A month ago we sold a product on Amazon and the customer said they wanted to return it as they had received an empty box. We know this to be factually incorrect as we have the weight of it going out and everything we sell is brand new and sealed.

Anyway, the return gets auto authorised and sure enough we receive back an empty box that weights substantially less than the product we dispatched.

So far, so run of the mill. The customer gets refunded, we put in a SafeT claim and, almost surprisingly based on current expectations, this one actually gets accepted first time and we have our costs covered. Although it’s annoying as again someone has got something for nothing and been ‘trained’ in how Amazon operates we chalk it down to the cost of business and carry on with our lives.

Anyway, last night, a month down the line we receive this message :

‘I’m very disappointed that you charged me again for this order. I cannot understand that . Please explain what’s wrong with you and refund my money as soon as possible. Thank’

We dutifully respond that there’s no way that us as a seller could initiate the charge on an item that has been refunded and that perhaps they should speak to Amazon Customer Services.

Clearly they do this as today we received this message from them:

‘This is Amazon’s Customer Service team. A customer reached out to us with some questions about a purchase they made from you. Here’s a description of the issue:

Reason for contact: Customer returned the item and got the refund for the item and now he was again charged for the item. Please help the customer with the refund for the item.’

Now surely, SURELY Amazon know that there’s no way that we could have recharged the customer a month down the line. The order is still showing as being refunded in our account and there’s literally no way that we could refund this again save sending the customer the money by, say, BACS which we’re clearly not going to do since we don’t have whatever money it is that he has supposedly been charged.

My hunch is that he did this to multiple sellers and Amazon have decided his account is dodgy and have recharged him to cover the SafeT claims that have followed in his wake.

Anyway, to make matters worse he has also left us negative feedback:

‘Disappointing seller, .they refunded me at first but after almost one month charged me again.’

Amazon have refused to remove it for the usual reasons (doesn’t include bad language, isn’t a product review etc) but clearly it’s absolute baloney.

E-mails to Seller Support have yielded the usual copy paste responses that bear no relevance.

There’s not really an answer to this per se. I’m putting this here I guess in case a couple of moderators could be tagged who might be able to employ a smidgen more common sense to proceedings and perhaps reiterate to Amazon Customer Services that there’s no way that little old me could just decide to charge a customer’s card a month after he has been refunded along with removing the negative feedback which is bonkers.

Of course, if anybody does have any input other than e-mailing the Managing Director e-mail address (which I’m trying to save for special occasions) then please do let me know!