Return - Fraud - Help needed

Hi,

Your help is needed on this one please! An A-Z Claim hasn’t been opened yet but I’m certain it will be.

We recently sold an item of high value which we fulfilled ourselves. The customer stated the item wasn’t as described so I messaged to customer with a courtesy email and apologizing and authorizing the return request.

Here comes the good part. Yesterday the customer contacted me asking when would they receive the refund as the item showed as being delivered back to us on the weekend. Scratching my head and wondering if I had missed the return, I checked the tracking number they gave me on the Royal Mail Track & Trace website. The item showed as being delivered and signed for by someone I had no idea of at a totally different address to ours. Slightly baffled, I checked again, and realized the tracking they had given me was the tracking number for their own order (the one we used to ship the item to them). Obviously, this showed as being delivered to their address and them signing for it. In their email, they also attached a photo-shopped Royal Mail receipt with the tracking number for our order to them and a doctored postcode which was our return address postcode.

Realizing that this guy is trying his luck, I emailed him stating I am happy to refund his order, once we receive the item. I have explained, the information above to him, however have now had an email from Amazon stating the customer has contacted them concerning their return.

What should I do? The item sold is almost £1k. And my fear is, Amazon will automatically refund the customer leaving me out of pocket and the guy with the item.

The world of selling on Amazon can be a dark place, but I’m hopeful someone can shine some light on this one!