Arn Amazon Issue

sternjohn662200 · 3 December 2017 at 9:59PM

Has anyone ever had an issue with an Arn number and amazon.

We ordered a light from amazon about 6 months ago and sent it back as it was faulty to see if they could repair it. They couldn't so they refunded to our credit card. Unfortunately they never told us they were refunding us so we didn't get chance to tell them that the card we paid on is no longer valid. After long conversations with our old credit card supplier santander they told us we needed to give amazon an Arn number and that they could trace the payment via the arn number and amazon could then refund us. Unfortunately all amazon keep saying is speak to your bank and they can issue refund whilst santander are saying it needs to come from amazon via the arn number route.

Can anyone give us any advice to get this sorted.

Thanks

stevenhp1987 · 4 December 2017 at 10:12AM

I've had a similar issue with Amazon.

Due to Anti-Money Laundering regulations, they cannot refund to a different card, so even if you told them the card is invalid (like I did) they will refund it back anyways.

In my situation, the refund didn't bounce, but never arrived. I had to get a letter from the bank declaring the account is closed and that the funds never arrived (which took a while, as they kept saying it was being sent... but of course, it wasn't). Amazon then refunded me via bank transfer.

Amazon asked me for this letter, have you told Amazon the account is closed / card is invalid?

sternjohn662200 · 4 December 2017 at 10:25AM

We have yes. They dont seem to care though as to them they have done there bit and refunded the money. Its a difficult one as we are no longer a customer of santander so we have to be guided by what they say.

Shocking that a company the size of amazon is struggling with this as my wife had a similar issue with a card closed and the company asked for the arn number and resolved it straight away yet a massive company like amazon doesnt seem to know what its doing.

chattychappy · 4 December 2017 at 11:49PM

stevenhp1987 wrote: »

Due to Anti-Money Laundering regulations, they cannot refund to a different card,

I can imagine there might be very good anti-fraud reasons for having this restriction, but AML seems a bit unlikely for a situation such as this.

I sometimes think "money laundering regs" is a bit of catch-all excuse.

stevenhp1987 · 5 December 2017 at 12:19AM

chattychappy wrote: »

I can imagine there might be very good anti-fraud reasons for having this restriction, but AML seems a bit unlikely for a situation such as this.

I sometimes think "money laundering regs" is a bit of catch-all excuse.

Anti-Money regs require that funds go back to the original payment method. It's the law, even if you tell them the card is invalid (as it's the same excuse someone trying to launder money would use). This is not a catch-all, it's simply what it is.

The law is designed to say, stop people deposting into PayPal / Casino on one card, and withdrawing into another.

chattychappy · 5 December 2017 at 9:01AM

stevenhp1987 wrote: »

Anti-Money regs require that funds go back to the original payment method. It's the law, even if you tell them the card is invalid (as it's the same excuse someone trying to launder money would use). This is not a catch-all, it's simply what it is.

The law is designed to say, stop people deposting into PayPal / Casino on one card, and withdrawing into another.

Can you quote the particular law?

AML is all about risk assessment, looking for patterns, sources of funds, customer due diligence, generating suspicious transaction reports etc. The whole point is not to have one-size-fits all rules that can then be subverted. It was never designed to catch small, one-off transactions such as this where goods are returned some months later and a card has expired - particularly if the customer is able to offer additional evidence as to ID etc.

Sounds more like internal regs/FCA guidance/industry practice than hard law, but genuinely curious if there is some specific rule as you say. I'd admit I'm a bit rusty in this area.

By the way, I don't know if you have ever used the Global Blue/Premier Tax Free for duty free transactions. They will happily refund duty/VAT back to a different credit card from the one used to make a purchase. Admittedly we're talking partial refunds. They are also happy for both cards to be in a name that is different from the traveller (and the cards can be in different names from each other).

Arn Amazon Issue

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free