My Amazon UK (high value) return got stolen, what can I do?

I had exactly the same problem when buying a mobile phone via Amazon, however in my case the item was stolen while it was in transit! The seller paid Hermes to track the item and when it suddenly disappeared off their system, the seller immediately contacted the police. Following the investigation it seems the courier was self-employed and sub-contracted by Hermes, so they felt no obligation or responsibility for the theft of the phone as they were not strictly employed by Hernes. I cannot understand how this company can continue to exist with the amount of thefts that occur, even now I have three cases open where orders have apparently been flagged as delivered but they don't know where! Luckily Amazon and their sellers have been really good at rooting out the guilty individuals but have admitted there's no way of stopping Hermes using the same courier/driver in the future.

I sold an Xbox on eBay in November. Made the mistake of sending it via Hermes. Next day delivery, fortunately I took out insurance.

After three days it still hadn’t arrived. The tracking just said something along the lines of “there’s a problem, we hope to have your parcel on the move within 24 hours”

After two weeks, no change and I had to refund the buyer in full, he’d been very patient to be fair.

The worst part was trying to speak to an actual person at Hermes. You basically get an automated answer and you tell it your tracking number and it tells you what you already know because you’ve tracked it on their site. This takes at least 5 minutes. Then you can tell them you want to speak to someone. Then you’re on hold for about an hour.

Long story short, they eventually admitted it had been lost or stolen and agreed to reimburse me the full amount plus the postage costs. Sold the Xbox second week of November, didn’t see my money back until the second week of January! At least I did get it back though.
 
The most annoying thing is when an email arrives from Amazon, to inform you that your account may be terminated because of you've reported too many non-deliveries! Since 2004 I've reported 12 non-deliveries which were either from theft during transit or failure to deliver because of damage sustained during transit; when I've asked Amazon how any of this can be attributed on me, they simply say I need to be more careful with my orders and that my account activity will be monitored for the next 12mths...
If they said that to me I'd tell them "Fair enough, I'm going to be so careful with my orders they'll be going to a company that gives a sh!t"
 
If they said that to me I'd tell them "Fair enough, I'm going to be so careful with my orders they'll be going to a company that gives a sh!t"
Like most big companies they go with what's the cheapest not necessarily the safest or best. My deliveries used to come via DPD, Royal Mail or Amazon logistics but since Covid I guess cost is a primary factor. In my area of London I've not had post since before Christmas, and only just got a letter inviting me for a flu jab that was posted in October...
 
You don’t really think that ‘Jeff@amazon’ is some kind of special email address do you, it will just go to the normal CS inbox.

Whatever you think the police will or won’t do, you need to get a crime number normally to escalate and progress this, to make it formal.

You will need to be persistent, they deal with thousands of such claims, real or otherwise.

You might think that, but it does actually go to a team who will triage it and escalate within Amazon where necessary. I was trying to get a bug fixed in the Amazon address field for ages. No luck raising it multiple times through Amazon Chat, but I've had multiple responses from 'Jeff', and the person who is replying to me clearly understands the issue and looking at getting it fixed.

So it's worth a punt.

Regards,
James.
 
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I’ve just been refunded for an £80 item return that UPS appear to have lost , just did a webchat and they have immediately refunded without any issue at all ....
 
I’ve just been refunded for an £80 item return that UPS appear to have lost , just did a webchat and they have immediately refunded without any issue at all ....

I've been refunded for a faulty Xbox One X and told to do what I want with it (which was send to MS for warranty repair :D), had PS4 controllers replaced without having to send faulty ones back, a blu-ray player 'delivered' but not to me refunded instantly, refunds issued as soon as a return is scanned at the Post Office and credits for late and damaged deliveries.

I'm convinced Amazon has some sort of customer rating system and the level of customer service you receive depends on it. Reading things like this always surprises me based on my own experience.

Not saying people in this situation are bad customers, but that I think they have some sort of system based on account stats like duration, number of orders, spend, return rate etc. What I'm saying is that if someone like me, who has been shopping with Amazon for 15 years with orders likely well into 4 figures in that time, yet have only had issues/returned probably single figures or low teens from that, I would be more likely believed in a situation like this than someone that has been shopping with them a short while with a low number of orders.
 
I’ve also had a few refunds for lost returns, often automatically, but only when it’s been lost after being registered as on route to Amazon (collected by Hermes etc). If think if it’s high value item and the empty package gets back to Amazon it’s completely different then.
 
I've been refunded for a faulty Xbox One X and told to do what I want with it (which was send to MS for warranty repair :D), had PS4 controllers replaced without having to send faulty ones back, a blu-ray player 'delivered' but not to me refunded instantly, refunds issued as soon as a return is scanned at the Post Office and credits for late and damaged deliveries.

I'm convinced Amazon has some sort of customer rating system and the level of customer service you receive depends on it. Reading things like this always surprises me based on my own experience.

Not saying people in this situation are bad customers, but that I think they have some sort of system based on account stats like duration, number of orders, spend, return rate etc. What I'm saying is that if someone like me, who has been shopping with Amazon for 15 years with orders likely well into 4 figures in that time, yet have only had issues/returned probably single figures or low teens from that, I would be more likely believed in a situation like this than someone that has been shopping with them a short while with a low number of orders.

Ive been effectively told by a customer service rep that they have a ranking system. I’m also pretty certain we must be up the list, from the amount we spend over the years. May that’s why we always get such a good service from them when things go wrong. We had had items missing from the boxes set to us, when ordering multiple things, and they refunded without quibble.
 
Ive been effectively told by a customer service rep that they have a ranking system. I’m also pretty certain we must be up the list, from the amount we spend over the years. May that’s why we always get such a good service from them when things go wrong. We had had items missing from the boxes set to us, when ordering multiple things, and they refunded without quibble.

You could be right about this customer system based on loyalty and longevity. I‘ve had Prime and renew automatically for a good number of years. I also spend quite a lot with them every month.

Several months ago, I ordered a TV unit (£90 appRox.) which didn’t arrive at the stated date (Hermes was the courier). This went on for a few days; when I eventually enquired with amazon customer services, they apologised and gave me a refund without quibble. They also said the delivery was still scheduled but just delayed for one reason or another, and told me I could keep it if/when it arrived (which it did, and I did!).
 
I’ve also had a few refunds for lost returns, often automatically, but only when it’s been lost after being registered as on route to Amazon (collected by Hermes etc). If think if it’s high value item and the empty package gets back to Amazon it’s completely different then.
Mine didn’t even leave the access point according to UPS 🤷🏼‍♂️
 
But you have proof of leaving it there? Amazon can’t really argue with that.
Sure do , always do , and I’ve just had a refund for a delayed fedex package from the USA when it was weather related and nothing to do with Amazon 👍
 
This exact same thing happened to me. Return a high value laptop(£1300) by using Hermes(it was the only option provided), amazon now claims that they received something different. I have no way to appeal this... This is causing me so much stress and anxiety. I don't know what to do. Anyone who can provide some advices?
 
This exact same thing happened to me. Return a high value laptop(£1300) by using Hermes(it was the only option provided), amazon now claims that they received something different. I have no way to appeal this... This is causing me so much stress and anxiety. I don't know what to do. Anyone who can provide some advices?
Contact the police and get a crime number. Relate this to amazon about a courier stealing your high value item and its been reported to the police.
 
With Hermes and Yodel it's best to just assume any items will be "lost" straight from the start. The only hope is that the parcel will have goods with a low resell value, so book packages will be opened, gone through and dumped on the street as "delivered". Anything easy to sell? Never seen again.

At the local warehouse several Hermes drivers and admin staff were convicted for stealing parcels and alterting the paperwork to show everything was fine. After getting out, guess what? Straight back to working for Hermes.
 
With Hermes and Yodel it's best to just assume any items will be "lost" straight from the start. The only hope is that the parcel will have goods with a low resell value, so book packages will be opened, gone through and dumped on the street as "delivered". Anything easy to sell? Never seen again.

At the local warehouse several Hermes drivers and admin staff were convicted for stealing parcels and alterting the paperwork to show everything was fine. After getting out, guess what? Straight back to working for Hermes.
Wow , you got any links to that , it will be an interesting read !!! , not defending Hermes but I wonder what the actual failure rate is compared to other companies 🤔
 
This exact same thing happened to me. Return a high value laptop(£1300) by using Hermes(it was the only option provided), amazon now claims that they received something different. I have no way to appeal this... This is causing me so much stress and anxiety. I don't know what to do. Anyone who can provide some advices?

The only real advice I can give you is that you need to accept this won’t be resolved quickly, and you will need a lot of patience.

And as already stated, you will need to report this to the police, if only for a crime number. I know from experience that these companies usually won’t budge unless you do this. It helps them weed out the ‘chancers’ as making a false report to the police is a crime, so that escalates things as it more likely (although not impossible) it’s not a false claim. But that won’t sort it by itself, you will still have to jump through many hoops and Amazon/Hermes will try their hardest to avoid taking responsibility and settle your claim. They disgust me because they know damn well lots of stuff is being stolen in transit, but at the same time it would be a free for all if they make the process easy and automatically believed every person. But they appear to do virtually no significant investigation.

If that doesn’t get you anywhere, personally I would be going down the small claims court route with that amount of money involved.
 
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This has put me off buying anything high value (such as electrical goods/laptop etc.) from Amazon in case there are any issues that require a return!
 
This has put me off buying anything high value (such as electrical goods/laptop etc.) from Amazon in case there are any issues that require a return!

I think these are very isolated incidents and in most cases - you only hear about the ones that go wrong... Thousands of people buy TV/Laptops/games consoles from Amazon and have zero issues.

I wouldn't hesitate in buying anything from Amazon - Personally they have been superb throughout the 20 plus years of buying items from them. Refunds issued quickly, Prime is excellent value for money for us as a family and with the recent Same Day Morrisons delivery tie up in our area, getting better by the day.
 
This has put me off buying anything high value (such as electrical goods/laptop etc.) from Amazon in case there are any issues that require a return!
And what your hearing is not common I expect , otherwise it would be all over the press , just the same as when anything else happens with Amazon ....
 
Yes, I guess its the same with most things in terms of being the exception(s) rather than the norm. I’m just naturally paranoid!
 
Have any long term forum members had these issues on high value returns? It seems it's only newbies just signing up to discuss their plight to be affected..
 
Have any long term forum members had these issues on high value returns? It seems it's only newbies just signing up to discuss their plight to be affected..
I signed up because of this post as I'm having the same issue and hope to contact OP and see if he can offer some advices.
 
Contact the police and get a crime number. Relate this to amazon about a courier stealing your high value item and its been reported to the police.
I have filed a report on action fraud. But they dont investigate case by case. Not sure what the chances are that my issue will get investigated...
 
I have filed a report on action fraud. But they dont investigate case by case. Not sure what the chances are that my issue will get investigated...
In my experience just having the crime number and having contacted the police is enough to get an amazon refund.
 

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