to the extent of plugging it into a computer and seeing the size than to just deal with this happening some time.
This happened to me buying a Yamaha MG06 Compact Stereo Mixer from Amazon Warehouse.
The one I received had clear indications that it had been in use for a long time, dust grime and wear—-it was gross.
In this case it appeared the person returned the same model for a new one. It was a good trick that Amazon resolved without feedback on my pointing this out when I returned it.
I bought it brand new after that.
Previous to this, I had ordered something else from amazon warehouse, again a “like new” item for a steep discount and it was as described. A great deal.
Sounds about right. I have had overall VERY GOOD Amazon Warehouse experiences, but I have also had TWO VERY TERRIBLE Amazon Warehouse experiences with two separate products that could have been avoided if items were actually "Inspected"...
Hue Outdoor Motion Sensors (May 2019) -- Several sensors in my first order had obvious water damage outside packaging and MOLD inside packaging. Just looking at packages during "Inspection" would have prevented this. Requested replacements. Received MORE water damage and MOLD. Repeat several times until finally received NON-MOLD items or for refund.
GE Smart Light Switch, Smart Fan Switch (Feb 2020) -- Ordered several of each, kept receiving wrong model (e.g. ZigBee instead of ZWave Plus, or ZWave instead of ZWave plus) as if prior customer gave up on large project and randomly threw products back into whatever boxes. Comparing product number on item to product number on box during "Inspection" would have prevented this! Kept requesting replacements, kept receiving wrong items. Finally returned items for a refund. Amazon CS did finally issue full refund, but had trouble unraveling the mess on their end because so many items were in play.
Pro tip: don't bother with Amazon France, order from the UK.
For some reason, all the non-consumables that I ordered in France were re-furbished items sold as new. In contrast, the UK has always been stellar. Once Brexit hits, I will stop using Amazon altogether.
Got a Motorola phone, same-day shipping from the US, and actually got it just few hours later.
Phone screen broke. Contacted Motorola for support, they said the phone IMEI is from India and can't be serviced in the US under warranty, I have to ship it to India if I want it fixed by them :/
This is a consequence of amazon being too big to care. They aren't doing the most basic check to verify that what's in the box is what the outside of the box claims it is. Some years ago, I bought two identical routers from Best Buy and then decided I didn't need the second so I went to return it. I put it in the wrong box. Best Buy refused the return because the serial number on the router didn't match the serial number on the box.
The whole concept of Amazon is fundamentally flawed. I've gotten too much counterfeit stuff and junk to ever trust them again.
[+] [-] zaroth|5 years ago|reply
Amazon has done a cosmetic inspection of the item and gives it a ranking on how it appears which you see when you are buying it.
There are certain types of items where you can save a huge amount of money and get great deals using Amazon Warehouse. Hard drives are obviously not one of them due to the assumption that everything is returned for a reason. An example of a type of item that I’ve always had good luck with is pots and pans.
The interesting thing about this is assume that the tracking is in place to identify who returned the original item. What would you do?
Maybe the actual scam (I don’t mean in this specific case) is buying perfectly good Amazon Warehouse items but, knowing that they had been previously returned, claiming the item was swapped out after swapping it out yourself.
So Amazon can’t really know who to blame from a single incident. But certainly I would expect accounts would accumulate warning flags and at some point be banned.
[+] [-] rju|5 years ago|reply
They do exactly that, but sometimes, it goes wrong. It happened to me in October 2019 and I'm still trying to get out of this nightmare.
I bought a high-end desktop for $2700 from amazon, it was shipped with a GTX 660 instead of a RTX 2080Ti! The graphic card had been swapped by the previous person and Amazon blames it on me.
- They say they checked the item before sending it, they obviously didn't
- There was no indication when buying that this item had been previously returned
- They say I did this scam several times before but I order a couple of times a year and for low value. I never returned anything
- They refuse to listen to me and consider they made a mistake. The India-based chat support is entirely useless, they keep telling me "there is nothing I can do", "so sorry", etc. I sent an email to [email protected] and they tell me "we'll not be able to offer any additional insight or action on these matters, and any further inquiries on this matter won't receive a response."
[+] [-] vinhboy|5 years ago|reply
Also, you can just return it if you don't like.
I don't think this deserves the scrutiny it's getting here.
[+] [-] stordoff|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hn_check|5 years ago|reply
https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-style-rating-helps-bran...
Though there seems to be a bit of a conflict with such a system -- wouldn't every retailer want to say everyone is terrible, you surely don't want to deal with them, etc.
[+] [-] SomewhatLikely|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skinnymuch|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] croutonwagon|5 years ago|reply
There was a point where I had a string of returns that bumped my overall return rate up above 30%.
I got an email saying they noticed excessive returns and would cancel my account and amazon prime If it continued.
I started doing more diligence in screening vendors I was buying from as a result (and stopped ordering as much from amazon).
[+] [-] danielfoster|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Log1x|5 years ago|reply
The SSD box was seemingly factory sealed.
I also bought a Dyson fan recently and what came was an obviously used, yellow stained, disgustingly old model of a Dyson fan. I hopped on Live Chat, they apologized, initiated a return - few weeks later I get a semi-threatening email from Amazon telling me that the Dyson fan I sent back "wasn't sent back in its original condition" - I hopped on Live Chat and made sure everything was ok with my account (it was) - but still, ..wtf. this is a problem.
[+] [-] icedchai|5 years ago|reply
Folks were running scams like this in the 90's. I remember a friend of mine bought a hard drive from CompUSA. Turned out it was actually a brick sealed in a box.
[+] [-] bartread|5 years ago|reply
In the late noughties/early onesies I went through this period where I realised I could just buy anything I wanted that wasn't food from Amazon, and it was briefly great. However, they have had a huge problem with counterfeit, poor quality, seconds, and reconditioned goods for a number of years now. If you need thing X you're much better buying it from a specialist retailer, direct from the manufacturer or - depending on what it is - even from eBay, Gumtree (or its US equivalent Craigslist), particularly for used items.
Avoid Amazon like the plague for non-media items.
[+] [-] jeanvaljean2463|5 years ago|reply
I was injured in 2010 by counterfeit toiletries and since have embargoed them completely. I'm happy to buy things from the manufacture and pay shipping, at least I know with a reasonable confidence that what I am getting is going to be the real thing.
[+] [-] AnssiH|5 years ago|reply
Whenever possible, I always initiate the return myself to avoid customer service messing things up (there is a specific return reason "received incorrect item" in the dropdown).
[+] [-] dointheatl|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rayhendricks|5 years ago|reply
Amazon did refund, but made me resend the item rather than throwing in the trash. Proof: https://photos.app.goo.gl/f1jxjvooWAPVuh4DA
[+] [-] CaptainBern|5 years ago|reply
[0]: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71u2ZnjYcWL...
[+] [-] rajup|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulcole|5 years ago|reply
No shit, that was the problem!
[+] [-] stygiansonic|5 years ago|reply
See: https://lawyerrant.wordpress.com/favorite-scams/the-empty-bo...
[+] [-] mbesto|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Spooky23|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] greedo|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] burnte|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] washadjeffmad|5 years ago|reply
I was trying to figure out how it was swapped, and assuming the original packaging was used, it looked like the glue of one flap may have been slit open with a box cutter and then resealed with low viscosity adhesive.
It probably also wouldn't be hard to scan an unfolded box and then print it with an altered barcode on some light container board or card stock, just a lot more effort.
[+] [-] wil421|5 years ago|reply
It was the single most frustrating customer service experience of my life. The return was a nightmare but it wasn’t because of the counterfeit. Some weird glitch with the return label and a terrible call center employee.
[+] [-] mountainb|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] perryizgr8|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blitmap|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mattlondon|5 years ago|reply
They had a few similar scenarios where people had clearly purchased expensive computer components like motherboards etc and then returned the box with some worthless motherboard in there instead of the expensive one. You can imagine some poor Amazon warehouse worker receiving the package, opening it up and seeing the motherboard "yup - looks like some computer gubbins. approved." and off it goes.
The video people seemed to react like this was quite a common occurrence.
So this makes me wonder, if amazon are bundling-up returned items into pallets and selling them in bulk, how did clearly returned items get sold back to an end user? Frankly I am amazed the scammer went to the effort of putting in a 8TB device and connecting it, rather than either returning it empty or with some random old IDE drive in it as a decoy.
[+] [-] seancoleman|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] raincom|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Rudism|5 years ago|reply
There was one kid who was doing it for everyone at $20 a pop, but he made no guarantees about not accidentally bricking the calculator in the process. I was a little apprehensive about having him do it since TI calculators were (and still are) ridiculously expensive, and asked him what his success rate was. He told me it didn't really matter because even if he accidentally screwed up, all you had to do was go buy a new TI-85 from Future Shop (which was like a Canadian version of Best Buy before they were actually bought by Best Buy), put the broken calculator in the box, and then return it the next day for a full refund. He would then mod the new one for no additional charge.
My turbo switch was installed fine so I didn't have to pull the scam, but I knew a few kids who did.
[+] [-] sixhobbits|5 years ago|reply
e.g.
- the "fines" Google and Facebook keep getting for breaking privacy and other laws which are laughably small.
- customer support teams not dealing with serious customer issues until they get attention (viral tweet, front page HN etc)
- monopolies in most forms: e.g. the big-tech anti-poaching agreements
Generally I'm all for "it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission" but that assumes that you are acting in good faith but still sometimes screw up. It seems like "screwing up" has become a good way to ensure short-term profits and as everyone is obsessed with KPIs and OKRs at a 1-week to 3-month time frame, the incentives are all wrong.
And "mission statements" and "cultural values" are too synthetic to come close to fixing this.
[+] [-] rmrfstar|5 years ago|reply
What we're seeing is a widespread use of "fractional fraud".
Transactions and business lines that are 1%-5% fraudulent are unlikely to be challenged, but have a huge effect on profitability.
The best example I've seen is Bunnie Huang's deep dive on counterfeit SD cards [1]. Margins on SD cards are like 1%, so blending in defective cards at a 1% rate can double your profit. Another example is retail trade payment for order flow. A major broker-dealer was just sanctioned for front-running its clients.
As long as your defect ("mistake") rate stays below your customer's response threshold, you can keep doing it. It is impossible to overstate how important social norms are for policing this kind of misconduct.
[1] https://nostarch.com/hardwarehackerpaperback
[+] [-] aboringusername|5 years ago|reply
So far, no amount of fines, or laws, has actually changed anything as far as Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Google or Microsoft are concerned. They're still in dominant positions, where AI or computer made decisions can devastate the "little guys" like being wiped off Google (or the play store removing your app), or the horror stories of businesses on Amazon.
Truth is, they're too big, and at this point, can't be stopped. Laws won't work, fines won't work. They haven't so far, and I doubt they will in the future.
[+] [-] eugenekolo|5 years ago|reply
The convenience is so nice, yet about 50% of the time I'm disappointed with any purchase made on Amazon.com. But, those stock profits :heart_eyes_emoji:.
[+] [-] pwg|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vincenzow|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] laurentdc|5 years ago|reply
I had to order from Microsoft directly to get an acceptable product.
[+] [-] jasonv|5 years ago|reply
I intend to unbox the laptop and record it on my GoPro.
Seems silly, but...
[+] [-] bcrosby95|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kveykva|5 years ago|reply
I wouldn't be surprised if there are other 3rd party fulfillment providers that rather than dealing with having had this pushed on them by Amazon, they just put that return back on the shelf and they get shipped out to other customers.
[+] [-] hknapp|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bredren|5 years ago|reply
The one I received had clear indications that it had been in use for a long time, dust grime and wear—-it was gross.
In this case it appeared the person returned the same model for a new one. It was a good trick that Amazon resolved without feedback on my pointing this out when I returned it.
I bought it brand new after that.
Previous to this, I had ordered something else from amazon warehouse, again a “like new” item for a steep discount and it was as described. A great deal.
[+] [-] jasnk|5 years ago|reply
Hue Outdoor Motion Sensors (May 2019) -- Several sensors in my first order had obvious water damage outside packaging and MOLD inside packaging. Just looking at packages during "Inspection" would have prevented this. Requested replacements. Received MORE water damage and MOLD. Repeat several times until finally received NON-MOLD items or for refund.
GE Smart Light Switch, Smart Fan Switch (Feb 2020) -- Ordered several of each, kept receiving wrong model (e.g. ZigBee instead of ZWave Plus, or ZWave instead of ZWave plus) as if prior customer gave up on large project and randomly threw products back into whatever boxes. Comparing product number on item to product number on box during "Inspection" would have prevented this! Kept requesting replacements, kept receiving wrong items. Finally returned items for a refund. Amazon CS did finally issue full refund, but had trouble unraveling the mess on their end because so many items were in play.
[+] [-] zimbatm|5 years ago|reply
For some reason, all the non-consumables that I ordered in France were re-furbished items sold as new. In contrast, the UK has always been stellar. Once Brexit hits, I will stop using Amazon altogether.
[+] [-] sn_master|5 years ago|reply
Phone screen broke. Contacted Motorola for support, they said the phone IMEI is from India and can't be serviced in the US under warranty, I have to ship it to India if I want it fixed by them :/
[+] [-] dhosek|5 years ago|reply
The whole concept of Amazon is fundamentally flawed. I've gotten too much counterfeit stuff and junk to ever trust them again.