The Amazon Truly is Skankizon Kiada: Nothing Says Skank Like Amazon’s Return Policies

 

Sad to say, it was really easy to take one’s fingers and squeeze one’s nose in order to avoid the stench Amazon gave off and so try to wish away the foul smell that was Amazon in its early years. After all, it had a lot of product, it had a great search engine, and it was quick and easy to use. Today, however, one can’t even avoid the stench that is Skankizon with its awful search engine, its monopolistic practises, and its monarchical like practises even if one tries to do the fingers closing nose holes thing.

I learned this lesson once again when trying to return something I bought from Amazon recently. On the 13th of August 2024 I purchased the Charpentier/Christie/ Harmonia Mundi (ASIN: BOBXBCHZ8C) eight disc box set from Amazon (Order 113-1948095-0370632). As is so often the case with CDs purchased from Amazon—two out of three cases of CDs I receive from Skankizon arrived cracked and I have to replace them by buying jewel cases often from Amazon (what a racket)—the set arrived damaged. The clamshell cardboard box was smashed thanks to the poor packaging.

I, of course, immediately contacted Amazon customer service chat and explained the situation to them. I asked for a damage discount but they declined to offer one. When I told them I would need to return the item they gave me three options: one, they would send me a QS return code and I could transfer it to my phone and take it to Whole Foods, two, I could print the code and do a drop off of the item at an assigned drop off point, or three, I could pay $7.99 to ship the item back to Amazon. The last is a fascinating and telling offer since that would mean I had to pay for their mistake. Amazon apparently does like gouging the victim of Amazon incompetence. And let’s not forget that Amazon making you use your car and your petrol to return damaged or incorrect items is a from of gouging the victim too. 

I informed the customer service operative who was just, I assume, following imperial orders, that the QS code option was a problem since I did not have a cell phone connected to the internet and thus could not send the QS return code to my phone and take the item to Whole Foods nor did I have a printer so I could not print out the code and take it to a drop off point. Amazon thus essentially told me tough luck kid. We have a one size fits all policy and we follow these bureaucratic demands regardless of the specifics of the situation. Of course, it is also possible that Amazon’s customer service operatives in India did not pay attention to what I wrote and their responses were coloured by the we always follow imperial orders mentality that I am sure Amazon cultivates in its customer service personnel.

I immediately contacted the Attorney General’s office of New York state and filed a customer fraud complaint. The Attorney General’s office contacted Amazon who sent a response to the office that elided the fact that I did not have the capability to transfer a QS code to my cell phone nor did I have a printer.

I posted all this on the Amazon Facebook page. The Amazon Facebook page monitor gave me a link to contact someone at the corporation about the issue. It took me awhile to realise that this was general customer service, that they had no ideal about my case, that when I responded with the requested information no one operative was looking at my specific case and so I was getting the same request for information again and again and again and again. So much for bureaucratic efficiency and effectiveness.

Finally this morning I received an email from the Amazon representative who responded to the office of the NY AG. Praveen finally seemed to grasp that I did not have a cell phone that allowed me to take a QS code to Whole Foods and that I  did not have a printer. He or she offered me a $7.99 gift card. 

The gift card would be great if I had any interest in purchasing from Amazon again after this Sisyphean experience. I don’t. I said I would take the gift card if I could use it for Amazon marketplace purchases. I suspect that is a non-starter as Amazon wants you to buy Amazon with their gift cards. Oh and let’s not forget I still don’t have a printer. I advised Praveen to send the QS code via text mail to my phone, something that I requested for an item I needed to return to Amazon earlier and was bizarrely told by Amazon that they could not, for some reason beyond my ken,  do though it makes so much sense to me. 

Epilogue

On 22 August the New York Attorney General’s Economic Justice division sent me a letter informing me that despite their best efforts there was nothing they could do to help me. What this says about the relationship between megabusinesses and the government of New York I will leave up to your interpretation. What I will note is that New York lets Amazon get away with charging New Yorkers for returning something Amazon damaged if they don’t have a cell phone to which one can send a QS code or a printer that can print one out with. Now that is quite a racket.

After pestering customer service I was finally able to get Amazon personnel to recognise that I don’t have a cell phone that can upload an Amazon QS return code nor a printer that can print one out and thus cannot utilise their “free” return options, I was finally given another if more roundabout option for returning the item I received damaged from the corporation. They required me for the first time in my Amazon life to arrange a UPS pickup. Previously Amazon customer service clerks had done this for me in the era in which they began charging for UPS pickups. Amazon then issued a gift card to my account to cover the shipping charge, a gift card I can also use, apparently, for third party purchases. Since I never want to go through this experience again—I really tire of a life weighed down by seemingly endless rounds of crisis management—I don’t think I will ever be buying something from Amazon that may require a return again.