• henfredemars@infosec.pub
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    3 months ago

    I had an ISP try to bill me for an unreturned modem five years ago.

    I kept the receipt because I expected them to be so incompetent. Good luck.

        • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          3 months ago

          I told my ISP explicitly not to provide one as I owned my own

          I was out of town when they set it up, guess what was installed

          It took a year of calls for the rental to be taken off my bill and they never took the hardware back. I have lots of everything they said (recorded calls and told them I was too since 2 party state)

          I love having 1 fucking Option!

          • SolarMonkey@slrpnk.net
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            3 months ago

            I had something similar, except there was no hardware. They just tried to charge me for using my own router. It was a nightmare to get that removed from my bill, even with the agents going “yeah I see we didn’t leave anything, and your installer verified with our router and took that, but I also see it was shipped to you directly, so there’s nothing I can do”

            Like cool, but nothing was actually shipped to me and even if it was that’s not my problem, it’s yours.

        • kn33@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          With my ISP, it’s not an extra charge but included in the rest of the cost so it doesn’t cost me anything extra to use theirs and if/when it fails, I just have to ask for a replacement.

        • SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Sometimes. I use my own setup whenever possible. But that means I still have the equipment they delivered even though I never asked for it.

    • ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca
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      3 months ago

      I had an ISP do the same when I moved out of an apartment in 2016. I still get calls from a collection agency. The number is blocked but if I check my “blocked calls” log it’s been nearly every weekday for 8 years.

    • cm0002@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Was it Crapcast? I bet it was Crapcast, it sounds like a Crapcast thing to do lol

    • shadshack@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      Hah! I just recently got to switch off Comcast to a newer local fiber company. Comcast emailed and texted me for weeks telling me to return their equipment that I never had, but even their website showed I had nothing to return so I ignored it. Eventually the emails changed to “you’ve been charged”, so I called to complain. They assured me that I wasn’t actually charged, and then realized they owed me a prorated refund since I cancelled in the middle of a billing cycle. They absolutely weren’t going to give that back unless I called.

      • henfredemars@infosec.pub
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        3 months ago

        They can’t decide whether they’re evil or they just hire the most inept and cheapest people possible.

    • Dvixen@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Our previous ISP kept after us for a few years to return their modem/router. Only problem was we were a BYO account - we never had a need for their device, nor was it ever on our account or any invoices. A few years later, and every few months afterward (typically after I’ve had to contact them to solve the hell that was constant dropouts - reconnecting 2-4 times a minute) the missing BUDii would pop up again and they’d demand we return or pay for it.

      Each time I got snarkier and snarkier, treading the line of being polite and sounding like I wanted to chew their face off. Then I got Betty (fake name) who asked for a moment while she read the correspondence on our account. She commiserated with the troubles we’d been having, clarified notes on our account and then solved what a dozen others couldn’t figure out, and we never heard about the BUDii ever again.

    • goldteeth@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      3 months ago

      Once had an order arrive on-time, but the tracking information never got updated and kept telling me the package was “running late” and pushing back the expected delivery date, and then after like a week of that they just said “sorry, it’s been delayed indefinitely” and gave me a refund. For an order I’d already received. And I mean, I wasn’t gonna be the one to tell 'em they were wrong.

    • TheDarksteel94@sopuli.xyz
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      3 months ago

      It was probably cheaper for them to just refund you instead of processing a broken item and disposing of it themselves.

    • WhatYouNeed@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      CS agents have to work a minimum of 17 tickets per hour. Their quality is assessed by How’s My Driving responses from customers, and the HMD have to meet a certain level.

      This incentives the agent to wrap the ticket up as quickly as possible, to the best outcome for the customer, in the hopes they leave 5* HMD responses.

      CS agent actions cost the company money? Who cares.

      CS agents actions were good for the environment? Who cares.

      Speed and High HMD is the only two things on a CS agents mind.

    • brygphilomena@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I ordered something like shampoo. It opened in the box and got everywhere. Amazon wanted me to return it for a refund. The box was soaked. No way I could have returned it.

    • Chozo@fedia.io
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      3 months ago

      Amazon will often just let you keep items, even if they refund it. It’s generally not worth the cost of shipping back, so they just eat the loss.

  • milicent_bystandr@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    In this case, “it looks like we received it” sounds like typical AI choosing a response that sounds right with no attention to its meaning.

      • Chewget@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        One of their marketed features is the ability to access this type of useful information. Amazon is supposed to be one of the leading developers of the technology. I would be more surprised if they didn’t.

  • GooberEar@lemmy.wtf
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    3 months ago

    It’s not surprising here on Lemmy, but on pretty much every other site I’ve ever mentioned issues I’ve had with Amazon, the replies would be filled with people claiming it is the best customer service, that they’ve never had any issues with Amazon at all, and that it must be something I did to cause the problem.

    Personally I stopped using Amazon on a regular basis almost a decade ago after it was clear that the company I first started using back in the mid 2000s was irrevocably changed for the worse.

    • KellysNokia@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      People who spend a lot on Amazon have great experiences on Amazon, people who don’t spend a lot on amazon have poorer experiences

      I suspect when you contact them there is a dashboard that tells the customer service operator how much effort they should put in to retain you as a customer.

    • jonne@infosec.pub
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      3 months ago

      You probably need to stay within a certain ratio of returns vs keeping stuff, and as long as your score is good, they’ll honour returns without asking too much questions. We definitely return a lot of stuff without having any trouble, but we only return like less than 1% compared to what we buy.

    • Isoprenoid@programming.dev
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      3 months ago

      the replies would be filled with people bots claiming it is the best customer service

      There are no women people on the internet.

        • Zorque@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          And inventing a bunch of people who do nothing but sing the praises of amazon isn’t?

          People have been shitting on Amazon for years, you haven’t exactly stumbled on a revelation. You’re not some outsider who’s the only one who sees the truth.

      • IsThisAnAI@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Or you let your hatred of corporations lead you off into fantasy land 🤷‍♂️

        My family must have spent 50 or 60k at Amazon over the years and have never had more than an annoyance they was quickly fixed by a CSR.

        But yeah, I guess we’re all getting tricked into liking the store 🙄

        • Isoprenoid@programming.dev
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          3 months ago

          Let me reply in a language you will understand:

          01000100 01101111 01101110 00100111 01110100 00100000 01101100 01100101 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01101101 00100000 01101011 01101110 01101111 01110111 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01110111 01100101 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01101111 01101110 00100000 01001100 01100101 01101101 01101101 01111001 00101110

  • ResoluteCatnap@lemmy.ml
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    3 months ago

    Ive had this happen a few times. It goes something like this:

    • i buy product and initiate return
    • i ship item with return label
    • as soon as return label is scanned then amazon will release the funds back to me
    • if for some reason they don’t get that package then they say they didn’t get the item back and take the funds back. When this has happened to me it has been 6+ months later
    • when i asked amazon about it they just tell me they didn’t get it back. I tell them i have the shipping confirmation receipt and that this is someone else’s problem and not mine.
    • there’s a lot of back and forth and eventually they act like they’re doing me a favor by giving me my money back

    I think the problem was one of the drop off locations we used was stealing products, or just straight up losing them. But it is insane to me that amazon comes back 6 months later. The only thing worse than buying a broken dildo on amazon is returning the broken dildo and still getting charged for it. Getting fucked by the broken dildo twice and not in the ways i had hoped!

    • 🐍🩶🐢@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I always take it to my UPS store down the road instead of boxing it up and sending it out. You don’t package the item up at all. They scan the barcode on my phone and take the item. Done, return processed. If they steal it afterwards, not my problem since the code was scanned and you get a notification/receipt. They have a lot of strange locations you can take it to, including random big box stores.

      • ResoluteCatnap@lemmy.ml
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        3 months ago

        That’s what we were doing. It can still happen. If the item isn’t received back by Amazon for some reason then they charge you for the product again, even if 6+ months later.

        • 🐍🩶🐢@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          That is some definite bullshit. I am both a software developer and a controls engineer. That stuff irritates me to no end, but I also understand how these systems can fail. They will always protect themselves over the user/customer, so thus we suffer. Hell, I used to do Amazon projects on the controls/industrial side. Amazon had their own software systems that they built/stole running things overall, so thankfully I didn’t have to deal with trying to make them happy on the software side too. I much prefer programming the machinery.

  • SnausagesinaBlanket@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I bought an electric start generator that stalled out after 20 minutes consistently, This unit can run all the essentials in my house whenever needed. I called and told the rep it runs great but all of a sudden it dies for no apparent reason.

    He gave me full credit for it and told me to keep it or donate it.

    I figured out the next day that is was my basement dehumidifier trying to turn on and the generator could not handle it.

    It was fine the entire time. It runs on propane or gas and has a clone of a Yamaha engine and is made by WEN.

    • TheObviousSolution@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      It probably depends on your account. If they don’t think you are trying to game their system and you are a deep pocket consumer, they probably won’t put up too much of a fight, they’d rather keep you hooked.

    • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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      3 months ago

      Prior to saying it was propane I thought it had a lithium battery. I think those are hard to accept as refunds due to shipping regulations, but maybe it’s similar.

  • TheObviousSolution@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    Wait, so you got charged a year later after returning it? They only issue refunds when it has been sent back, so they are charging you for their own inventory mismanagement, or worse.

    • reallykindasorta@slrpnk.netOP
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      3 months ago

      They often do the whole “we’ll refund immediately as a courtesy but you need to return it by x or you’ll be charged” thing— in this case for whatever (infuriating) reason they charged me even though it’s clear their own system (their chat bot) knew the item had been marked as received on their end. I dropped it off at a brick and mortar store too!

      • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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        3 months ago

        It’s possible this is yet another courtesy refund thingy and they think they don’t have it but they think the price of the item is not as important as making you happy as a customer.

      • 🐍🩶🐢@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Wtf. They must have screwed something up with a software update. Worst case you charge back, but that might get your account banned…

      • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Did it refund you after the chat?

        I feel like I had this happen as well but the chat bot was smart enough to be like “this dude spends a fuck ton on Amazon and this item was only $12, I’ll just mark it received and get dude the money back.”

        • reallykindasorta@slrpnk.netOP
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          3 months ago

          The bot did not refund me, I talked to a real person via the chat and they said the carrier team didn’t mark it received and that they would “disarm the retro charge” and refund me. We’ll see if it goes through.

  • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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    3 months ago

    Love how it takes them 3-5 business days to return the money they stole from you.

    We had to remove our credit card from our account because Amazon kept charging us for Prime and I would have to call them to get it cancelled and refunded (and wait 3-5 business days to get our money back).
    We were very careful when checking out that we didn’t have anything checked saying “sign me up for Prime”, even had it happen on a day where we did not place an order (and therefore weren’t on the site) for at least a week on either side of us “signing up for Prime.” Once we took the card off the account it stopped happening, so it wasn’t anything we were activating.

    It’s annoying to have to re-enter our card information if we want to order something, but less annoying than having to call them every month to cancel Prime again. And anything that increases the barrier to using Amazon is probably a good thing anyway.

    • hihellobyeoh@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I’m sorry, but I do want to point out, that even if they post the refund immediately, between their bank, and your bank, is generally why the 3-5 business days is in there, because they know there will be some delay between all of the involved parties.

    • s_s@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      3-5 business days is the time it takes your bank to return your money to you, per your cardholder agreement.

  • mentalNothing@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I dealt with something very similar recently and a call to support got it resolved. The chat bot… did not lol

  • DucktorZee@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    You were lucky enough to find the chatbot. I had this happen when I could not find any way at all to reach someone about this problem. Ended up eating the charge f*** Amazon

  • ArchRecord@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    Always demand a human support representative until it gives you the option to, then the actual human will usually manually process your refund if you complain about how the initial refund never happened.

    Bonus chance of success if you’re a Prime member and say you’re thinking about cancelling.

  • Tikiporch@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    At this point, you can no longer trust Amazon to process returns properly. I’ve had three expensive items stuck on Awaiting Return, despite tracking showing it’s been returned, and chat automatically processes the refund once I reach out. Frustrating …

  • robocall@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I cancelled my Amazon prime account last year. I’m so happy to not give them money, and realize I don’t need them.

    • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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      3 months ago

      Make sure you remove your credit card from the account, or check your statement each month to make sure they didn’t sign you back up.

  • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 months ago

    I USED to get amazing support from Amazon

    Example: GTX 980TI on sale for 600 instead of 800 so I grab it, but the order doesn’t appear in my history? A day later it suddenly does and I’m charged FULL PRICE. Reach out to them to be like “where’s my $200 off?” And they sent back “shit fam you rite, should be $400” and refunded me the difference

    Now: ordered some syrup pumps for coffee drink making, 4 pack (4 individual items sent in 1 box), one comes busted, ask for replacement on (1) item. Instead get auto-refund approved, a rude message saying “they’ll make an exception this time”, and the refund took 3 weeks

    • i_stole_ur_taco@lemmy.ca
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      3 months ago

      I don’t think companies understand that the words “we will make a one time exception for you as a courtesy” is the magic incantation to ensure that customer never returns.

      I got that from Staples last week because they did me a real solid by refunding my online order they cancelled instead of going to a store with ID and the invoice and original credit card. Who the fuck goes to a physical store to get a refund on an online order the company themselves cancelled?!

      • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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        3 months ago

        Who the fuck goes to a physical store to get a refund on an online order the company themselves cancelled?!

        I noticed many retailers making it uncomfortable to do any business besides buying from them.

        Now every time I buy I have to worry about returns being a pain… Not worth the risk unless I must have it

        Came full circle, capitalism