How I ordered a video light for $2500 on Amazon. Episode 1

Today I’d like to tell you a sad story about creating false expectations, killing a hope and sending wrong packages…

In April 2016, I and my wife decided to make a very special and expensive purchase for us— Canon EOS 5D Mark III camera.
I live in Europe and after checking prices here and there I came to a conclusion very quickly that it makes sense to order it on US Amazon and forward it to Europe using Shipito.
My attention was attracted by this nice bundle as it contained many things I’d like to buy anyway, costed the same price as the a camera only and it didn’t have negative reviews back then.
A couple of clicks followed and here we go — I’ve purchased $2500 thing on the internet for the first time in my life.

A week later the package was delivered to Shipito warehouse and I asked them to make content photos just to make sure…
Filled with thrill, excitement, and sweet anticipation I saw this:

It’s hard to explain your feelings when you had purchased something that expensive on Amazon, somebody else opened a box for you and you have been waiting for that moment on the other side of the Atlantic ocean only to realize that Amazon sent you a wrong package! I was simply speechless.

After recovering, 10 minutes later I’ve contacted Amazon support and here’s when the real hell started.
Now I’m gonna quote my chat conversations with different Amazon customer service representatives skipping irrelevant pieces.

Just settle back and enjoy :)

hello Alexander , my name is Yogesh. I’m here to help you today.
Me: Hi Yogesh
…
The content of the box is the following…
That’s not Canon 5d Mark iii bundle obviously, but rather Samsung NX500. Looks like you sent me a wrong bundle.
…
Could you clarify the following:
How soon can you ship the right Canon 5d Mark iii bundle I mentioned above and what’s gonna be the period of delivery?
Based on that I’ll make a decision if I want to wait for it or ask a refund.
Yogesh: Yes, I’ll check this for you.
…
Yogesh: Upon checking into your account, you can return us the item and we’ll process with the refund of this item once it gets back to us.
Me: Is a refund the only option? You can’t send me the right package?
Yogesh: I’ve checked your order and see the item was ordered from a seller on our website. Because seller inventory is constantly changing, we can’t replace items sold by them that are fulfilled by Amazon.
Would you like me to proceed so that I’ll help you with the return label?
Me: yes
…
Me: thx. how long will it take for you to refund after you receive a package?
Yogesh: It’ll take 3–5 business days to reflect into your original payment method.
Would there be anything else I may help you with?
…
Me: yes, but how long will it take to go from Tualatin to Las Vegas as I see on a return label?
Yogesh: It’ll take 5–7 business days.
Me: so the whole thing will take 2 weeks — great, just great :(
it’s $2500, I can’t just buy another camera in the meantime
Yogesh: As it’ freight forward address so it takes some time to process.
…
Me: OK. looks like we’re done. I’m totally disappointed. Amazon did a mistake sending me a wrong package for $2500 and now the only thing I can do is just waiting for 2 weeks for a refund
Yogesh: I understand your concern Alexander, however we can help you once the item returns to us.
Me: frankly speaking it’s not a help — you’ll just return my money 2 weeks later moving a wrong package all across western US
OK, may I speak to your manager?

You are now connected to Josh from Amazon.com
Josh: Hi this is Josh, one of the account supervisor.. how can i help?
Me: hi Josh
have Yogesh explained you my situation?
…
Josh: I apologized for the inconvenience Alexander, actually I’ve checked your order and it was sold by RitzCamera which is one of our seller and we dont have the inventory of that on our FC to send out a replacement.. So the option is to just return it back for a full refund, you can actually request an advance refund online while processing your returns, for credit card it will take 3–5 business days to process
however..
if you needed the funds to reorder, you can actually chose the option to be refunded as gift card on your account which will be available within 2–3 hours..
Me: do you mean you won’t wait until a package will arrive back to you to make a refund?
…
Josh: That’s actually correct, but my apologies Alexander i have not known that it was sent to a freight forwarder.. In that case.. these option will not work..
Me: so just because I’ve ordered the package to a freight forwarder I have to wait for 2 weeks to have the funds back? don’t you think it’s totally unfair especially taking into account Amazon did a mistake, not me, not a freight forwarder
Josh: If you have an extra funds to use, you can try reordering similar items to what you originally order and we will just refund any price difference as long as it was fulfillment by amazon, we can also provide you upgraded shipping at no cost..
….
Me: that’s clear to me. what’s not clear is why I should wait for 2 weeks for a refund when not me, but rather a freight forwarder is sending a package back to you?
it’s obvious I wanted a camera, and not return&refund 2 weeks procedure because Amazon sent me a wrong package
Josh: actually with regard to the return process,, normally it takes 2 weeks but it depends on how soon we received the package back in our FC and be scanned for returns..
I’m so sorry Alexander, but we can’t offer any additional insight or action on this matter.
Is there anything else I can help you with?
Me: I don’t know, looks like no. When I started this conversation I was hoping you’ll offer a solution avoiding a refund and without spending another $2500 from my credit card
can you make a refund the day a package will go to your facility?
I’ll provide you with a tracking of course
Josh: That’s actually possible, if in case we see movement with the return tracking you can actually call us or email us to request a refund.
Anything else?
Me: Is there a way I can contact you directly when this happen?
Josh: I dont have a direct contact info, but rest assured that this is documented for reference.
…
Me: ok, thx. one last question — will you be able to refund in a gift card form when you see a movement with the return tracking? to avoid waiting another 3–5 days while a bank will process the transaction
Josh: yes just let them know you prefer to be refunded as gc

As you can see these guys didn’t help much. The only positive outcome was they agreed to refund when they see a movement of the package on the way back to them.

2 days later Shipito sent the package back and I contacted Amazon once again:

Merlyn(Amazon): Hello, my name is Merlyn. I’ll try my best to help you today.
…
Me: that was a long conversation, but the bottom line is Amazon sent me a wrong package, I sent it back and now I’d like to request a refund
…
Me: OK. also I asked him if Amazon can make a refund the day a package will go to your facility. He told me:
…
Merlyn: I have checked and see that the item cost is more so I have raised a ticket.
Merlyn: You will be receiving the refund confirmation in 5 business days.
Please rest assured.
…
Me: could you explain why a refund gift card will come in 5 business days? Josh told me it’s 2–3 hours.
Merlyn: Yes, I can explain you.
Merlyn: As I have told that the item value is more and I have raised a ticket in regards to it.
…
Merlyn: I really wish I have an option to issue the refund to you right now.
As the ticket has been raised, it will take 5 business days to get this fixed.
Me: What you’re saying is different from what Josh promised me. May I speak to your manager?
…
Merlyn: Not because the price has increased because the order total is higher value, i have to raise a ticket.
I’m so sorry, but we can’t offer any additional insight or action on this matter.
Merlyn: Even my manager will not be able to help you in this regards. Would you still want me to transfer the chat?
…
Dumpa Aravind(Amazon): Hello, my name is Aravind. I’m a member of the leadership team here at Amazon.com. I’ll be happy to help you today.
…
Dumpa Aravind: Thank you for patiently waiting on the line Alexander, my sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused. The reason why you were requested to wait for 5 business days is because the cost of the item is greater than the refund limit if the agent. In such cases, we submit a TT so that one of our senior managers will issue refund on the same.
Dumpa Aravind: Generally it should take only 2–4 hours for the GC to be added to your account, but some times due to tech issues there might be delay. So, we provide an expectation of 1–2 business days
Me: I sent a package back hoping that you will keep your promises, but now I see new turns which weren’t mentioned before.
Me: Can you speed up the process of senior managers approval?
Dumpa Aravind: My sincere apologies that these were not mentioned before. Regarding the price match that you have requested, since it is an item that is sold by seller we won’t be able to issue price match. However, I can issue a promotional credit of $30.00 that you can use on items sold and fulfilled by amazon.
Me: I paid Amazon $2500 and now I’m only waiting for approvals, tickets resolutions and all of that…
Dumpa Aravind: Generally if the refund is issued from our FC, no approval is needed since it is an automated process. Since the refund is being issued manually, we need to approval
And for the FC to issue refund, package needs to be delivered to FC(fulfillment center)
…
Dumpa Aravind: Since it is item sold by a seller, we won’t be able to issue price match. But in this case we’re making an exception and issuing $30.00 promotional credit as an one time exception. Also kindly note that promotional credit can only be used on orders sold and fulfilled by amazon
…
Me: Is there a way for me to be sure you’ll send me the right package next time? Did Amazon raise an investigation why I received a wrong one or something?
Dumpa Aravind: Be assured, you will get the right package Alexander. It is a very rare case that a wrong product might be shipped to a customer.
Dumpa Aravind: I’ve successfully added $30.00 promotional credit to your amazon.com account
…
Me: OK, thx for an explanation. I hope you’ll be able to speed the approval process. I’m so tired with all that back and forth already…
Dumpa Aravind: Sure, be assured the refund will be processed at the earliest
You’re welcome. Is there anything else I can help you with today?
Me: OK, the bottom line of our conversation. You’ve raised a ticket to refund me $2,513.63 as a GC. Your senior managers team member will approve it within 1–3 days and I’ll be able to reorder the same item. You guarantee you’ll send a right package with all necessary checks. Can you confirm that?
Dumpa Aravind: Yes Alexander, I can confirm you that

Alright, in this chapter we found out Amazon doesn’t keep its promises given in a written form — they won’t refund me anything until they get some ticket approved that was raised just now.

2 days later I contacted them once again:

Me: Hi Shubham
Shubham(Amazon): Hello Alexander , my name is Shubham. I’m here to help you today.
Me: I had a long conversation with Dumpa Aravind, a member of your leadership team, on Wednesday regarding a package return.
May I speak to him again?
Shubham: I am sorry but we do not have the option to connect to the same Person again as it is a automated process.
I will help you with it.
…
Shubham: I have read the complete conversation Alexander .
We have sent you a wrong item .
You have returned it .
We will issue a refund in Gift card.
Shubham: Is this correct.
Me: Correct. Also you raised a ticket to approve a refund as it’s higher value refund of $2500. Aravind told me the approval will be received within 1–3 days. It’s 3rd day since he told me that on Wednesday at 5am and I didn’t get any updates from Amazon.
Me: Also:
> Dumpa Aravind: Sure, be assured the refund will be processed at the earliest
My question — was a refund approved?
Shubham: Sure,We can only issue a refund once we receive the item in our warehouse.
Here is a tracking…
It is still not delivered at our warehouse yet.
Me: In general yes, but in my case I was promised you won’t wait until a package delivery. Your another supervisor Josh told me the following:
> Josh: That’s actually possible, if in case we see movement with the return tracking you can actually call us or email us to request a refund.
…
Shubham: A member of our specialist team will be the perfect person to help you with this. Let me connect you to a member of our specialist team. It will only take a moment.
…
Me: Hi LeaAnn
LeaAnn(Amazon): Hello Alexander
Let me check on this for you .
LeaAnn: I see the tracking says it will be delivered today to our return center.
Me: Yes. I was discussing that twice with Josh and Dumpa Aravind and was told Amazon is able to refund before you receive the package.
Me: You can check the logs
…
LeaAnn: Looks like they have a ticket on this refund for you and will be refunding it to a gift cad.
Me: Yes, we’ve discussed that multiple times already. Merlyn raised a ticket on Wednesday to approve a refund. Was it resolved?
LeaAnn: you should see this refund in 1–2 days
LeaAnn: I’m so sorry Alexander, but we can’t offer any additional insight or action on this matter.
Me: I still didn’t get — was a ticket raised by Merlyn on Wednesday at 5am resolved?
Me: Aravind told me it should be approved within 1–3 days. Was it approved?
LeaAnn: You will just need to wait until it is issued to you. They told you it would take 1–2 days. Please be patient.
Have a good day Alexander.
LeaAnn: I will need to close this chat now
Me: May I speak to your manager?
…
Amy H.(Amazon): Hello, my name is Amy H. I am a member of Amazon’s Leadership team. Please give me a minute to review the previous correspondence. Thank you.
Me: Hi Amy, sure
Amy H.: Thank you for your patience while I reviewed the previous chat and the the account. No, a refund has not been approved at this point because we have not received the item back. Once we have received it back then they will review the refund request
Me: Josh and Aravind told me a different thing.
Amy H.: Until then, the only response would be a denial of the refund because we don’t have the item back. The fact that the offered you to return it when it was delivered to a freight forwarder is outside of policy to begin with. We cannot make further exceptions to refund it before we have recieved it back
Amy H.: I will absolutely be reaching out to their leadership regarding that information
…
Me: 2 members of the leadership team are telling me one thing, you’re telling me the other. It’s extremely non customer-oriented. Amazon sent me a wrong package, I had paid $2500 for. I’m waiting for a week already and now you’re telling me I have to wait more
Amy H.: I do understand your frustration, as I said though, we made an exception to policy by allowing you to return the item since it was delivered to a freight forwarder. I will absolutely reach out to their management regarding the information they gave you, but Unfortunately, until we receive the return, we will not be able to review the refund request.
…
Amy H.: I’m sorry Alexander, but we can’t offer any additional insight or action on this matter.
Is there anything else I can help you with?
…
Since there is nothing else that I can assist you with today I will need to disconnect this chat. I do hope that you have a good day.

That’s what I’m talking about, here’re the real customer service professionals.
LeaAnn and Amy H you should ask for a promotion and your holiday quota extension, employees of the month!

At this point, we have already known Amazon customer service representatives are promising you conflicting things, not responsible for what their colleagues said 2 days ago and usually “can’t offer any additional insight or action on this matter”. Also, you never have a chance to talk to the same person twice which is another very “customer-oriented” feature of a communication process.

10 minutes later I was lucky enough to have a chat with a nice guy Raphael:

Raphael(Amazon): Hello, my name is Raphael. I’m here to help you today.
Me: Hi Raphael
…
Me: could you tell me if a ticket that was raised to approve a refund to me was resolved?
Me: it was raised by Merlyn
Raphael: Sure.
…
Me: what’s important I’d like to have a refund as a gift card to avoid waiting for banks. Is it reflected in a ticket?
Raphael: Yeah, they can see this information.
Raphael: Alexander, we do see the ticket has the information to refund the money to the gift card balance.
That won’t be a problem.
The ticket was already assigned to a manager, as soon as this is resolved you will be notified via email.
…
Raphael: Yeah, I saw the previous chat. But being 100% honest it now depends on the manager that has the ticket.
1–3 business days is really the regular time we are recommended to wait for this.
I would recommend we wait just a little longer so they can check on this a approve the refund.
…
Raphael: I completely understand, it’s a lot of money.
As soon as this gets done we will let you know.
…
Me: OK, clear. looks like the process is simple — a manager will resolve the ticket (hopefully today) and I receive an email a GC $2500 worth is issued for me
correct?
Raphael: Exactly.
That’s what the previous supervisor promised.
And the ticket was submitted for this exact amount.
…
I do apologize for this problem. I believe the value of the item delayed the regular refund process.
The ticket already has the highest priority since it’s handled by an operations manager now.
We really can’t escalate the issue further than this.
…
Me: Are you absolutely sure returns center won’t start a refund process to my credit card after they received a package today? I really don’t want that, because I don’t wanna wait for a bank to process the transaction.
Raphael: Yeah, this won’t happen since the refunds amount is too high and the order has the information about the ticket on it.

The next day Amazon return center had finally received the package back and I got an email:

That’s right guys — they issued a refund to my credit card, even though I asked multiple times not to do so (to avoid waiting for banks to process the transaction and to avoid losing money on a double currency exchange as I paid by EUR credit card).

Looks like it became a bad habit for me, so I started another chat:

Kimoni(Amazon): Thank you for contacting Amazon.com
…
Me: Amazon sent me a wrong package and I sent it back.
It was higher value $2500 order. There was a ticket created by your representative to approve this refund (you can check the logs).
I asked multiple times to make a refund as a GC to avoid waiting banks to process the transaction
Me: I was told my GC desire is explicitly reflected in a ticket. But Amazon sent a refund to my credit card anyway
Me: I already received the refund 2 hours ago
Kimoni: I do understand and I’m truly sorry about this. Being that the refund has already been issued to your credit card what I’ll have to do is send the information over to our billing team so that they can recharge you and I’ll follow up with you. Once the recharge has been done I’ll have my lead send a request for the refund to be issued to your amazon gift card.
Me: I think the request to billing team was already sent. I received an email 2 hours ago:

Hello Alexander,

I’m so sorry for the frustration you have experienced trying to get your refund placed on an Amazon gift card, instead of your credit card.

I can confirm that the information has been sent to the correct department, so they will be looking into this situation. I will do everything I can to honor the promise that was made to you by a supervisor.

I appreciate your patience while I work on is for you.

Best regards,
Dawn B

Kimoni: Okay I do understand. In that case what I’ll do is follow up with you and monitor this so that the refund can be issued to your gift card.
Me: I’n not sure what the Dawn’s plan is taking into account I’ve already received a refund already
Is there any way to talk to him?
Kimoni: The refund has been issued to your original payment method and being that you said that you want the refund to be issued to your amazon gift card that is what they will change.
Kimoni: I’m truly sorry as there isn’t away to have you transferred directly to a member of the billing team.

After that I decided to switch from chat to emails and wrote Dawn this:

Hi Dawn,

Thank you for getting back to me.

I have an update — I’ve received a refund to my credit card 2 hours ago.
I asked Amazon not do this multiple times. Your representative assured me it’s gonna be a GC refund (you can check chat logs). But it’s happened anyway.

Here’s the refund transaction:
Credit $ 2500 = € …

Here’s the original transaction I paid:
Debit $ 2500 = € …

As you can see you refunded me about € 25 less than I paid because of exchange rates.

Could you clarify what’s gonna happen next? You will recharge me again? I don’t think I want that.
IMO it’s gonna be easier if you just issue €25 = $28 GC for me in this situation and that’s it.

What do you think?

I must say Amazon issued $28 gift card refund that day just like I asked them.

So what we have:

• I’ve ordered $2500 camera in the middle of April, Amazon sent me a wrong package, I sent it back.
• After multiple Amazon guys’ falsу promises and lies I got my money back in full amount at the end of April.
• Still no camera :(

I assume you’ve already tired of reading this shit, but that was only Episode 1!
Here’s what happened next…