Amazon - Share the Fraud?
 

I recently had an experience at Amazon that I never expected from this store. I placed an order using a combination of a non-promotional gift certificate, a promotional discount, and a Share the Love promotional discount. When the order shipped, the gift certificates and promotional discounts were not applied, leaving me with just the 10 percent "Share the Love" discount. My credit card was then overcharged (without my permission) nearly $30.

Figuring this to be just a software glitch, I emailed customer service and received this response:

"Thank you for writing to us at Amazon.com.


I'm sorry, but we allow customers to redeem only one promotional
certificate per purchase. In addition, some offers allow the use
of only one certificate per promotion. Restrictions may vary, so
we recommend reading the "fine print" or visiting the link included
on your promotional certificate for the specific restrictions
associated with that offer.


I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. However, please
know that our promotional certificates are transferable. Perhaps you
know of a friend or neighbor who might appreciate one.


Thank you again for shopping at Amazon.com.



Best regards,


Heather McFann"

I am simply dumbfounded. What I thought at first to be a simple error, or a software glitch, turns out now to be an intentional overcharging of my credit card. Frankly, confirming one price and then charging another without the cardholder's permission is credit card fraud. I never expected this kind of activity at Amazon. If it is willing to resort to fraud to get its money, perhaps the store is hurting more than we know.

You may want to call their CS and speak to an Order Specialist. I found their email response is more canned than anything else, and often does not address the original email sent to them, which leads me to believe they either don't understand the original message or simply don't bother to read it fully.

In one occasion it took me like 4 emails before they started to make sense with their responses and before writing more email I simply called in and the order specialist took care of the problem.

Combining a promotional GC, a regular GC and the STL seems legitimate. I would give them a call.

You may want to waste 3 hours on hold to talk to an order specialist. Ask for their manager and then waste another bunch of time getting frustrated as they repeatedly say sorry and give you a plethora of excuses. It's a lot of fun. Try it.

Yeah, I think I'll pass on that wonderful experience. :)

It was legitimate. But the real point is, they took my order, confirmed a price, then shipped and charged me $30 more than they agreed to charge, without even asking. Regardless of whether my discounts were legitimate, they had no right to charge my CC more than I authorized. And given the admission in the response email that the overcharge was intentional, this is credit card fraud.

I will not -- and should not have to -- spend hours on hold for a "specialist," or emailing repeatedly until someone actually reads my email. The fact is, they agreed to and confirmed a price, and then charged more than agreed, without even asking. This should not even require a specialist. It is simple open and shut fraud.

Well before yelling fraud at the first instance, I'd would try and talk with someone. It won't take hours.

It sounds weird and sure it sucks if its true, but their e-mail response is porbably canned and maybe you can sort this out with one call. It may just be a mistake, not fraud. At least call them once

If they charged you a different amount than was shown at checkout, I would definitely take this up with my CC company and dispute the charges. If the amount you were charged was the same as shown at checkout, then it is your own fault for not catching it.

Amazon also sends an order confirmation email showing the order along with all the charges. What did that show? That is basically your receipt from the purchase.

1. The amount shown at checkout showed the lower price;

2. The email confirmation showed the lower price; and

3. The receipt at Amazon's site showed the lower price.

Then they did all of that screwing around with the "Share the Love" discounts that they did around July 3 or 4, and suddenly all of my discounts went from "Share the Love" plus "Promotional" plus "Gift Certificates," to all "Promotional. Then they shipped my order in two shipments, and deducted nothing from the first shipment, and only a reduced amount from my second shipment. I did not automatically assume fraud. In fact, I automatically assumed a mistake or a software glitch. I wrote to them, and it was only after I got back their e-mail, admitting that the overcharge was intentional (i.e., fraudulent) that I realized it was fraud.

And, yes, I will be disputing the charge with my Credit Card company (armed with the receipt and the email confirmation).

See... this why I've been so leary of Amazon for the past month or so. I've spent the last three years ordering from them. Honestly, no serious problems.

But in past month I think I've called/e-mailed them over STL, inconsistencies in their pricing policies, the whole 'data gathering' of the free shipping promo at least eight or nine times.

Every day I check the bargain forum and see more and more folks getting the same canned e-mail from Amazon, 'Dear valued customer, You're a liar, cheat and a fraud but continue to keep shopping with us."

Hoc, I feel for you and I would dispute the charge with your CC company tonight. This is just getting to the point of being pathic. Let us know how Amazon backs out of this one.

Maybe they'll call you scum this time. ;)

My thoughts exactly for the past month. I even has some stock I purchased when it hit bottom in spring, that I dumped because they seem to heading for a slippery slope as they ride off into the profitablity sunset.

Your new horror story makes me want to cancel the three outstanding pre-orders i have even more and go with DDDvD or someone else.

Adboy151 --

I wouldn't be at all surprised. I'm waiting for that one. Frankly, I have used Amazon a lot over the past three years myself, with virtually no problems, and any that did arise were satisfactorily resolved by customer service. During that time, I have been one of Amazon's most ardent supporters here. Yet, over the last 2 or 3 months, I have seen them begin to use tactics that I can only call seedy. Things that I attributed only to online etailers such as CDUniverse/DVDWave and Buy.com. Alienation of their best customers through unfounded accusations, refusals to honor purchase prices as confirmed, etc.

However, deliberate overcharging of credit cards is something that I have not seen from any etailer other than CDUniverse/DVDWave. Coming from Amazon, which had spent millions of dollars garnering a reputation for fair treatment and good customer service, it shocks me. With Amazon going downhill like this, it appears that 800.com and DVD Empire are the only truly reliable etailers out there now.

In light of my recent experience, I have started buying at Amazon using only webcertificates funded up to the amount of purchase (I was thinking of getting a Discovery Card because they issue numbers used only for the specific purchase, thus avoiding any overcharges). Already, I received an email from Amazon on one of these purchases that the card was not taking the charge. I checked the webcertificate, and it has available exactly the purchase price as confirmed by the receipt and confirmation email. I changed that purchase (also a July 3 purchase with gcs, stl and a promo code) to the webcertificate when I was overcharged for the first one. All I can imagine is that they are trying to do it again.

I suspect that this particular problem is limited to the messing around they did with their "Share the Love" system over the July 4th holiday. Still, it is tacky not to simply review the error and fix it.

Hoc, you may want to email [email protected] since you have a share the love problem (even though, technically, that's the part that worked). I had my STL disabled, and I emailed them, but emailing the above address will get your problem to the people trained to deal with STL problems, and they seem now to be aware of their mistakes. My first email from them was the "you're a cheat" email, but I replied to that one and, two days later, had a $20 promo for my trouble (making up for the lost love). If you aren't going to call, I think you should at least try to contact them with this address. Give them a couple days and see what they can do. Of course, your account wasn't disabled, but it seems clear that STL caused the glitch in your payment. I seriously almost left Amazon for good after my problem, but they confessed, and I'm still a customer. For now, anyway.

Good luck either way.

EDIT: Account disabled again. Email sent again. This is not good.

I just think all the effort of calling etc is worth the measly $1.50 you may get.

Well, it's been about a day and a half since I emailed them that, unless they fixed the problem, I would challenge the charge with my CC company, and I have received no response. This indicates to me that my email made its way up the ladder, and that someone with some discretion is looking into and deciding how to respond. So, I suppose I'll just wait.

With amazon, dont waste time emailing. I had an order with STL, promo, GC screwed up, everything got bunched into one promo amount and it was off by about $10 (on an $100 order). It should have been 90 but was 100. Anyway, I called them up and spoke to an order specialist, which is a paradox. This guy was clueless. Absolutely no idea what was going on. Anyway, the amount had been updated (top the higher amount) on the web reciept, but my email showed the correct amount. He could not fix the amount of the GC, so I says "what you gonna do about it Shirley!". So he tells me, hold on, let me pull out a calculator, I will calculate the difference (which I already said was $10) and work it into the price of one of the DVD. I say fine. A few momemts later, I hit refresh on my browser, and my $100 order is now just $70??? He asks if this corrects the problem as he had to do some math to fix the problem. I says, yeah, this will do, and thanks for showing such resourcefulness. Bottom line, call the order specialist, you would be surprised how bad their math can be, my $10 dispute netted me $30.

Good luck to you.

Calling usually gets results, you just have to wonder if it is worth (your) time...

My time is worth $200 an hour, so calling is never worth it to me. Unless the call is less than 6 minutes, and I can make more than $20 on the call, I just use email. I can type an email in about 30 seconds, though.

Yowza, you must have a mighty fine job.-smile-

I love my job, and I'm the boss, so that helps, too. ;)

My experience with Amazon is that spending 30 seconds on emails to them that will always be answered with useless canned responses is more a waste of my time than one 5-minute call to a real person there. I just want the fewest number of communications with them as possible, and the fastest solution to the problem. Their email support is 100% useless, the only way I've ever gotten anything done with them is to call. Sad.

The latest email from Amazon. Apparently, they just don't get the fact that they cannot charge your credit card more than the amount you approved:

"Thank you for writing to us at Amazon.com.


After researching your order, it does appear that more than one
promotional certificate was attempted to be applied to this order.


I'm sorry, but we allow customers to redeem only one promotional
certificate per purchase. In addition, some offers allow the use
of only one certificate per promotion. Restrictions may vary, so
we recommend reading the "fine print" or visiting the link included
on your promotional certificate for the specific restrictions
associated with that offer.


It does appear that you received all the discounts that we were able to
provide for this order. Hopefully this will assist you in clearing up any
confusion:


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subtotal: $61.72
Shipping: $1.98
Promos: $18.15
GiftWrapCharge: $0.00
Tax: $0.00
GCs: $0.00
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total: $45.55
---------------------------------------------------------------------------


In addition to a wide selection of items, one of our aims at
Amazon.com is to provide a convenient and efficient service; in
this case, we have not met that standard.


I am truly sorry that we were not able to fulfill your expectations
for this level of service. I hope that you will honor us with
another opportunity to prove the quality of our service to you in
the future.



Best regards,


A.E. Dews "

(Point of information, I used three non-promotional gift certificates in connection with this order, which the system changed and listed as "promotional discounts" when they changed their "Share the Love" system. These are not reflected on their latest calculations.)

My response:

"I don't know how you 'researched' this, but the bottom line is that you are wrong. In any event, regardless of your 'policies' or what your system indicates about my order, it is credit card fraud to confirm one price, as indicated by my receipt, and then intentionally charge more to my credit card than I approved. I do not want to deal with this through a fraud claim, but you appear to be leaving me no choice. I did not approve the significantly higher price for this order that you charged me, and at the prices you charged for these DVDs, I would never have ordered them. Please adjust the purchase price to the amount I authorized, or I will be forced to resolve this matter with my credit card's fraud department.

The upshot is simply this: you have no right to charge my credit card a higher amount than I approved."

I really don't believe this. It is absolutely ridiculous for Amazon to even try to maintain this position.

Amazon is ridiculous period.

:lol:

Oh Hoc please, please give Amazon the opportunity to screw you over in the future. PLEEEEEEEEZZZZEE.

:lol:

I'm sorry about all your troubles man, but damn are they a bunch of idiots.

fisherman, you definitely know how to sarcastically wipe the floor with amazon...I also like how they show that there's no gift wrap or tax charge!... now if only hoc sent that as a reply...

this again proves how inept amazon's email CSRs can really be...what a waste of time

good luck hoc if you make another attempt (you should!)

Hey, remember Amazon's "Safe shopping" guarantee? If any unauthorized charges are posted to your card as a result of an order at Amazon, you will not have to pay anything for the purchase:

"The Amazon.com Safe Shopping Guarantee protects you while you shop at Amazon.com, so that you never have to worry about credit card safety. Period.

We guarantee that every transaction you make at Amazon.com will be safe. This means you pay nothing if unauthorized charges are made to your card as a result of shopping at Amazon.com."

I think this definitely qualifies. Perhaps I should exercise my rights under the guarantee. Think they'll honor it? I doubt it.

I believe in the legal sense, Amazon themselves are authorized to charge so I doubt that even fits.

I am curious what happened with this whole GC thing. I don't think I've seen a firm answer from Amazon. But complaining here won't do anything, someone would actually have to talk to Amazon. And while it may be a "waste of time", it would probably be better than wasting time complaining about it here. One might actually see a real answer.

I consider posting the troubles here as sort of a public service -- a way of letting people thinking of shopping at Amazon know of the potential problems with the store. That is the reason for having this board. I don't consider that to be a waste of time, and I certainly don't expect that, by posting here, it makes any difference in connection with the resolution of my issue.

In other words, contrasting the time spent posting here and the time spent on hold on the telephone with Amazon CSRs really is comparing apples and oranges.

Hoc, I agree with you about the public service part and think after checking your website that you should try and add a "led successful class action lawsuit against Amazon.com " to the top of your list.

I have been to other forums where people are also really POed about this kind of stuff. Yet every time I turn on the TV, there is good 'ol Jeff B. telling us how Amazon has "increased service" for their customers with a "leaner, more focused" organization. Yeah right.

Actually, Nekobus, I wouldn't lead any class action against Amazon, as I suspect that, in the end, there will be no money to collect. Amazon is obviously hemhorraging money, as it seems to lose money on every sale.

Never sue an entity unless it actually has assets.

AT&T, on the other hand. . . ;)

I do see the difference, but I see this could also be an isolated incident. Let's face it, in the course of thousands and thousands of orders, they will screw up some. And I know it sucks when it happens, but it still will occur.

This seems to be some sort of computer error that may or may not be intentional. And you seem like a trustworthy guy, and I believe your story, but I also know people who thought they were right about something and later found out they were wrong. Amazon probably screwed up, but could it really hurt to check? Maybe they would honor your GCs if you could explain your situation to someone, as I doubt they truely understand anything from a few e-mails.

Sure it's a waste of a few minuites time, but if it resolved the issue, wouldn't it be better than continuing on about it here?

I am glad you posted this and are keeping us informed. I once had to send an email 4 times before someone understood my problem and fixed it. personally I would just take it up with the fraud unit of your credit card company and let it go at that.

I am glad i thought Share the Love was too complicated for me and with a large potential for abuse by amazon. it looks like they are screwing people over huge on this program.

Too true! rotfl

For those who are thinking this is an isolated incident-it's not. Many others have had the same problem.

As for the phone hold time and canned email responses, that's what happens when Amazon lays off a big chunk of its CSRs.

Well I haven't seen any other people have problems with GCs. It would suck if Amazon no longer accepted stackable GCs, but then again I don't get many GC these days either.

Amazon does not get it. This is not about a problem with a gift certificate. It is about a problem with Amazon confirming a price and shipping the product while charging my credit card more than the confirmed price, and not asking me to approve the overchange. It is the first time I have had this problem with Amazon, and the first time I have seen it posted. Others may have had a similar problem or not.

As far as I know, it is a new problem (although others have had many other problems with Amazon recently), and may indicate a shift in Amazon's business practices due to foundering liquidity. It happened to two other Amazon orders I placed on the same day, also using a combination of GCs, STL and promo coupons. All three orders were changed when Amazon started messing with the STL credits, and all of my GCs, STL and promo coupons were suddenly listed as "promotional credits" on the receipt. However, when I got the overcharge on this order, I switched my payment method on the other two orders to a webcertificate, each of which I funded $5 over the purchase price. On both of those orders, I got messages from Amazon that they needed another method of payment because my webcertificates would not authorize the charge. So, it never happened to me before, but suddenly it happened three times. If this starts to happen a lot, then people need to be very wary of Amazon.

Posting here is indeed sharing troubles and solutions with our fellow dvd-er in quest of unscrewing themself from amazon's shenanigans. It allows for stress relief in form of cynicism, as we share a common bond to own the famed "DVD." Amazon, the hostage taker has taken our dvds hostage and holds us to infurious demands...constantly reneging on previous agreements of contract.

We are in the fight of our lives folks, but we shall win and our DVDs shall be liberated.

(I do not condone the "liberation" of DVDs from the local B&M shelves though no matter how easy and pleasant it may be).


:D I love this forum! :)

The latest: They sent me another email, again trying to justify the overcharge. My response:

"Again, regardless of your research, the bottom line is, you confirmed one price for my order, and then simply charged a higher price to my credit card without requesting confirmation of the price increase. Had you requested me to approve a higher charge, I would have declined. Your site promises that you will not increase the charges on an order without first requesting approval of the increase. You did not request approval. Your site contains a "safe shopping" guarantee that no unauthorized charges will be made to my credit card as a result of an order placed at Amazon. You made an unauthorized charge with this order. Your site promises that, if you do make such an unauthorized charge, you guarantee that I will pay nothing as the result of the order.

Accordingly, it does not matter whether this order was correct or incorrect. It does not matter whether the confirmation for the lower price reflected an attempt to pay with jellybeans. The bottom line is that I was charged more than the confirmed price without first seeking my approval. Unauthorized charges were made to my credit card as a result of this order. Please refund my money."

Ultimately, I suppose this will probably end up as a CC challenge.

Amazon finally apologised for cancelling my STL, and gave me a GC.
Does $10 make up for being called a liar, a cheat and a fraud?, not really, and if jiggyblau is anything to go by, this will happen again.
It's a shame, I really had hope at one stage that Amazon was the one benchmark etailer everyone could always rely on for service, if nothing else.

Hoc-

I have to say I guess I was wrong on Amazon. I could not get into my account today and then I got this e-mail from amazon which came from my "complaint" about the DeNiro set. I didn't really complain about not getting the misprice, but I felt that giving some customers a "bonus" and not others was wrong. In the e-mail they said to me:

I would like to move on to the matter of your account and
abuse
of our promotional certificates. While looking into your account and
ordering history, it has come to my attention that you have made
generous
use of several of our promotional certificates. Generally, we
encourage
our customers to use the promotional certificates to their benefit,
however, it is clear that you have abused this privilege, having used
many
promotional certificates that are limited to one per customer.

This abuse of our promotional restrictions will not be tolerated.
Accordingly, your account with Amazon.com have been closed and
all
outstanding orders have been cancelled. We are no longer interested in
doing business with you.

I have no idea what they mean by multiple promotional discounts. I can only assume it has to do with using GCs I've gotten here. From the coupons like those posted in the bargain forums and sometimes getting those old $5 promos. I've picked up many GCs along the way from Jaboom, Freeride, and here on this board. But it seems I'm in a related boat. Needless to say this comes as quite a shock, but I guess I will take my business elsewhere