Taking a scamming buyer to court
Can anyone with more experience of the inner workings of Amazon help me write a response to this?
In total, this creep has done it six times and I just want him to stop, hence me starting a money claim online.
I sent him a ‘letter before action’ with an invoice for £205.50 and then started proceedings which he is defending and so it means a court appearance is likely.
To me, it seems glaringly obvious that he’s guilty because people don’t buy a defective product and then go on to purchase/return five more times - not unless they are scammers abusing the Amazon system.
This is my claim: This person has repeatedly purchased my food supplement capsules (brown in colour) from Amazon, emptied the packet and replaced the contents with another type of supplement that sometimes is white in colour and other times yellow.
He then returns them to Amazon claiming my product is of inferior quality and claims a refund.
Because Amazon stores and despatches these products they refund him but still charge me
for their services, so I lose the product, pay fees on it and this dishonest customer gets a free product.
So I am claiming the cost of the six products he has fraudulently obtained.
I have submitted a report to Action Fraud and Amazon’s buyer violations dept.
I have photographic and video evidence.
His defence: I deny the claimant’s accusation absolutely. In all cases my returns were genuine, well within my rights as a consumer and well within Amazon’s returns policy.
Amazon inspects all returns and would have rejected mine if there was an issue but that has never been the case.
Amazon would have compensated the claimant for them wrongfully accepting the returns if they weren’t genuine.
Any issue from the point the returned items reached Amazon to them reaching the claimant is not my responsibility, financially or otherwise.
I fulfilled my part of the transaction by returning them to Amazon as instructed and within Amazon’s policies.
I contacted Amazon regarding this complaint and they confirmed this for me.
The accusation of ‘emptying the packet and replacing the contents’ could be placed on anyone down the chain of return; the couriers, Amazon employees or even the claimant themselves.
The accusation without definitive evidence that it was definitely me who ‘replaced the contents’ and I deny it outright. I should not be made to pay for the items as they are not in my possession. They were returned to Amazon and accepted on their end without issue.
Taking a scamming buyer to court
Can anyone with more experience of the inner workings of Amazon help me write a response to this?
In total, this creep has done it six times and I just want him to stop, hence me starting a money claim online.
I sent him a ‘letter before action’ with an invoice for £205.50 and then started proceedings which he is defending and so it means a court appearance is likely.
To me, it seems glaringly obvious that he’s guilty because people don’t buy a defective product and then go on to purchase/return five more times - not unless they are scammers abusing the Amazon system.
This is my claim: This person has repeatedly purchased my food supplement capsules (brown in colour) from Amazon, emptied the packet and replaced the contents with another type of supplement that sometimes is white in colour and other times yellow.
He then returns them to Amazon claiming my product is of inferior quality and claims a refund.
Because Amazon stores and despatches these products they refund him but still charge me
for their services, so I lose the product, pay fees on it and this dishonest customer gets a free product.
So I am claiming the cost of the six products he has fraudulently obtained.
I have submitted a report to Action Fraud and Amazon’s buyer violations dept.
I have photographic and video evidence.
His defence: I deny the claimant’s accusation absolutely. In all cases my returns were genuine, well within my rights as a consumer and well within Amazon’s returns policy.
Amazon inspects all returns and would have rejected mine if there was an issue but that has never been the case.
Amazon would have compensated the claimant for them wrongfully accepting the returns if they weren’t genuine.
Any issue from the point the returned items reached Amazon to them reaching the claimant is not my responsibility, financially or otherwise.
I fulfilled my part of the transaction by returning them to Amazon as instructed and within Amazon’s policies.
I contacted Amazon regarding this complaint and they confirmed this for me.
The accusation of ‘emptying the packet and replacing the contents’ could be placed on anyone down the chain of return; the couriers, Amazon employees or even the claimant themselves.
The accusation without definitive evidence that it was definitely me who ‘replaced the contents’ and I deny it outright. I should not be made to pay for the items as they are not in my possession. They were returned to Amazon and accepted on their end without issue.
Seller_OQMZRzsGjsU7M
If I may suggest, for this instance, these supplements product should be classed as Non-returnable products. Because according to amazons return policy, product of this categories such as Medicines, Health and safety or sealed products should be classed as Non-Returnable Items.
You should have this noted in your Legal disclosure Documents when listing on amazon. However, Amazon should also have a standard Legal disclosure agreement for products in this category.
If you do have evidence of the Customer breaking the seals of this supplement before returns then, that should be where your case should begin. However, in the buyers defence, He would claim his Statutory Rights which means this should fall back to the staffs at Amazon Fulfilment Centre not following to the right return procedures for products in this Categories.
Amazon is supposed to reimburse you for the damages in returns caused by the Buyer as long as the buyer has broken the seals, the product should be classed as damaged by Customer and Unfulfillable. So in actual fact, you should be making a case against amazon because they owe you in damages.
Please see Amazons Policy ( Section 21 - 2: right of cancellation up to 14 days, exceptions to cancellation and our voluntary returns guarantee ) : https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201909000
0 replies
Seller_Dju0fEUswgj6t
I looks to me that this guys knows very well how Amazon works…
Seller_KQwXr5kY5oIPO
I think you will have a very hard time in court proving that he has replaced the items without direct evidence. Personally, we would just start cancelling his orders everytime he tries again to purchase. We dont sell in that category but wouldnt a consumable tablet have a seal on the packet that if broken make the item invalid for return anyway?
Seller_FvPdaQ2KTpRfK
I gather the item is FBA - do you co-mingle stock - could that in fact be the issue?
Seller_sFEUMUfeW5484
I feel your pain, however the issue you have is proving it was the buyer. It could easily have been any number of Amazon employees.
Seller_19xPhE8YgkmxW
(message withdrawn due to incompetence)
Seller_5iXIFMdaFkFpG
Same is happening to us - or customer claims empty box has been delivered. Both can be done by anybody from Amazon warehouse to delivery courier. We will monitor situation, If it will get worse, we will start to apply tamper-proof labels on products. Once sticker removed - item will be considered as non-refundable as it is also classed as food supplement - potential health hazard for once opened and put back for sale by Amazon. Regardless Amazons generous-customer focused return policy. If needed we will start to collect fingerprints from all returned items to protect our business! eBay is much seller friendly - you have to offer returns, but your actual funds will be released to buyer only if you confirm return arrived back to you and its all ok nothing dodgy.
Regarding your items, I presume all actual capsules are sealed so how once opened can be returned back to inventory by Amazon?-well because their return inspection is close to none. We can confirm we have managed to send items in the past with wrong barcodes to FBA by error and still it has been added to inventory! Not to mention Amazon then re-sell replaced capsules with god knows what sustance! good luck. Definitely claim or report as crime to police and get crime report number - this will make Amazon and customer take action. There are many ways how you can win this you just need to know your tools to use.
Seller_NoMNQDGnEW5Bx
Is there a pattern to the ordering, like every month if its a month supply?
Seller_5iXIFMdaFkFpG
Is this being sold FBA or FBS? You mentioned seller returned them to Amazon where they accept it without issue and so then they send it to you? In that case you dont have proof - it might be manipulated with even on the way to you from Amazon. But I’m not saying it’s not buyer doing it. Amazons return inspection is very poor. I recommend to report buying pattern of particular buyer to Amazon. Customer has right to return item, however if you will flag often returns to Amazon it might change something. Good luck. Anyway Amazon is no longer place to sell valuable items due to scamming friendly Amazon policy. We sell items where our supplier buying price is around £4.00 so even if 10 orders will get returned and defective it’s not a big loss.
Seller_7VbclcPFFRTnc
Don’t know for sure but if you get then returned to amazon instead of you and they find they are unsaleable, they may refund you
Seller_tUPQGWW6MJ7dA
Ok, I don’t normally reply to these, but it kinda ground my gears, the way the guy replied, really did ring alarm bells for me. Some of this maybe babble, but its how I’d go about dissecting the issue.
- “Amazon inspects all returns and would have rejected mine if there was an issue but that has never been the case.”
Amazons policy is to accept a customer return for the reason the customer chooses to make a return, eg, if the buyer chooses faulty, Amazon accept the return as a faulty product. The product you sold was not in a category that would be rejected for return by Amazon? The Consumer Rights Act 2015, states that goods should be as described on the website im which they are purchased. Your product is a consumable product. As they purchased the item 6 times, and returned 6 times, is highly suspicious. If indeed you were selling a product that was not as described, but would a buyer after purchasing the product 3 times, and getting 3 faulty products, purchase a further 3 times, a total of 6 times. Can you contact your supplier/manufacturer and get them to write a letter on letterhead paper to describe what colour the product should be and send images? do you also have any of the same batch, that you can open on video, showing the colour? Is it possible you can send the product off to get tested to confirm it is not your product?
- “The accusation of ‘emptying the packet and replacing the contents’ could be placed on anyone down the chain of return; the couriers, Amazon employees or even the claimant themselves.”
Can you check to see which FBA centre received the return and/or which sent the item to the customer? if they are all different, then surely this will discount a rogue amazon employee tampering with the package. Highly unlikely that all his orders with you were tampered on 6 occasions if they are all from different fulfilment centres. I know it may be that they were all shipped from the closest one to the customer, but might help?
When you sent the product to the FBA centre, were any issues highlighted by Amazon, damaged packaging etc?
- Any issue from the point the returned items reached Amazon to them reaching the claimant is not my responsibility, financially or otherwise.
Well this is not true, if you believe the buyer has defrauded you, then it is their responsibility. I mean if you murder somebody, and put the body in a bin, its not then the rubbishman/woman (21st century) that is done for murder. If the guys has indeed used the product, and sent you back an inferior product, then he has tried to steal from you.
- “I fulfilled my part of the transaction by returning them to Amazon as instructed and within Amazon’s policies.”
His part of the transaction was to return the product that he received, if this return only happened once, then you would accept that maybe the product was wrong. As the buyer purchased the same product 6 times, and made 6 returns, then it is more likely that the buyer is swapping out the powder.
- The accusation without definitive evidence that it was definitely me who ‘replaced the contents’ and I deny it outright. I should not be made to pay for the items as they are not in my possession. They were returned to Amazon and accepted on their end without issue.
To this point, you claim that he has used the product, therefore, the item is still in the buyers possession. the buyer did return an item to Amazon, amazon do not reject returns. Maybe try find evidence that people have received different returns to items sold to a customer, plenty on this site, try to get some evidence together, to show that amazon do not screen returns.
Are there any other customer complaints on the product?
Also, did you take a video of you opening the return?
