Reporting a customer for fraud
Has anyone any experience with successfully reporting a buyer for fraud? I have a buyer at the moment who claimed non delivery on their first order and won a full refund via A to Z, regardless of the evidence I provided to prove successful delivery. They then placed another order for 2 items to match the item they claim they didn't get - I gave them the benefit of the doubt but took as many measures as possible to ensure successful delivery - weighed, signature required etc - they are claiming they received their box in tact but that the item boxes inside were empty. They also have an FBA order pending for another item from our inventory which I would like to get stopped but apparently I can't.
They have changed the name on their account so it looks like the messages are coming from a different person but the name and address on the orders are the same. I told them I would like to conduct a thorough investigation as this is not the first issue they have had with orders from us and they tried to tell me this was their first order.
I have reported their orders for abuse and I report every message they send me (they keep sending the same messages they sent the last time) but I am getting no response from Amazon. I have chatted to two agents and they both just told me to report them. Most recently I have received a message from Amazon on the buyer's behalf and another message from the buyer.
Is there a more effective way to report them? Is there a way to ban them from buying from us? What are the odds of preventing another successful A to Z claim and having to dispute it with Amazon until the end of time?
4 replies
Seller_ZJhFeE3tNKzfh
You can't ban buyers from buying from you. All you can do is cancel further orders to this customer (if your metrics can take it). Alternatively, you can mark as shipped then refund.
Amazon you would hope will eventually catch up with them, but you are doing all you can by teh sounds of things.
Seller_Z1VmZ3fbCMGeu
We tried reporting a buyer to Amazon but we might as well have been talking Klingon. And it wasn't worth the effort 0/10 for Amazon in this area as they don't seem to have any system in place for such matters - we interpret this as "we aren't interested".
What we do however in these cases if we feel we have compelling evidence that the buyer is attempting to obtain goods by deception, we write to them as a notice of intent to take civil action. The letter includes our bank details and gives them a deadline for payment.
It has worked on every occasion so far. We tend to take these steps with higher value items to make it worthwhile the administration costs to pursue.
As a sidenote, you can also prosecute buyers who are committing fraud (it doesn't have to be the police/CPS) who initiates criminal proceedings. We would only consider this however with very high ticket purchases.
Hope this helps.
Seller_vtSzvxtW9StxE
In my experience, when you report a buyer , amazon wont tell you the outcome but whatever activity it was reported for get stopped.
I understand you must have reported through "Report abuse".
Amazon wont tell you what they did but in past, buyer who kept sending INR messages daily was stopped and repeat buy and refund was stopped. It may be a coincidence but i'd like to believe that it was because amazon reacted :).
Seller_Myh2nYkXU4rhf
UPDATE:
Thank you for your replies, I am somewhat soothed that I am not alone in this issue but enraged at the lack of resolve by Amazon at the same time.
Here's a quick update: I received an email from Amazon last week stating the buyer's claim had been denied. I was so relieved. I began to feel like I had been too harsh on Amazon and perhaps sometimes they do listen.
Saturday/Sunday: I received another email requesting further information - evidence, if you will - to send it via the "Respond to Amazon" button. Of course, there is no option to attach anything when you click on this button, which I wrote in the box and submitted.
Monday: I got on to the Seller Support chat and told a helpful agent my issue, they sent me a link to the same page and asked me if there was an option for attachments - "No", I confirmed. He told me he was escalating it to the A to Z team and they would be in touch.
I received an email this morning (Wednesday) telling me the claim has been granted and the customer has been refunded.
I got straight on to the Seller Support chat again, gave them my issue point by point, made it abundantly clear that I am not at all happy and they are supposed to have transferred it to the A to Z team too!
I submitted my appeal and I will be sending an email to the escalation team today.
They can expect some very detailed emails, one for every single issue I have been battling them over the past few months.
Next step, legal action.
