Those examples qualify as credit/loans for goods or services.

Collection agencies can collect on many types of valid debts. Hospitals are a good example. Many hospitals can't turn away a patient for non-elective treatment. Payment may be required at the time of service, but the hospital cannot refuse to treat the patient. They do not necessarily offer credit or a loan, but the bill can still be turned to a collection agency if it is not paid.

But that IS credit/loan/financing of a sort... even if it's compulsory. Amazon, on the other hand, will not provide their product until after you have paid. It's different, isn't it?

In the case of the hospital, you are not entering into any type of agreement with the hospital allowing you to pay the bill at a later date (credit/loan). Most hospitals will bill you as a courtesy, but the payment was actually due at the time of service. It could easliy be considered a bad debt account without having anything to do with credit or financing.

To bring things back on topic, it should be interesting if Amazon decided to use a collection agency. Collection agencies are required by federal law (the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act) to notify a debtor of a collection account. The person then has 30 days to dispute the account. During this 30 day period, the collection agency cannot report the account to the credit bureaus and they may not threaten legal action.

If the person disputes the account, the collection agency must provide validation of the debt from their client (Amazon). If Amazon does not provide proof of the debt, then the collection agency cannot legally continue to pursue collection effots. If Amazon does provide the validation, the collection agency must decide whether or not they feel that they should continue to attempt collections.

I think the big question at this point is whether or not this would be considered a valid debt since Amazon's order confirmations, shipping confirmations, and invoices all show zero balances. On top of that, many customers can provide e-mails from Amazon stating that they will not be charged for these orders.

Trust me, I've had more than my fair share of dealing with hospitals in recent months. Before you are admitted, you sign a contract agreeing to some sort of payment plan. There are special exemptions and exceptions made for the indigent and for people who are unable (due to injury or sickness) to formally admit themselves. None of these principles even remotely apply to the situation with Amazon.com.

I agree with you completely that this is a different situation from the one with Amazon. I'm only saying that all bad debt accounts placed with collection agencies do not neccessarily involve the debtor receiving credit terms or a loan. Some hospitals' financial agreements allow a payment plan and some do not. That's not to say that they will not give you a certain amount of time to repay the bill before turning it to collections.

Right, but I think that you're missing the part of the argument where in some cases, you are in debt to a business/company because they, by their nature, provide a service with the expectation that you will pay in the near future (utilities/hospitals), which is a form of credit ("time allowed for payment for goods or services obtained on trust"), and in other cases-- such as Amazon.com and other retail outlets, there are no mechanisms in place for such things. You provide payment for your goods BEFORE being furnished with said goods.

So, when is Amazon gonna start re-charging?

Like my pirate friend says: "Grab what you can, give nothing back!"

Here's a question I've been wondering about for a while: Why is Amazon waiting a month before they charge CC's?

Lets assume for a moment that they are serious about going back and charging people's CC's. They want their $ or the DVDs back. What do they get by waiting a month? They could have e-mailed and said "We're going to charge your CC in three days unless you contact us and let us know you're shipping the DVDs back. In which case we'll wait an extra ten days and then charge you if we haven't received the goods." If people were charged after three days, I bet some would then return the discs and wait for a credit. It speeds up the whole process.

Waiting a month also looks really bad to the CC company, I would think. On paper having an e-tailer tack on a charge 30 days later just sounds slimey, even if they have a good reason.

So, any guesses as to why they are waiting a month?

I think there is just a little bit of difference in our definitions of credit. To me there is a difference in a hospital that bills you when the charges are complete and expects payment and somewhere that has a financing option to allow you to pay for an item over six months. With the hospital, it's not always possible to get the money before the services are rendered because it's not yet known what the charges will be. The hospital may still have a sign up that says payment is due at the time of service. They are going to send you a bill in the mail though, and you are expected to pay it when you receive it. If you refuse to pay, they may turn you to a collection agency without having ever offered you any financing or credit terms.

My doctor's office expects me to pay my co-pay while I am in the office. They bill my insurance for the balance, and I pay any remaining amount after the insurance pays. If for whatever reason, I am treated and walk out without paying my co-pay, they could turn that to a collection agency. It doesn't mean that they were extending me credit for that co-pay. I was expected to pay it and didn't.

Another example might be damages to an apartment or hotel room. You may pay $100 night for a hotel room, but you do $500 worth of damages to the hotel room while you are there. The hotel is not in the business of loaning money, and they expect payment for the damages immediately. If you are not able to pay for the damages, there is nothing to prevent the hotel from turning the debt to a collection agency. In my mind, they are not extending you credit.

Again, I am not trying to compare these examples to the Amazon situation one way or the other. I do understand that normally Amazon receives payment before shipping items. I also don't think that this could prevent them from turning them to a collection agency. Now whether or not these are valid debts is completely different story, and the collection agency may or may not decide to accept the accounts.

It's a game of chicken. The issue is complicated enough that they are unlikely to garner much bad PR, so they have nothing to lose. Even when they "blink" and extend the deadline, it just gives them more chance to convince people to send the merchandise back.

collections does not only apply to "Credit". i got sent to collections for cancellation fees from Cingular (i called Cingular and kindly explained why they were in the wrong and they withdrew their charges). anyways as mentioned before, credit as well as services rendered could be sent to collection (anything that can be linked to an actual individual)

I'll add in to this also - as someone who has worked as a collections agent, it's not just lines of credit. It's any unpaid bill. I've seen collection agencies accept things far more questionable than this. I remember our agency would routinely take collection notices from one of those stupid mail-order companies that would send you all sorts of shit you didn't want and didn't ask for, and then would charge you out the ass if you didn't return them within a week or so, and would also charge you extra shipping fees to return the stuff. That had to be illegal, but here we were, harassing these people (mainly the elderly) that were duped. That's what lead to me quitting that job... as far as I'm concerned collections is only slightly above telemarketer on list of pathetic jobs.

So, when is Amazon gonna start re-charging?

I think a better question would be "Is Amazon gonna re-charge?"

I don't think they will. I would expect another email that they are extending the date, hoping to get their product back.

Again... any form of "bill me later" stuff is a form of credit, is it not?

I think it's cutet that you worked this hard on that. If you see the two scenarios as identical, that's you're perogative. They're not, of course (in once scenario, the company is taking a massive loss, while in the other, the company is still making a healthy profit, plus there's the issue of active exploitation vs. passive acceptance). Not even in the same zip code by my reckoning, but you're free to disagree.

Nice attempt at a dodge, but the fact remains that not only did you sit by and watch as an error was made in your favor, but you wished you had taken further advantage of it *after* you found out that it was definitely an error and not a promotion you were unaware of.

Falls from the moral high horse always hurt...

Ok, try this one. How about checks returned for non-sufficient funds? I'm not sure how you could consider a bounced check a line of credit by any stretch of the imagination, yet collection agencies handle those all the time. A retailer may expect payment before providing the goods or service, and the check is returned by the bank because the bank account has been closed or there is not enough money in the account to cover the check. The retailer then turns the check over to the collection agency for recovery.

It's a myth that collection agencies can only pursue debts based on credit. However, out of sheer perversity, let me fan the flames by pointing out that a check is nothing more than a promise to pay in the future (when the check is presented to your bank), so I suppose it can be argued that a purchase made by check is nonetheless based on credit (i.e. your promise to pay in the future).

Discuss.

read my thing! i got sent to collections for cancellation fee - no way is that an extenesion of any credit whatsoever

They are similiar in that they are both knowingly using an advantage to get products cheaper. As for the active versus passive, I'd say they are both passive. In this case, no one manipulated a shopping cart and everyone (Joe 6-pack included) who tried to use the proper discount would have been given the incorrect discount). So yeah, I fail to see how this is different than knowingly accepting an incorrect discount when using a coupon.

My point was this... you chastising people for being involved in this deal seems incongruent with your willingness to accept a coupon applied improperly. I'm not arguing either scenario is moral/immoral, because everyone has different values.

My only interest in this thread is to see the outcome (I didn't participate in the deal). Because, as I said earlier... If Amazon wins, in my future shopping there, how will I know if a price is just a great deal or a misprice that they will later try and charge me more for? This one was obvious (from what I understand), but it becomes a slippery slope if they win this.

And for the record: I wish Amazon had discovered the problem and not shipped the sets, but they did. But I don't see how a company retroactively charging for shipped products is good for anyone who tries to find bargains online (such as myself).