Amazon’s U-turn over 90-day limit on fakes
Probes a world of scams and scandals
C.C. writes: Consumers should be warned that if buying through Amazon Marketplace, you lose credit card protection. This is because it is not the seller of the goods, even though it is Amazon’s name on the invoice. It deducts commission and pays the balance to the actual seller. I got caught out with my purchase of a computer hard drive costing £164. I later needed to return it to the manufacturer under warranty, but it turned out to be counterfeit. Amazon was sympathetic, though the bottom line is that it made money out of the sale of counterfeit goods. BY ALL appearances, what you got for your money was a genuine 4TB hard drive manufactured by the perfectly reputable company Western Digital. There was no way to tell that it was a fake until it went wrong and you needed to invoke the warranty – which was supposed to protect you for up to five years.
You complained to the seller but got no reply. When you complained to Amazon it told you: ‘You can file a claim under our A-to-Z safe buying guarantee up to 90 days after the order date if you provided payment to the seller via Amazon Marketplace, but the seller failed to deliver the item.’
You could also claim under the guarantee scheme if you received the item ‘but it was materially different than depicted in the seller’s description.’ Finally, you were protected if the item was defective ‘and you notified the seller within 30 days of receipt’.
Then came the sting in the tail. Amazon said that as your purchase was more than 90 days earlier, ‘ these conditions have expired’. With no sense of irony, the writer added: ‘I hope this helps. We look forward to seeing you again soon.’
You asked me: ‘How would anyone spot a well counterfeited product?’ The 90-day time limit was a loophole that made Amazon’s guarantee worthless.
As I only recently took up a complaint with Amazon Marketplace when a reader who paid £ 259 for an iPad received only a cheap piece of plastic, I went back to the company. I asked how your experience squared with the guarantee it offered.
The result was quick – and remarkable. Twenty-four hours later, you received an email from Amazon. Almost as if nothing had happened and you had not already been turned down for a refund, the email apologised for the difficulties with your purchase and assured you that full reimbursement had now been made to your credit card.
Amazon has given me a longwinded statement explaining what it does to combat fake goods and remove crooked sellers from Amazon Marketplace.
But from the point of view of con- sumers, the key passage says: ‘Customers are always protected by our A- to- Z guarantee, whether they make a purchase from Amazon or a third-party seller. If the product does not arrive or is not as advertised, customers can contact our customer support for a full refund of their order.’ Interestingly, there is no mention of a 90-day time limit, so perhaps Amazon has taken on board that spotting a fake is far from easy until it goes wrong.