I ordered a jumper/pullover from Amazon a few weeks ago, and it was due to be delivered between 02/07 and 07/07. Come 07/07 they notified me with a revised delivery date of 10/07, and that if it hadn’t arrived by then, I should contact them for a refund.
Well, COB has well and truly arrived here in Aus for 10/07, and no delivery. Le sigh.
So, if I contact them in the morning, tell them my parcel didn’t arrive on 10/07, they refund me, and the parcel turns up either later on 11/07 or sometime next week, do I have to notify them that the parcel arrived (eventually) or do I get the product for free?
The same thing happened to me with an electronic grill/microwave. After waiting forever for it to arrive, I received a refund with a note saying that if the device still arrived, I would have to send it back. It actually arrived two weeks later and I sent it back unopened. The same thing happened with a book. I received the refund and later informed Amazon after the book finally arrived. They told me I could keep the book. However, the price was very low, so it was probably cheaper for them to give me the book than to process the return. I live in Europe, though, so I don’t know if Amazon has the same policies for all continents.
This matches my experience, except they didn’t give me a refund, they sent a new shipment. (I ordered a movie on disc; when it didn’t come by the promised date, or by the revised date, they assumed it was lost, and shipped again. Fast forward a month later, and I now have two copies.) I notified them accordingly, and they sent me a virtual hand-wave: just keep both, don’t worry about it.
So, whether or not they ask for the item back will depend on several factors, including its cost, the complexity of processing the return, the easy resellability of the item, and so on. But, yes, it’s absolutely a thing for Amazon to offer you a refund if they perceive the shipment never arrived.
However, be cautious. A lot of Amazon fulfillment is on behalf of third-party sellers, rather than by Amazon itself. If you are offered a refund but also receive the shipment, the money you get back could result in the external seller being dinged; it’s not necessarily “free stuff!” from a multi-billion dollar company that’s able to absorb the loss. So be thoughtful about how you take advantage of this kind of offer.
Ah, thanks for pointing that out. I didn’t think about the fact that the original seller could be disadvantaged. But how can you prevent that? Refuse the refund and demand a second shipment? Depending on what you buy, that can take a very long time. I waited over six weeks for my grill. Fortunately, this situation doesn’t happen very often.
It’s a hard question to answer, and there’s no one right approach for all situations, which is why I said “be thoughtful.” Typically, depending on the circumstances, I like to use the “contact seller” option in the order screen. I’ll explain the situation and ask if they have any better way of getting shipping status information. Or I’ll ask whether, in their experience, the assumed shipping time calculated by Amazon is reliable, or if I should wait a little longer. Basically, before I leap directly for the refund option, I give the seller an opportunity to help me and make things right on their own terms.
They are almost always responsive and willing to provide assistance. One seller, a while back (during the pandemic), shipped me a replacement item on their own, outside the Amazon system, trusting me to take no further official action, apparently to avoid whatever negatives would accrue on the internal dashboard.
If the seller is difficult or stubborn, then I don’t hesitate to accept Amazon’s remediation. But I give the seller a chance to figure out how to fix it first.
But aren’t the majority of those also “fulfilled by Amazon”, as in Amazon handles the shipping? If so, wouldn’t a lost package be on them, not the seller?