A flea on the butt of the multinational megacorp - Amazon!

 

I have discovered a new way to kill someone.

Try getting a refund from Amazon for a partial shipment that never arrived. Make that two partial shipments that never arrived.

Amazon owes me $613.47 and they refuse to refund my money. It’s a devious, untraceable way to kill a person.

My blood pressure and pulse rate soar every time I open another unhelpful email from their “customer service representatives.” Amazon is trying to kill me by proxy.

The trouble started in early September when I decided I would participate in several holiday gift markets, I enthusiastically ordered a total of 655 copies of my 10 mystery novels.

For my Canadian murder mysteries, Death in the Vineyards, I ordered 250 copies of CORKED. 200 copies of SMASHED. 150 copies of CRUSHED. These were given three separate order numbers on my Amazon account. (You’ll understand later in this article why this is important.)

For my Mexican murder mysteries, Isla Mujeres Mysteries, I ordered just 55 copies of the seven books because my Canadian fans prefer the Canadian series. These 55 books were given another order number on my Amazon account.

The boxes started arriving on September 25^th. Lots of boxes. Many boxes.

My books weigh about one pound, or 455 grams which is about half a kilo. No sane person would ship an order that weighs 250 pounds in one box. Which means that the orders arrived in 22 packages. Some boxes contained 43 books, others 39, or 16, and oddly a few arrived in separate padded envelopes containing just one book.

And now the trouble began.

A box of 39 copies of CORKED was posted on my account as ‘Undeliverable.’

Then a box of 43 copies of SMASHED met the same fate. ‘Undeliverable.’

There was no explanation from the delivery company why the boxes were undeliverable. All of the other packages arrived safely from the same printing company to my address.

Checking my Amazon account the message said to wait a few days to claim for the missing merchandise. On October 10^th I tried to do a ‘request for refund’ on my account but discovered I couldn’t because I didn’t have anything to return.

So, I called the Customer Service line, and the real fun began.

My first conversation included an interesting bit of advice: “You have to return the entire shipment if you want a refund for part of the shipment.”

So, that means that I have to find the people that I have already sold books to, refund their money, then package up all of the books, and send them back to Amazon, who will then send them back to the printer. Then I have to re-order the books from Amazon, and hope that nothing goes astray this time.

Wow! That is an amazing Amazonian solution. (Not!)

Earlier in this article I said, you'd understand later in the article why the three separate order numbers were important.

And here is the reason: When a Customer Service Representative receives a request for a refund, the Order Number and the Total Invoice must match. There is no accommodation for multiple invoices for one order number. Crazy but true.

Amazon does not know how to process a partial refund.

I have been in contact with Amazon via phone calls or emails every single day from October 10^th until today. Every single communication said, “I was unable to find the order you have issues with so I would request you to provide the following details for better assistance.”

Recently I found the email addresses for several of the top Amazon executives and tried sending them a letter begging for assistance. And guess what? They referred me back to the Customer Service Representatives, and their computer-generated form letters.

I have several times sent detailed letters with attached supporting documents printed from my Amazon account showing the four original orders, and the various separate invoices listing the contents of each box.

No joy there. I still get the standard computer general replies, “I was unable to find the order you have issues with so I would request you to provide the following details for better assistance.”

So, now I am wondering.

Does anyone in this multinational megacorp actually read letters from their customers?

Does anyone know how to compose a letter without the assistance of AI bots?

Does any of the upper management know how to solve a simple problem that is outside the parameters of their accounting system?

I will persist...if they don’t kill me first.

Cheers, 

Lynda