Amazon US customer care threatened me

A

Abhishek Shukla

Disciple
I purchased an Ember Mug 2 from Amazon US. I had heard heaps of positive reviews about it but found it lacking, especially for the price. Now, there is an option of return with a mailing label being given for the customer to send the product back. So far so good, but the problem starts from here. The mailing label has a misaligned/overlapping number and this label is required for customs clearance. I engaged the help of customer support to get the label corrected as even a small misprint can cause an issue with customs. I was getting copy-paste replies and asked for an escalation for this. You can see the threats being posted against me by the 'higher department'. I tried to contact US customer care and register a complaint but nothing came out of it (not even an email which they had promised)

Was really surprised by this. Haven't had issues of such nature even in the worst of circumstances with Amazon India.
 

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Abhishek Shukla said:
I purchased an Ember Mug 2 from Amazon US. I had heard heaps of positive reviews about it but found it lacking, especially for the price. Now, there is an option of return with a mailing label being given for the customer to send the product back. So far so good, but the problem starts from here. The mailing label has a misaligned/overlapping number and this label is required for customs clearance. I engaged the help of customer support to get the label corrected as even a small misprint can cause an issue with customs. I was getting copy-paste replies and asked for an escalation for this. You can see the threats being posted against me by the 'higher department'. I tried to contact US customer care and register a complaint but nothing came out of it (not even an email which they had promised)

Was really surprised by this. Haven't had issues of such nature even in the worst of circumstances with Amazon India.
Click to expand...
Here is a simple suggestion to solve your problem.
Based on what you have posted , I really doubt that small overlap will lead to any kind of rejection at customs.. esp since its an outbound consignment.. and US customs won't care 1 bit ..
but if you do believe that it can cause issues then do this:

The mailing label will be a pdf. Take a screen cap and use any photo editing app to fix it and print it.

CS won't be able to help as they won't be able to make any kind of adjustments to the system generated label format other than whatever fields are editable
That does not absolve them of the rude behavior exhibited . However you won't gain anything by getting riled up about it as entry grade staff in a lot of countries (incl India as well now) cannot deviate from the system flow.

My recommendation would be to fix the issue with a simple edit at your own end , ship it out and forget about it
 
superczar said:
Here is a simple suggestion to solve your problem.
Based on what you have posted , I really doubt that small overlap will lead to any kind of rejection at customs.. esp since its an outbound consignment.. and US customs won't care 1 bit ..
but if you do believe that it can cause issues then do this:

The mailing label will be a pdf. Take a screen cap and use any photo editing app to fix it and print it.

CS won't be able to help as they won't be able to make any kind of adjustments to the system generated label format other than whatever fields are editable
That does not absolve them of the rude behavior exhibited . However you won't gain anything by getting riled up about it as entry grade staff in a lot of countries (incl India as well now) cannot deviate from the system flow.

My recommendation would be to fix the issue with a simple edit at your own end , ship it out and forget about it
Click to expand...
Already did what you had suggested. I just wanted to share my experience as this is a bit unexpected coming from a 'developed' country and such a huge company.
 
Abhishek Shukla said:
Already did what you had suggested. I just wanted to share my experience as this is a bit unexpected coming from a 'developed' country and such a huge company.
Click to expand...
It wish it were as black & white.
In general, the level of service you get for most things in India (Airlines, hotels, restaurants) is diametrically opposite and significantly superior to what you get in the US.
In fact thats true for most services whereever there is a f2f contact.

ecomm and after sales service on products/goods is an exception ..
largely due to a long standing issue for which the problem lies on both ends viz
a high occurrence rate of non genuine customers trying to game the system and the exact opposite reaction from the supply side end triggering a default assumption that any customer is by default trying to fleece them
 
superczar said:
It wish it were as black & white.
In general, the level of service you get for most things in India (Airlines, hotels, restaurants) is diametrically opposite and significantly superior to what you get in the US.
In fact thats true for most services where there is a f2f contact.

ecomm and after sales service on products/goods is an exception ..
largely due to a long standing issue for which the problem lies on both ends viz
a high occurrence rate of non genuine customers trying to game the system and the exact opposite reaction from the supply side end the subsequent default assumption that any customer is by default trying to fleece them
Click to expand...
I have the same view but the perception in media and popular narrative is not the same (i.e India being a third-world shithole and USA/Western countries being heaven on earth), and my abrupt reaction is perhaps an indication of how much we are conditioned to think and act one way, even if we know better.
 
Abhishek Shukla said:
Don't have an FB account. Would appreciate it if one of the members here could do it for me. Not looking for anything from Amazon's end but I do want people to know.
Click to expand...
Making new fb account is piece of cake, since it is your issue, you can directly address any replies made there.
I had a very good experience posting my issue once on FB (india), just be polite..
 
superczar said:
I really doubt that small overlap will lead to any kind of rejection at customs.. esp since its an outbound consignment.. and US customs won't care 1 bit
Click to expand...

The bigger issue is Indian customs, I've had e-commerce parcels returned to me for similarly trivial reasons. The customs declaration form needs to be absolutely pristine to avoid rejection at Mumbai, if Mumbai is the port of exit. I haven't had any issues with other ports of exit. But you cannot choose this, it's decided by the courier. US customs does randomly conduct inspections on packages but something destined for an Amazon address is usually skipped, and most packages to residential addresses end up delayed, not undelivered, if there's an issue.

That said, the most crucial information that Indian customs cares about is Country of Origin and Declared Value. And of course, signature with date is needed without which it will be returned to you, regardless of which port of exit it reaches.

This wasn't the case previously with either Indian customs or US customs but like most other things, Covid brought around changes in at lot of the processes that had been in place for years.

Abhishek Shukla said:
You can see the threats being posted against me by the 'higher department'.
Click to expand...

The prolonged chat you've had with their customer care (with them repeating the same instructions to you) is a good indication that your account has already been flagged or scheduled for a review. Anything that does not go smoothly goes against their metrics for resolving issues and it is a simpler decision for them to say that the customer is at fault rather than go down an unfamiliar rabbit hole to get this issue resolved.

I'm on my second Amazon account, my first was registered in 2002 — I had to close it in 2015 because of a messy return for something I had purchased on behalf of someone else. It took just one incident after over a decade of orders and thousands of dollars to get my account flagged. I haven't purchased anything on someone else's behalf on my second Amazon account since.

Abhishek Shukla said:
Was really surprised by this. Haven't had issues of such nature even in the worst of circumstances with Amazon India.
Click to expand...

E-commerce in the west has reached a saturation point, customers are now disposable. Things are slowly changing here as well:

Amazon India's Return/Replacement Policy Changes (2023)

Stumbled upon this post on reddit and learned that there have been some drastic changes to Amazon's return and replacement policies: Summarizing in three images: ^ Almost all computer components now are non-returnable, except for coolers and power supplies. ^ Defective items can only be...
techenclave.com techenclave.com

Abhishek Shukla said:
I had heard heaps of positive reviews about it but found it lacking, especially for the price.
Click to expand...


Personally, I use a glass Ikea cup with a woodend stirrer and an 80C mug warmer set at 70C and spend about four hours drinking that single cup. It's not as aesthetically pleasing as something like an ember mug, but it's very functional.

www.ikea.com

IKEA 365+ Mug, clear glass, 24 cl - IKEA

IKEA 365+ Mug, clear glass, 24 cl. IKEA 365+ series has everything for the table – to be enjoyed for its everyday simplicity or pimped up with colours and accessories. Made from tempered glass that holds both hot and cold beverages.
www.ikea.com www.ikea.com
 
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rsaeon said:
The prolonged chat you've had with their customer care (with them repeating the same instructions to you) is a good indication that your account has already been flagged or scheduled for a review. Anything that does not go smoothly goes against their metrics for resolving issues and it is a simpler decision for them to say that the customer is at fault rather than go down an unfamiliar rabbit hole to get this issue resolved.
Click to expand...
What does that mean actually? Are they going to block the account and cancel all refunds etc.?
rsaeon said:
I'm on my second Amazon account, my first was registered in 2002 — I had to close it in 2015 because of a messy return for something I had purchased on behalf of someone else. It took just one incident after over a decade of orders and thousands of dollars to get my account flagged. I haven't purchased anything on someone else's behalf on my second Amazon account since.
Click to expand...
Your account was flagged but why did you close it? What were the difficulties that you faced while using a flagged acccount?
 
Abhishek Shukla said:
What does that mean actually? Are they going to block the account and cancel all refunds etc.?
Click to expand...

No, that is usually reserved for return or payment fraud. There are other minor hurdles/hinderances they used to put on accounts that would discourage you from using their service (but still allowing them to charge you for your prime subscription). My experiences are from 2015, so they may have changed their policies since then, and I haven't purchased as much from Amazon US in recent years.

Abhishek Shukla said:
Your account was flagged but why did you close it? What were the difficulties that you faced while using a flagged acccount?
Click to expand...

I no longer had two day shipping to any address on my account. I could not initiate calls for customer care, the option disappeared for me, only chat was available. The return button disappeared for some purchases, my reviews disappeared for both products and sellers even though they showed up on my account. After a second return a few weeks later, I lost access to my kindle account, my associates account and my AWS console. Amazon customer care said access could not be reinstated and after that conversation, I could no longer place orders even though I could still log in and check order history.

Similiar things happened years later with my second account but on Amazon India, my product reviews disappeared and I could no longer leave seller ratings. I now have kindle and AWS on seperate accounts so I don't know if they were restricted for that period. My product reviews returned after about 18 months of no returns. This suggests there's an unspecified 'cooling off period' between returns within which account restrictions could be triggered by a return.

These days, I don't pursue returns unless if there's a glaring issue (completely wrong item sent, incorrect quantities, or outright seller fraud).
 
rsaeon said:
No, that is usually reserved for return or payment fraud. There are other minor hurdles/hinderances they used to put on accounts that would discourage you from using their service (but still allowing them to charge you for your prime subscription). My experiences are from 2015, so they may have changed their policies since then, and I haven't purchased as much from Amazon US in recent years.



I no longer had two day shipping to any address on my account. I could not initiate calls for customer care, the option disappeared for me, only chat was available. The return button disappeared for some purchases, my reviews disappeared for both products and sellers even though they showed up on my account. After a second return a few weeks later, I lost access to my kindle account, my associates account and my AWS console. Amazon customer care said access could not be reinstated and after that conversation, I could no longer place orders even though I could still log in and check order history.

Similiar things happened years later with my second account but on Amazon India, my product reviews disappeared and I could no longer leave seller ratings. I now have kindle and AWS on seperate accounts so I don't know if they were restricted for that period. My product reviews returned after about 18 months of no returns. This suggests there's an unspecified 'cooling off period' between returns within which account restrictions could be triggered by a return.

These days, I don't pursue returns unless if there's a glaring issue (completely wrong item sent, incorrect quantities, or outright seller fraud).
Click to expand...
Horrible. Was a new email enough for an alternate account? These days they have associated everything with mobile no. and there aren't too many of those lying around with me.
 
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