Amazon To Pay $309 Million To US Shoppers In Settlement Over Returns (reuters.com) 13
Amazon has agreed to pay $309 million and provide additional remedies in a class-action settlement over claims that customers were wrongly denied refunds after returning items. Plaintiffs say (PDF) the deal delivers over $1 billion in total value, including more than $600 million in refunds and operational changes. Reuters reports: Amazon denied any wrongdoing in agreeing to the settlement. "Following an internal review in 2025, we identified a small subset of returns where we issued a refund without the payment completing, or where we could not verify that the correct item had been sent back to us, so no refund had been issued," an Amazon spokesperson said, adding that the company had taken steps to resolve the issue.
The lawsuit, filed in 2023, said Amazon caused "substantial unjustified monetary losses" for consumers who in some instances properly returned an item but were still charged for it. In a court filing, Amazon said customers accepted the terms of the company's return policies, including the possibility they would be recharged for failing to return the product within a specified time frame. The proposed settlement class covers U.S. purchasers of goods on Amazon from September 2017 who allegedly did not receive timely or correct refunds, or who were later charged despite returning items. Class members are expected to recover the full amount of any incorrectly denied refund or retrocharge, plus interest, the plaintiffs told the court.
The lawsuit, filed in 2023, said Amazon caused "substantial unjustified monetary losses" for consumers who in some instances properly returned an item but were still charged for it. In a court filing, Amazon said customers accepted the terms of the company's return policies, including the possibility they would be recharged for failing to return the product within a specified time frame. The proposed settlement class covers U.S. purchasers of goods on Amazon from September 2017 who allegedly did not receive timely or correct refunds, or who were later charged despite returning items. Class members are expected to recover the full amount of any incorrectly denied refund or retrocharge, plus interest, the plaintiffs told the court.
Should be a sellers class action then!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
My business sells on amazon and we routinely get returns from customers where items are stripped of their core parts, someone else's product, or just the package with the contents missing. Amazon does not care. They just ship it back to us and refund the customer.
Re: Should be a sellers class action then!!! (Score:2)
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Iâ(TM)ve gotten the opposite where a supposedly new item was clearly used/broken/incomplete/wrong and when I send it back they give me a hassle for it like itâ(TM)s my fault they shipped me a piece of crap.
Supposedly they look at return history of the customer to make decisions, but I think its crap.
I do wonder sometimes if the Amazon driver is not the one stealing, and both the customer and seller are getting f***ed.
Re: Should be a sellers class action then!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
ALL retailers are looking at your return history. Your return history with various stores is collected by a few aggregators who are there looking for return fraud. And Amazon is one of them - they have access to not just your return history with them, but if you return stuff to Best Buy and other places.
These companies track your returns and if it exceeds a certain percentage of orders, or even a certain dollar value, they will reject it. People have been warned that if they place the order with the intent on returning items on it, they will be banned from doing the return.
Retailers are checking because returns are expensive for them to handle - if you're someone to buy items and then return them (e.g., you buy a piece of clothing in 3 sizes to return 2), they will flag you from returns.
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if you're someone to buy items and then return them (e.g., you buy a piece of clothing in 3 sizes to return 2), they will flag you from returns.
How else are you suppose to buy clothing at costco?
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The messed up thing (well one of the messed up things) is that Amazon use to have a service for people to do exactly this. "Try before you buy" allowed you to order up to 6 clothing items and not be charged for a week after you got them, to give you a chance to try them on and return any you didn't want.
A year ago they did away with that, saying that new AI feat
Re:Should be a sellers class action then!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Home Depot will either resell the unit without checking or return to the supplier. When they return the unit, they automatically debit the supplier. Now the supplier winds up with a piece of garbage in their warehouse, Home Depot is out nothing because they took their money back.
The supplier has to just eat the obvious fraud due to the size of the business that Home Depot has. I'm sure Lowes and Walmart contracts are very similar for most suppliers.
It's like doing business in China. Follow 1000 rules, some extremely destructive, or go pound sand. Maybe if you're lucky you'll actually make enough profit to withstand the fraud.
I just got my settlement (Score:2)
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I have to admit that my wife will buy three or four dresses to see which one fits better, or decide which color looks better, and return the ones she doesn't like.
(I think I may post as AC, even though she doesn't read /.)
Amazon needs a class action for Unjust Suspensions (Score:1)
Amazon will give you front billing if you are a terrorist calling for deaths of people by your viewers like Hasan conditioned his viewers.
I talked with John P Coale personally on the phone who represented Trump in unfair banning on youtube.
John Coale says the win by Trump opens the flood doors for suing Amazon, Youtube, Reddit, etc for unfair bannings and back wages.
This is a multi billion lawsuit just waiting for any lawyer to pick it up.
Amazon needs to be reigned in for a few things (Score:4, Informative)
Having just gone through the process of returning a defective item and ticking the boxes saying I would like a new one sent to me I came across a fucking attrocious dark pattern in their form.
Click yes, agree, yes, tick the box saying you want a replacement shipped, tick yes, and then the final step:
"Do you want to keep the item instead of getting a replacement (you will be charged a [insert like 25% of the original price])?" Yes / No I want to proceed.
Yes highlighted by default just like all the previous yes / agree buttons. The "No I want to proceed" button was small hard to see on the form. If you just finish the process by clicking yes and agree you will *NOT* be getting your item refunded / replaced and you will be saddled with the defective thing you were trying to get rid of.
I think it's time we introduce settlements with punishments that for each affected customer the CEO is kicked in the balls.