Go Ahead and Abuse Amazon’s Return Policy!
Amazon is the wild west of internet markets. A global titan of marketing and sales that has revolutionized the industry. However, unlike its namesake, Amazon is not here to provide us with breathable air. As with any corporation, Amazon is here to generate cold hard revenue. It doesn’t care if profit comes at the expense of the customer positive policies. Hence, despite years of record sales, stock price increases, and an insane amount of variables (quarantine, pandemic, etc.) working in its favor, it stopped offering post-purchase price adjustments.
What kind of anti-consumer nonsense is that? Seriously, Amazon’s owner is the richest man in the world. Someone who can decide he wants to go to space, start a company designed to achieve that goal, and still be the wealthiest man alive. Yet, we’re here watching as his company subtly “prioritizes” particular orders over others despite its 2-day Prime delivery promise. Holds the customer responsible for delivering their returns to a UPS or Kroger’s if the product is defective and does away with a policy that can save customers anywhere from a few dollars to a couple of tens. For that reason, I urge anyone here that if you notice a price discrepancy for the item you ordered, that you use your 30-day return policy to its full extent. Abuse the hell out of it; companies don’t care about you, so why should you care about them? Seriously, despite laws in the United States treating them as entities, corporations aren’t human. They can’t think or feel. But, you know who can? Jeff Bezos. As far as we know he’s not a reptilian overlord waiting to escape the boundaries of our planet Earth.
-Jeff Bezos Could Buy his Own Country and Still be richer than 80% of the United States population.
Amazon is in the business of making money for the investors and the people who work there. Primarily Jeff Bezos, who again I remind everyone is so rich he could afford to buy Ukraine since his net worth of $205,000,000,000 is enough to surpass their Gross Domestic Product of $153,800,000,000; and Amazon alone generates 236b annually. So what is stopping them from returning a few dollars to their customers? Even in-store credit would be sufficient since people aren’t that hard to appease.
So, what is the customer supposed to do if the item they just bought five minutes ago changes price? Return it, apparently, Amazon has a list of reasons for a return; find one that matches your specific needs and re-order the item at the lower price. Don’t even bother contacting support; they will tell you this same thing. Don’t believe me? Here is a picture of just that same scenario.
Yet, I requested a transcript of this conversation after mulling it over for some time, and the situation somehow became stranger. According to the second customer support representative, they are unable to email transcripts of that particular conversation. When pressed further on the topic, they claimed they used the wrong expression, but I can’t certify if they’re telling me the truth. All I can say is that I have my suspicions regarding the topic and leave it at that. Something that only brings us back to our only option available, the return policy.
-Amazon’s 30-Day return policy is meant to be used by the customer and is ripe for exploitation.
I urge you to take full advantage of it, abuse it, don’t hesitate to use the policy for a second! Customers shouldn’t have to be dealing with making a split-second decision for a product you needed for their job and miss out on savings. Amazon has a 30-day return policy that is waiting to be used to its full legal extent. This kind of situation is uncommon, so you’re not going to be penalized for buying an item days ago and noticing there was a price drop, ordering it at the new price, and returning the original purchase. As long as you’re not breaking the law, you’ll be fine. I’m not urging anyone here to commit anything illegal. Just know your rights as a customer and take full advantage of them. We have no control over the future, but we can control what happens right now.
It’s almost mind-boggling how corporations can remove policies that can leave a positive impression on the customer without regard to their feelings. Not every customer will ask for a small refund or some Amazon credit for future purchases; hell, most people will not look back on the price of an item they already own. Even a seven-day policy change would be a step in the right direction here, but no. Not even if you purchased something within five minutes will they refund you the price difference.
At this moment, you might be asking yourself what brought us here? Well, it’s simple, I bought a product on July 15 at 3 PM, I noticed a price change three days later and contacted customer support to see if there was anything they could do. Thankfully, it turns out there is something I could do, as the representative said in the first image of the chat, return the item. The company could have made it a simple, oh here’s a ten-dollar credit for your next purchase, but instead they made it difficult.
This is because they understand most people will not go through the trouble of returning an item once it’s purchased. But, I’m not most people. So if that’s what they told me to do, guess what? It’s exactly what I’m going to do, I live next to a UPS, the return will not cost me anything and I’m going to utilize every tool in my arsenal to get the best deal possible. It’s not wrong, I’m also not being rude to the representatives. What’s the worst they can do? Put me on a blacklist? Guess what, they told me to do this. You’re telling me that because I did what their employees said to do, I’m going to get in trouble? Hell no, and neither are you.
Do what you need to do people, you’re the customer here and Jeff Bezos is so rich that his entire family will never need to work a day in any life if they wanted. If wealthy people can exploit the tax code for their benefit, then customers should be able to exploit return policies when necessary. As long as you’re not committing fraud, there shouldn’t be any issues.