Hello Sellers,
I hope this post, message, rant... whatever you wish to call it, finds you well.
We're at our wits end with fraudulent buyers. It's sad that we have become quite good with dealing with them and can poke a million holes in their stories. As our items are typically high-value, we gather a considerable amount of evidence with every single order we fulfil and every return we process. For example, every item is sent Royal Mail, Signed For. If the order contains more than one item, we take a picture of the packaged goods on a scale. We retain serial numbers of electrical devices and apply security seals on packaging that shows when things have been opened. We video record opening every single return from start to finish...
This is a small taste of the things we do to protect our business and I am sure you all take a wide-range of similar actions. Yet unfortunately despite all of these things we often lose false/fraudulent A-Z claims to "preserve the customer experience". Whilst we are unhappy this is the way this works, we understand that we are not alone.
With this in mind my real question or point is, why does Amazon not act on clear fraud and importantly what happens when it goes further than just a fraudulent A-Z claim?
In the last few months our business has been attacked across the internet by unhappy fraudsters, damaging our reputation on here and everywhere our business name graces and I have even had death threats to my personal Facebook account. Despite all of this, there is still no clear process to report a buyer on this platform for anything other than their messages.
Over the last two weeks, we have had another fraudster jump on the hamster wheel: making various claims to Amazon about the order they received was "not brand new", and when that failed "it didn't arrive/nothing in the box" before magically turning to "it is broken"; only for the item to be returned unopened in the same packaging we sent it out in. Amazon has been pulled in on three different occasions through A-Z claims where the buyer provided no evidence whereas we did, and they also engaged Amazon's general Customer Support an additional 2 times to make other various demands about how "the buyer can't return the item via that method, please sort something else out and be sure to reply within 48 hours". Why can't Amazon step in at any of these points, see from the evidence we have provided and they are reviewing that the customer is acting fraudulently and take steps to protect us? This buyer has now gone on to slate us across the internet and report our conduct to Amazon where we are facing a serious policy violation.
I waste so much time on these people and half the battle is Amazon's stance on this. Why is this buyer not banned from their platform or given a warning? Why can I not report this buyer for attempted fraud here? Why do I have a "serious policy violation" for telling this fraudulent buyer that has damaged my business across the internet that "Making false statements online about a business to damage their reputation is illegal and I will not hesitate to protect my business if you continue", after everything they have done right under Amazon's nose?
I spent half an hour of my Friday trying to report this latest fraudster to a Seller Support agent that did not even know what fraud was. This isn't good enough and I hope that this is an area which Amazon significantly improve in or failing that find themselves in court over one day. To be clear, we actively report fraudulent buyers to Action Fraud UK and encourage all sellers to do the same when necessary to protect businesses everywhere.
What is Amazon's Duty of Care to Sellers? We pay their selling fees and give them a commission of every sale, do they not owe us protection as sellers on their marketplace? Why is their no clear route to report these buyers here?
Please feel free to share your experiences, thoughts or comments below.
