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I got scammed on Amazon.com!

Benjamin Grimm May 04 2017 02:50 PM

I recently fell "victim" to a scam from a third-party seller on Amazon. I had a feeling that something was wrong, but I saw a chance to potentially get a couple of cheap books, so I decided to roll the dice and figured that, if anything went wrong, Amazon would make it right. And they did, so no harm done. But here's what happened: I had a couple of books on my "saved for later" list. Every once in a while I click on some of those books to see if I can get them cheap from a third-party seller. I found two such books, selling for $9.99 each, both from a seller called LOZEIGOD. (They were both recently released hardcover books that are currently selling for about $25 each.) LOZEIGOD had no user reviews and was listed as a "new seller." Given the low prices and the new seller status, I was a little suspicious, but I ordered anyway. A day or so later, I got notice that my order had shipped -- from China -- and I was provided with a USPS tracking number. I would check it every couple of days, and the status would remain unchanged. I figure, okay, it's coming from China so it's probably on a ship and may take a while. About two weeks later, I see (on the USPS website) that it has arrived at an international port in Miami and has been transferred to the post office. A couple of days later I see that it was delivered... to Hendersonville, Tennessee, which is more than 800 miles away from me! My first assumption was that LOZEIGOD had placed someone else's label on my package, so I wrote to them and asked them to either send a new shipment or issue a refund. Amazon says I should give them a few business days to respond. But then I did some searching on LOZEIGOD and found a lot of other people with the same story: The item was shipped to an address in another state. None of the others mentioned Hendersonville, Tennessee, but the pattern was the same. The address was always about a thousand miles away, more or less. I decided not to wait the few days for LOZEIGOD to respond. I contacted Amazon immediately and they very quickly issued a $19.98 credit to my account. But what's weird about this is that something actually shipped from China to Tennessee. My guess is that LOZEIGOD never intended to ship the two books I ordered. They just sent some dummy shipment to Tennessee so that I would think something was coming and wouldn't think to issue a complaint until a couple of weeks had passed. Amazon must have sent them the $19.98, minus whatever commission that they take, and they probably won't get it back. So Amazon is the one who lost money on this transaction (and many others) but I suppose that's fair because they didn't properly vet their vendor. But I wonder if the address in Tennessee was some confederate of theirs, or just some random address that mysteriously got an empty box from China and will never know the reason why?

Fman99 May 04 2017 02:57 PM Re: I got scammed on Amazon.com!

I just assume there's a house in Hendersonville with tens of thousand of books just stacking up.

John Cougar Lunchbucket May 04 2017 04:40 PM Re: I got scammed on Amazon.com!

There's an amazon Distribution Center in Hendersonville, many of my packages come from it. Amazon is great when it comes to being the one who takes up the chute on logistical errors. When I tried Amazon Fresh I ordered a club-sized bundle of soba rice noodles (12 packs for something like $18). The noodles they delivered were the same brand but wrong variety we'd ordered. When I pointed it out they took off the $18 from the order, gave me a $20 credit, extended our prime membership by 30 days and let us keep the noodles.

soupcan May 05 2017 02:37 PM Re: I got scammed on Amazon.com!

Anytime a story ends with '...and they let us keep the noodles', thats a good story.

Benjamin Grimm May 05 2017 02:42 PM Re: I got scammed on Amazon.com!

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: There's an amazon Distribution Center in Hendersonville, many of my packages come from it. That's interesting. I wonder if that's some kind of Amazon dead-letter office? I really would love to know what it was that was sent from China to the United States, and what the actual destination address was.

Edgy MD May 05 2017 02:47 PM Re: I got scammed on Amazon.com!

Maybe they sent one thing there and send the same tracking data to 200 customers.

sharpie May 09 2017 05:19 PM Re: I got scammed on Amazon.com!

Here's an article on this. More efforts to make it hard for the creative class to make a living. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/thi ... 79d4edc31f

Nymr83 May 10 2017 05:10 AM Re: I got scammed on Amazon.com!

sharpie wrote: Here's an article on this. More efforts to make it hard for the creative class to make a living. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/thi ... 79d4edc31f this article has nothing to do with scammers, but rather with a policy change that favors "cheaper prices" over "being the publisher" - the author seems hostile to the well established legal principle that you have a right to resell something. the idea that all book sales should come from the publisher is actually pretty offensive - if i want to wait 6 months for the guy who bought from the publisher to drop his prices and get them out of stock, that is part of a healthy free market. i got 'scammed' on amazon as well - i ordered a bunch of t-shirts - 5 different shirts from 5 different sellers - all claimed to be size "2XL Tall" - all showed up as a regular 'Extra Large' from the same address in China. they tried a whole bunch of nonsense when i complained such as claiming to have sent the correct item, closing the complaint and pretending it was resolved, etc. Amazon refunded me. their policies are actually very pro-consumer, at the expense of legitimate businesses who can get scammed

Nymr83 May 10 2017 05:11 AM Re: I got scammed on Amazon.com!

Edgy MD wrote: Maybe they sent one thing there and send the same tracking data to 200 customers. i think you hit the nail on the head of this particular scam. its all part of the misdirection, if they convince X percentage of their marks to just forget about it they've come out on top. i'm sure the tracking number that "works" on the fedex site helps some people believe their stories

cooby May 26 2017 12:21 PM Re: I got scammed on Amazon.com!

Both times I've selected the free two day shipping for prime members it's been 'delayed'. Must be a hoax

Ceetar May 26 2017 01:26 PM Re: I got scammed on Amazon.com!

cooby wrote: Both times I've selected the free two day shipping for prime members it's been 'delayed'. Must be a hoax I've been getting one-day offers (and they're showing up) for prime. Hell occasionally I get 'same-day' delivery options. I almost bought the mass-effect trilogy one morning at work because it would literally be waiting at my house when I got home.

cooby May 26 2017 01:34 PM Re: I got scammed on Amazon.com!

Cool!