Advice for returns after 30 days
Would very appreciate some knowledgeable advice and thoughts on the following questions.
Firstly we operate with the standard Amazon 30 days return policy for any reason as all of us must.
Question 1: At present we operate a 90 day returns for faulty / damaged but what is the minimum required from us after 30 days for suspected faulty items?
Question 2: How to deal with customer faulty/damaged claims (That are not faulty) after 30 days, is it -
a) Full refund even if item is not faulty.
b) Partial refund if item is not faulty.
c) Send the non-faulty item back to customer and deny the refund. (Cannot see A-Z claim supporting this)
Question 3: Who is liable for the following issues and should these issues only be dealt with via the courts:
a) The customer pays an engineer to install our product that turns out to be faulty. Do we refund the customers engineer costs? (After customer supplies the engineers company details and invoice)
b) The customer installs the product and it damages their property? (I would assume that if the customer is not fully qualified we are not liable which brings me on to the final point…)
c) The customer pays an engineer to install the product and it is suspected faulty and damages the customers property?
Should these matters only be dealt with through the courts AFTER we fully refund the customer for the returned item?
Now to further complicate matters and hurt your head further:
Question 3b: All of the above Question 3 issues BUT the returned item is found NOT to be faulty when retested. Would we need to supply proof of the item not being faulty?
Thanks for reading to this point… otherwise I don’t blame you for leaving. 
Cheers.
24 replies
Seller_qHzcAWcsPVCfg
wow
Depends …
Do you want the answers to be what should in law be the correct advice?
Do you want the answers to be what should as per Amazon Policy be the correct advice?
Do you want the answers to be what Seller Support will state is the correct advice?
Do you want the answers to be best guess as to how Amazon would react to a customer complaint?
Finally are you prepared to be no wiser when the forum users provide a multitude of conflicting suggestions?
Please do not take the above as complete sarcasm but rather an indication of the enormous uncertainties that prevail within Amazon World.
Seller_f5cnodyVjLD4S
GOSH…what a lot of questions!
To add to what Thy said, the method of fulfillment plays a big part FBA or FBM even SFP all will result in varying answers.
Another factor to bear in mind is that the government is still adhering to EU law which gives the customer rights for a genuinely faulty product for up to 2 years. Although many sellers accept anything up to 1 year with a no quibble policy.
What the UK gov will put in its place after the transition period could be anyone’s guess.
Seller_KQwXr5kY5oIPO
When all else fails, stick to the consumer rights act, that is the overbinding law that has to be obeyed regardless of what amazon say or do.
Seller_qZO3ZCjoBXEeL
By Law no ‘reasonable’ limit. It depends on the type of product. The law states that the seller must take back goods found faulty within the first 6 months as if the fault had existed from new. After 6 months the buyer must prove the fault existed when purchased.
Amazon doesn’t really do faults. It does replacements or refunds. How these get handled depend greatly on whether they are Prime/FBA orders or regular FBM orders.
On Amazon it will never get that far. 999/1000 Amazon will have already refunded the customer either from your funds or from their own.
Seller_ihyMW1Y28cyvJ
Thanks for all the replies and links everyone - as mentioned by @PeterB the situations we encountered in the last few years never got further than a full refund - some customers complained that they hired ‘engineers’ and such but never supplied us with invoices or the engineers company details, so all refunds and A-Z’s resulting from them cases simply ended with a full refund that we issued.
Under the link that @Anglozone supplied there is this interesting line:
Second–hand goods that you buy from a trader are also covered by the minimum 2-year guarantee. However, goods bought from private individuals are not covered.
What would be the definition of a private individual on Amazon?
Seller_xUKHc5xSYJmI4
Personally I would stick to the Amazon policy. Going outside it will all cause you further issues.
Seller_ihyMW1Y28cyvJ
Thanks again for the advice all.
So six months is ‘technically’ the returns time frame for faulty items then as long as the customer notifies within that time.
So us offering a 90 days return is pretty much pointless then no?
But if we just - say - stick to the Amazon 30 days and then a customer complains about a fault within 6 months and wants a FULL refund can we deny that refund in place of a replacement/repair?
So basically after 30 days we do not offer refunds at all - only replacements or repair would that be acceptable?
@Clearanceshed mentioned this also “But they do have a legal duty to provide a repair or replacement…”
Thanks.
