Quote:
Originally Posted by ovaldisk
I bought the $114 Kindle with Special Offers directly from Amazon.com.
It was taken out of the box and used for maybe 1 hour total. The device was never registered and never connected to any Wi-Fi network.
When I read the other thread here about Best Buy's sale on the Kindle 3G with Special Offer for $139, I decided to get that one instead. With the free $30 Best Buy gift card offer, it was essentially only $109 and comes with free 3G.
Well... I shipped the $114 Kindle back to Amazon and paid for return shipping by myself. The the after Amazon received it back, they sent me an email telling me a refund had been processed. However, it was not the full $114. They charged me $22.80 restocking fee. This is what it showed in the email: "Partial Refund Deduction: ($22.80)"
I returned the Kindle in prinstine condition and even wiped clean my fingerprints. The Kindle, USB cord, small manual, were all in the box. I always take a picture of the items inside the box before I ship it out, just in case.
So, I called Amazon and they told me there was nothing they could do. The Kindle box was opened, so they had to charge me the $22.80. (which is 20 percent of the $114) I've been a loyal Amazon Prime customer for 4 or 5 years and during all that time, I've only returned 6 items, which resulted in a total of $97.52 in refunds. (out of the 142 orders I've ever placed during those years) I keep details or every order in a spreadsheet.
I still cannot believe they charged me 20 percent re-stocking fee. I called again a couple of hours later and spoke to another customer service rep, who was very sympathetic, but couldn't do anything about the re-stocking fee. I decided to give it one last try and this time got a customer service rep who looked into my past orders... a minute later, she offered to add a $15 gift balance to my account, good for my next Amazon.com purchase. I accepted it because it was good enough.
Is this re-stocking fee unique to Kindle returns? Or is this how Amazon handle returns these days? Like I said, I almost never return anything to Amazon.  |
I may get flamed here, but I would blame that on people buying multiple devices at once while intending to keep just one. Once returned the device cannot be sold as new. Stores have to recover that money somehow.
Edit: not implying that the OP practices this.