Amazon oops!

June 30, 2007 7:53 AM

Help me with my Amazon refund snafu!

I ordered a used book from an Amazon seller way back in May. As of late June, I hadn't received my book, and the seller hadn't responded to my attempts to contact him, so I filed an Amazon A-to-z claim. Apparently compelled into action by Amazon's notification of my claim, the seller contacted me (through a strange email sent by a third party), asking for my address, which I sent to him.
At this point, I made the mistake of not contacting Amazon to suspend my claim--assuming that the guy was simply stalling for time--and today both the book and the refund arrived. How do I make this right? I assume Amazon performed some sort of chargeback, so now the seller is without both my book and his money.

posted by pullayup to Writing & Language (7 answers total)

Response by poster: "Writing & language" was a mistake, but it's kind of funny now that I'm looking at it.
posted by pullayup at 8:00 AM on June 30, 2007

Best answer: When you filed your A-z claim, you received an email that contained a line that said this:

[ ] I would like to withdraw my A-to-z Guarantee claim for Order #104-026XXXXX-XXXXXX . If this A-to-z Guarantee claim has already been reimbursed to my credit card associated with this transaction, I authorize Amazon.com to recharge my credit card.

Find that email and reply to it putting an X in the brackets. Problem solved.

If you can't find the email, go to the order page on Amazon for the item in question. There will be a "Problem with this order" button on that page. Click that, then click the "Contact Amazon.com" button. Use that form to explain your situation.
posted by dmd at 8:01 AM on June 30, 2007

i had something similar happen with half.com ... though it wasn't as long as yours. despite the fact that i hadn't even asked for a refund, they refunded my money anyway ... right around the time the cd i ordered showed up. when i called customer support to tell them that i was happy, and that i didn't want the refund, they said they wouldn't take it back. the seller never responded to my emails.
posted by lester at 8:03 AM on June 30, 2007

Response by poster: That email must have met its end in my spamfilter; I can't locate it. I sent a note to Amazon with their "Problem with this order" form when I posted this question, but wasn't sure if that was the best way to make contact. Thanks!
posted by pullayup at 8:11 AM on June 30, 2007

I had the same thing happen. Amazon wouldn't recharge and the seller told me to keep the book, that they were sorry it was late & it wasn't a high priced item so they weren't that worried about losing money on it.
posted by miss lynnster at 9:19 AM on June 30, 2007

I just want to say that it is refreshing to read a question from someone wanting to do the right thing. Seems like there has been a lot of greed oriented questions lately and this just makes me happy.
posted by FlamingBore at 9:56 AM on June 30, 2007 [2 favorites]

A similar thing happened to me with an ebay purchase. If Amazon doesn't have a way for you to easily cancel your claim, write to the seller: "Thanks you so much for straightening out the snafu. You probably know that I filed a claim, and now I would like to cancel it. If you can tell me how to do that, I'll take care of it right away" The seller may have Amazon policy info that haven't seen; besides, it was their error, and they're the ones that would benefit from cancellation of the claim -- it makes sense for them to make the effort.
posted by wryly at 2:16 PM on June 30, 2007