Dear all,
Over the past few months, many of you have written or responded to posts on Amazon Seller Central about about the money you have lost money to the Amazon returnless refund scam. Millions of pounds have been defrauded from Amazon marketplace sellers, as a consequence of criminal gangs taking advantage of Amazon's returnless refunds policy, with platforms including eBay and OnBuy being used to facilitate these crimes. Many of us have made Amazon, eBay and OnBuy aware of these crimes and many of us have shared significant amounts of data with these platforms, but Amazon, eBay and OnBuy have refused to take action. These criminal activities are growing in scale by the day and threatening the livelihoods of Amazon's marketplace sellers.
Many of those I have spoken with were aware that they were losing vast amounts of money to returnless refund fraud, but hadn't quite pieced together how the criminals were operating. Quick explanation: fraudsters are listing products on eBay/OnBuy/TikTok at unrealistically low prices, selling them to an unsuspecting customer. The criminal then dropships them to the customer by buying from you and changing the delivery address to the end customer. Using Amazon’s returnless refunds policy, the criminal then requests an instant refund, which is automatically granted, taking the money straight out of your account. We have been told by Amazon that the worst affected categories are Grocery, Pet Food and Baby Products, but its clearly happening elsewhere too.
So, I have involved a journalist (well respected national broadsheet newspaper) who is very keen to help and build a case to take to Amazon. She has said that the more people that contact her, the stronger her case will be. So this is a call to arms to all those affected – we need your help!!!
[Moderator Edit: removed personal solicitations]
Remember, you are not alone in this. There are huge numbers of us in exactly the same situation. By coming together we have a chance of forcing Amazon and the other platforms to do the right thing.