News story: Banned from Amazon for returning 37 things

1) Yes. The company ships merchandise from its warehouse to the store. This costs money. The customer only brings in the final mile or 2 from the store to their home. When the item is returned, IF its something we can get any credit for we have to then send it back to the warehouse for processing. The only difference with Amazon and B&M is that the customer has to bring the product the final few miles home.

I'm just playing devil's advocate... I don't have a horse in this race or a side in this argument. But I think if a large national retailer were to ban a paying customer from its stores for too many returns it wouldn't go over so well. Though most chains do have a limit on refunds. Though they aren't public with what it is. I don't think the one I work for does, but I know for a fact Walmart and others do.

 

Let's face it they are not a nice company and we only use them for price and convenience. Customer service is good on the face of it but more there to entice customers and comply with on-line selling laws. I would not invest either because their share price has no logical basis in terms of margin. They appear to have survived on the expectation of future profits which caused the 2000 internet share crash. As long as they remain slightly in the black they are too big to fail. I'm puzzled why they don't add say 0.5% to all prices as with their massive turnover profits would jump all other things remaining equal. My guess the share price takes account of other expanding activities such as Prime.

 

No it isn't. That much shouldn't be getting returned.

 

Do you work for them ? 1 in 10 Lps purchased with audible problems is pretty normal. Do you expect customers to eat the odd $20 scratched or warped LP. If I'm lucky I get 1 in 20 unacceptable disks and I don't return for off centre like some of the obsessives on this forum.

 

No, it is not. 1 in 20 or 30 is more likely.

By the way, I find the suggestion that King Edward works for Amazon, because he sees it otherwise really offensive.

 

I have to wonder what the actual algorithm is for getting banned. It can't be a straight 10%, otherwise if you bought five items in one year and you returned one item, you'd be banned for having a 20% return rate. I'm pretty sure I've never heard of that happening.

My guess is that you have to hit a certain number of returns within a certain span of time, which also accounts for a certain percentage of your purchases during that same time frame. For example, returning one item out of five items bought each year isn't enough. But perhaps if you return more than 10 items in 60 days, which accounts for more than 10% of your purchases that month, then it might trigger a ban.

I also wonder if items exchanged count against you in their system. If you order a bunch of records which arrived with minor sleeve damage, will they "ding" you for exchanging these for undamaged copies? Plus, I wonder if they count returns on an item-by-item basis, or on an order-by-order basis.

 

I would guess that with Amazon, they are using some sort of Machine Learning approach to determining bad risk customers. There's a correlation between returns and blacklisting, but it probably isn't as simple as X%. As variables it probably takes into account #items, %returns, reasons for return, value of items returned, categories of returns, where items were delivered, profitability of account, etc. They aren't just penalizing those who exceed a threshold, but also predicting, based on Big Data, accounts that are likely to remain or turn unprofitable.

 

I suspect you are correct and that it is a complicated calculation to determine which customers to ban. It would be interesting to see what the thresholds are in the calculation.

 

I've had bad experiences with marketplace buys lately. Just in the past three months (and ordered less than ten things in that time span), I had a 5CD set which was missing one CD -- did not have to return, they simply refunded. I ordered a CD from Germany (through US amazon) that turned out to be bronzed -- it ripped OK, so I won't complain about that, but will quietly feel slightly cheated. Recently I ordered a DVD set, and they sent me a Spanish novel. Again, I did not have to return. They simply refunded.

Do these kind of complaints count as bad marks against one's account. One has to take into account the legitimacy of the complaints/returns. Maybe just bad luck, or marketplace sellers are getting really sloppy.

 

Any complaint against a third party seller is outside the Amazon metrics system, at least as far as legit complaints and getting blacklisted are concerned. (They do keep track of all this stuff, but it doesn't matter unless there's a pattern of abuse/fraud).

 

Probably a new vinyl buyer!

 

Several years after having my Amazon account shuttered for too many returns, and after several letters appealing the decision over those years, they let me back in last week.

I will not f- - k up this time.

BTW, in the seven days since my reinstatement, I have had my account (wrongly) shuttered again, first by Amazon.co.uk, and then by Amazon.com themselves. Both instances were a result of what I assume is bad internal communications between Amazon's many departments. Long story short, once I was back "in," I was really back in and they bent over backwards to clear up these issues of theirs. Still, a bunch of my orders were cancelled in the meantime ... and that was a drag. But hey, I'm really glad to be reinstated. I didn't really realize just how much I liked and used Amazon.com.

Like I said before: I won't get thrown out again. Ever.

BTW, there's a cute little outfit out there called The Retail Equation that tracks everybody's returns everywhere and anywhere. All the big stores and presumably, online stores, use their "services," which essentially boils down to identifying specific retail customers that return too many items, whatever that means. The Retail Equation shares its info on "bad customers" and their rate of returns and keeps track of those peoples' return habits. They have a Web site, but you have to log in to read anything and I don't think I'll be giving those folks any more ammo than they've already got.

 

Yeah 10% is high, I've probably ordered more than double that and have returned 2 items ever.
Many times I would complain and they would exchange it at their cost.

And I tend to know what I'm buying before I buy something, so I'm not disappointed. That's what forums are for!

 

That's very interesting to me. I consider myself fiscally conservative, and I welcome that concept in personal, government and business entities. In my opinion, everyone has the right to be profitable. I'm seemingly one of the few who think the cost of a postage stamp in the USA is too low!

 

Wow, yours may be the first story I've read of someone getting a ban lifted. Usually, once they impose a ban, you're done...

 

I know!
You should've seen my fave when I saw their response to my latest reinstatement request letter. I actually had to read it twice. I didn't believe it.

 

I do too. Really.

 

Maybe they checked the amount spent prior to the ban.

 

I thought of that, too.
I have no idea why they finally caved and let me back in. I've been golden ever since i.e., they've had my back on the weird "reunion" issues I listed earlier.

 

Don't worry, they are making up for the postage stamp by overcharging for international postage! USPS just recently lowered the cost of a 1st Class stamp to 47 cents. I have never seen the cost of a stamp lowered in my 65 years. Not complaining! It is my belief that the cost of mailing a letter should be kept within the easy reach of every citizen.

 

They also lowered the cost of shipping items that weigh between 14oz and 1 pound, by making those eligible for First Class Shipping.

Though my long history with the USPS is that good lord giveth, and the good lord eventually taketh away.

It wasn't THAT long ago that you could ship 1 pound anywhere (in the US) by Priority Mail for $3, and it was a $1 per pound after that. Anywhere. And UPS and FedEx and the USPS didn't use "dimensional weight" shipping.

 

I have approached the 10% return figure in the past due to a series of faulty vinyl pressings. I do not think people should be banned for legit returns. Some people use Amazon to try things and if they find a better product or price return them. Amazon have every right in that case to ban them. I got a covert warning about 8 months ago so have restricted vinyl buys direct from Amazon as opposed to other sellers since. Strangely have had only a couple of faulty Lps since (one from Amazon). As I have posted before - I have only ever had to return vinyl lps due to pressing issues or postal damage and nearly always for exchange rather than refund. So even at 10% that should not count as excessive returns.

 

When the decision is made by a computer algorithm, I don't think anything counts other than the numbers. Just suspicion on my part, of course.

My guess (and that's all it is) is that the legitimacy of the returns doesn't figure in unless the customer appeals their ban to Amazon. And even then, it's not clear if a human gets involved, or how much leeway the company allows them to use in determining if the customer deserves reinstatement.

In several threads I've seen over the years at other forums, I can only recall one customer getting reinstated. And yes, there's a chance that the only people posting to complain were ones that got caught cheating Amazon's system. But somehow I'm not inclined to think that's really the case.


EDIT:

Saw your post after I wrote the above. Congratulations, you're the second one I know of. (That's not sarcastic.)

 

I have received emails from amazon telling me they will close my account for to many returns. I just email them back threatening to no longer buy any products from them and tell my friends that same. Also I state if I receive a product that does not function as stated or arrives damaged because of bad packaging on amazons part I should be able to return the item without being scrutinized. Amazons LP packaging reminds me of a video I saw on youtube of a guy who uses priority mail boxes and staples to ship Lps, yes staples.

 

10% is excessive returns, and that oblique warning you got indicated as much.

The margins are not big enough to swallow 10% returns, especially when you factor in the free two way shipping.

If you are so picky that you will be returning 10%, then buy locally.

You can argue that vinyl pressings are truly defective at an unacceptable rate. But that's an issue with the manufacturer, not the reseller. The reseller takes the hit here (vinyl is not returnable to manufacturer). So if you return a new vinyl LP to a anyone , you just hit them with a big loss. It's a bigger deal still with 3rd party sellers,who are often small time sellers with nominal margins.