Amazon seller issue.

Justintime · 2 Oct 2013 at 01:27

Long story short:

Bought 3 hard drives from an Amazon seller, two out of the three turned out to be full of bad sectors. Also they put their own custom firmware and wiped previous SMART data/actual model no. etc.. and pulled the labels, they were WD green drives though as i could tell by the black circle pattern. The wiping also masked the true age as they showed mere hours power on time whereas the state of the disks pointed to months/yrs.

They agreed to RMA the 2 drives for a refund. They sent me an RMA form and also a postal label with instructions to take it to royal mail and they would pay at destination. When i did this the RM guy said it was 2nd class Parcel force. I got a receipt but noted there was no tracking number, he told me that was their business agreement.

Their 'store' is about 5 miles from my work, it was sent a week ago and they claim to not have received it. I can't fathom it getting lost or delayed that long on such a short distance. I think they're playing me and don't want to do the RMA and possibly resell the drives, if they're dodgy enough to clock the drives, i think its a plausible theory.

I've set up a claim with Amazon but not heard back yet, i explained about the dodgy drives and my take on it.. Anyone dealt with Amazon claims? Any idea on the likely outcome?

Phantom Shadow · 2 Oct 2013 at 01:32

Honestly? You have returned faulty items to an obviously dodgy seller via an untracked service and therefore have no proof they ever received it. I don't fancy your chances of ever receiving a refund.

Unless the seller has a history of complaints to sway things on your favour, with no proof of return they will just claim you haven't sent the item to them and therefore refuse any refund.

From the sounds of it it was organised with royal mail by the seller so it would need to be them to go to royal mail with a missing item claim.

Justintime · 2 Oct 2013 at 01:53

Yea i wasn't comfortable with the no tracking bit but not fully convinced it was a scam job, pretty sure it is now! I'll give it the good fight and make a lot of noise to cancel my amazon account etc.. as people have blatantly scammed me as a seller worse on Ebay etc..even when i provided tracking etc. and gotten away with it, so this time i might play the part of that miserable 'customer is always right bs' buyer.

Hades · 2 Oct 2013 at 01:56

The rainforest customer service is amongst the best of the online retailers. Tried phoning them and asking for help?

Justintime · 2 Oct 2013 at 01:57

I'll wait on their reply to the claim and go from there.

Diagro · 2 Oct 2013 at 08:28

5 miles away?

I would pop in and ask to buy the exact same type of drive.
take a laptop with you and a us to sat connector and run the same scan in front of them.

Then of they are the same drives I would rain hell down on them

Vanquish-Storm · 2 Oct 2013 at 08:42

Just raise an A-to-Z claim, Amazon will go in your favor and refund you.

Just noticed you have already raised a claim, it may take a few days but Amazon will refund you.

86JR · 3 Oct 2013 at 14:16

I don't understand how you did your claim? I own an Amazon store, this is how it works.

Customer tells me that item is damaged, I send back that if they send it to me they get a full refund.

Customer sends item to me at their own expense, via RMSD so it is signed for by me.

I refund customer in full, plus their postage, minus my original postage cost (postage to them).

This is the same way it works if they report the item to Amazon.

Case closed.

You get 7 days to send back for refund whether item is damaged or not under the DSR. I know this because I send out mint merchandise and they do the 7 day DSR and I recieve damaged merchandised back about 3 times a month. Sometimes they buy a colouring book and then DSR it as "new" and I get the same book back, coloured in.

They recently changed the law to make scams like this even worse - the customer does not even need to send it back for a refund any more, it is down to the supplier to sort out getting the book back, if the customer doesn't play, then there is nothing you can do about it other than court.

86JR · 3 Oct 2013 at 14:22

A-Z is silly, upto 90 days for a full refund and don't have to send the item back, fortunatly if you are atleast a ltd company, and you do a lot of trading, Amazon don't always side with the customer, unlike Ebay/Paypal who let blatently let them scam you.

Justintime · 4 Oct 2013 at 10:59

twoblacklines said:
I don't understand how you did your claim? I own an Amazon store, this is how it works.

.

They provided me with a shipping label via PDF with a bar code etc.. It had 'Business reply, license number and postage to be paid at destination under terms of contract'. It turned out to be 2nd class parcelforce with no tracking.

This is the latest update:

Claim Status: Thank you for providing us with the return tracking information. The seller will reimburse you directly. If you are do not receive an update within five working days, please contact us so that we may take further action.

Vanquish-Storm · 4 Oct 2013 at 11:45

twoblacklines said:
A-Z is silly, upto 90 days for a full refund and don't have to send the item back, fortunatly if you are atleast a ltd company, and you do a lot of trading, Amazon don't always side with the customer, unlike Ebay/Paypal who let blatently let them scam you.

A-to-Z is very silly but Amazon normally side with us as we are usually in the right. If worse comes to worse the customer gets a refund but from Amazon and not our company.

Justintime · 9 Oct 2013 at 12:37

Got the money back, A-Z approved

dowie · 9 Oct 2013 at 12:45

That's good at least...

One thing I was going to add is that when you found out the RMA wasn't tracked you could have asked the post office to provide you with proof of postage - they will officially confirm that you've sent an item to that address on that date - could have been useful if the seller disputed it.

Nexus · 9 Oct 2013 at 15:13

Should have raised a claim with Amazon for fraudulent/problematic product straight away.

I reported a counterfeit battery I had bought from an Amazon Marketplace Seller (though it was fulfilled by Amazon) and they refunded me within an hour without even needing to send it back.