Amazon Overcharge Vent!

GreatBeyond

BlueEyedGirl wrote: »

Believe in yourself, that is my motto! :T

Only when I know I'm right, otherwise remain open minded :beer:

wealdroam

GreatBeyond wrote: »

I would be pretty interested for one single person to either prove that I have said Amazon are right in processing payments this way or even better prove me wrong completely, show me that Amazon don't process payments in this was.

Well the first sentence of your earlier post that I responded to said:

GreatBeyond wrote: »

People all through this thread have mentioned Amazon have made a mistake in how they processed these transactions, they didn't it's simply how their system is set up to take payments.

That translates to "people say Amazon were wrong, they are not".

And yesterday you said:

GreatBeyond wrote: »

Like it or not that is how Amazon process payments, no mistake was made and the same thing will happen every single time this situation happens.

"no mistake was made" is exactly the same as saying Amazon were right.

Amazon's process in this situation is flawed.

I'll just add that I fully understand how it happens.

GreatBeyond

wealdroam wrote: »

Well the first sentence of your earlier post that I responded to said:

That translates to "people say Amazon were wrong, they are not".

And yesterday you said:

"no mistake was made" is exactly the same as saying Amazon were right.

Amazon's process in this situation is flawed.

I'll just add that I fully understand how it happens.

A mistake would imply this was not how the system is set up to take payments and that something had gone wrong to make this happen on this occasion.

The Cambridge dictionary define a mistake as:

"an ​action, ​decision, or ​judgment that ​produces an ​unwanted or ​unintentional ​result"

If people had said 'if this is how Amazon take payments but it's completely wrong' I wouldn't have commented.

People said Amazon made a mistake, they didn't - as I'm sure you know if you do understand that is how their payment system works.

Nilrem

Re Ghost transactions.

They happen with all sorts of retailers and it can sometimes be down to the bank not actioning the release of the original amount.

You see it happening an awful lot with some retailer/bank combinations (there are/were fairly common posts about Tesco home delivery doing it from memory, as I think Tesco put a hold on the order amount but if something wasn't available when it shipped it was charged not as the held amount).

I suspect that at times the bank/payment processor is slow to release the hold on the funds (it's probably right at the back of the queue when the Bank's system is struggling with actual payments and transfers*)

I don't think the op mentioned what bank they were with, or if the amounts shown as charged actually appeared in the statement from the bank before being refunded.

It's also worth noting that Amazon don't always show the final amount of an order until it's been shipped if it's using a multi buy offer related discount (or you've selected to allow them to split the order if it's faster and to pay the extra postal charges).
For example I've got a 3 disc order outstanding with them at the moment that states I'm going to be charged 49.97 in the headline, but also states each of the discs is 19.99, because the order had a £10 off £50 voucher applied but obviously it won't apply it to a single part of the order until the conditions have been met and £50 or more of the order has shipped (so at a guess I'll be charged £9.97 for disc 3).

So if you, like the Op are taking advantage of a 3 for £10 offer, it's quite likely that until enough of the items are shipped to activate the offer it'll probably show the wrong values on the order page (because individually each item is a different value, not the £3.33~ it works out as when you have 3 of them).
IIRC that sort of thing is fairly common with retailers because it does away with the ability for people to say order a bundle with 3 items to get a discount, then cancel 1 or 2 items and still get the discount (it used to be possible on a lot of sites as the system applied the discount at order, not shipping).
I remember the fun you could have back in the late 90's and early 00's when a lot of retailers systems weren't smart enough to reset the price of items if you ordered enough for a deal then cancelled some of them (IIRC it was possible with some deals and retailers to get the items free because of the way it applied the discount - in much the same way sometimes you can stack offers at supermarkets now to get paid for some items, or get them for pennies).

Likewise a couple of times I've had promotional credit with them and bought an ebook or some music and the initial order confirmation screen showed the full cash amount before the promo credit, with the actual amount in "my orders" updating a little later (presumably some precaution somewhere to stop people being able to use the same promo credit twice).


*It would be quite interesting to see if it happened more to customers with banks that have had major issues that hit the headlines, as things like "reserved funds"/"held funds" are much less likely to be noticed than the transaction straight out failing or you not being able to get your balance.

daytona0

Sheldon_Cooper wrote: »

Two reasons. It wasn't relevant because no one really cared about the mechanism that Amazon used to foul up the payments. Secondly, before the MSE team removed some text the poster had been rude about the OP and others.

Why did "no one really care about the mechanism that Amazon used to foul up the payments."?

To me that comes across as very closed-minded. A sort of reluctance to discuss alternative viewpoints and assign appropriate blame to other parties who are at least partially at fault (ie the CARD ISSUER). A sort of 'guilty until proven innocent, and EVEN THEN you still have to further convince me!' sort of attitude towards Amazon.

Not to say that you are wrong, but not to say that you are 100% right too.

Yea they might have been rude, but people still didn't agree with the IDEA which was discussed.

I think you are making the same mistake as a couple of others here and obsessing about the MECHANISM of the foul up, rather than the fact it happened, and CS hadn't a clue. I doubt anyone cares whether a poorly implemented system caused the foul up and corrected itself automatically, or if it was some weird glitch that was corrected manually.

1. The mechanism is important, as some mechanisms are out of Amazon's control (and in fact many many online retailers). Why are you so reluctant to explore the possibility that something may have happened beyond Amazon's control? Is that so far-fetched*?

*I worked in a place similar to Amazon and can verify that these ghost transactions were commonplace for certain CARD ISSUERS. We had no means of refunding it, nor did we know much about them BECAUSE THE BANK INITIATED THEM. So it was a "wait 3-5 working days" job for customers. Do you feel that my experience is not relevant to this situation?

2. Unless discussed on a later post, I do not see enough evidence in the OP to suggest that "CS hadn't a clue". In fact, I made this point to you earlier as OP said that they discussed "every excuse this morning" - by definition that means that the CORRECT excuse was also given, as it is a subset of "every excuse". To me that suggests that the ears weren't open.... not to berate OP, though, because they were probably angry at the time.

3. You are kinda right! Nobody really cares about what caused it, other than the fact that Amazon's name is next to the mess-up. This, however, is slightly naive and is taking a bit of an educated guess. People would benefit from listening to alternative viewpoints and discussing them more openly, as you may learn something new about the inner workings of similar companies.

Because more people took the view that Amazon fouled up the payments and the CS and weren't any help ane weren't interested in the people trying to make out it didn't matter because that's how Amazon designed the system?

I like the phrase "took the view". It almost admits that, with lack of concrete evidence to the contrary, there exists more than one viewpoint.


This is all NOT criticising your viewpoint, but rather your opposition towards the one expressed by geerex!

Sheldon_Cooper

GreatBeyond wrote: »

A mistake would imply this was not how the system is set up to take payments and that something had gone wrong to make this happen on this occasion.

The Cambridge dictionary define a mistake as:

"an ​action, ​decision, or ​judgment that ​produces an ​unwanted or ​unintentional ​result"

If people had said 'if this is how Amazon take payments but it's completely wrong' I wouldn't have commented.

People said Amazon made a mistake, they didn't - as I'm sure you know if you do understand that is how their payment system works.

Sorry, you're still wrong.

The 'mistake' is in the design of their system which clearly allows things like this to happen. It just means that it's a more serious mistake than a one off caused by human error. The fact that other systems exhibit the same faulty behaviour is neither here nor there. Amazon are still at fault.

Sheldon_Cooper

daytona0 wrote: »

Why did "no one really care about the mechanism that Amazon used to foul up the payments."?

To me that comes across as very closed-minded.

It's not close minded, it's irrelevant to the OP's complaint. All the Amazon apologists say that this is how their payment system works, so even they admit that Amazon knowingly operate in such a way that their customers are getting incorrectly charged, even if only temporarily.

That's bad enough but not having CS trained to immediately admit the error and reassure the customer that the transactions will soon be corrected is unforgivable.

A sort of reluctance to discuss alternative viewpoints and assign appropriate blame to other parties who are at least partially at fault (ie the CARD ISSUER). A sort of 'guilty until proven innocent, and EVEN THEN you still have to further convince me!' sort of attitude towards Amazon.

Not really. Even the most ardent Amazon apologist has not suggested that the card issuer made up the amounts. The root of the problem is Amazon not simply taking the amounts that had been agreed between themselves and the customer.

Yea they might have been rude, but people still didn't agree with the IDEA which was discussed.

Can you point to some posts where people say the idea is wrong rather than irrelevant?

1. The mechanism is important, as some mechanisms are out of Amazon's control (and in fact many many online retailers). Why are you so reluctant to explore the possibility that something may have happened beyond Amazon's control? Is that so far-fetched*?

Because no one is even suggesting that any other party made up the figures. Amazon are the ones who failed to simply take the agreed amount(s) and charged other amounts which cause the customer to be overcharged.

*I worked in a place similar to Amazon and can verify that these ghost transactions were commonplace for certain CARD ISSUERS. We had no means of refunding it, nor did we know much about them BECAUSE THE BANK INITIATED THEM. So it was a "wait 3-5 working days" job for customers. Do you feel that my experience is not relevant to this situation?

It's only relevant in that it shows other retailers also use the system in such a hare brained way that it results in the user being overcharged. Amazon are still at fault.

2. Unless discussed on a later post, I do not see enough evidence in the OP to suggest that "CS hadn't a clue". In fact, I made this point to you earlier as OP said that they discussed "every excuse this morning" - by definition that means that the CORRECT excuse was also given, as it is a subset of "every excuse".

You're getting REALLY desperate here and clutching wildly at straws. "every excuse" is obviously a figure of speech otherwise OP would have been on the phone for a lot longer that 20m.

I like the phrase "took the view". It almost admits that, with lack of concrete evidence to the contrary, there exists more than one viewpoint.

Yes. Remembering the context, the other view is that the intricacies were relevant. All I was saying is that more people took one view than the other and that is why one post was thanked more than another. You seem to be trying to base an argument on peoples choice of which post was most useful. Which seems a bit presumptuous.

This is all NOT criticising your viewpoint, but rather your opposition towards the one expressed by geerex!

I'm not opposed to it, just his high handedness and rudeness (which he has exhibited in other threads) and the fact that it does not let Amazon off the hook for using a system that can generate this problem and abysmal (in this particular instance) customer service.

GreatBeyond

Sheldon_Cooper wrote: »

Sorry, you're still wrong.

The 'mistake' is in the design of their system which clearly allows things like this to happen. It just means that it's a more serious mistake than a one off caused by human error. The fact that other systems exhibit the same faulty behaviour is neither here nor there. Amazon are still at fault.

Now we are getting somewhere - you think that Amazon have made a mistake in choosing that system. That's absolutely fine and you are entitled to your opinion and I'm not going to argue that at all.

It's absolutely not the point I'm making however, their system worked exactly as intended so from that aspect no mistake was made.

Azari

daytona0 wrote: »

2. Unless discussed on a later post, I do not see enough evidence in the OP to suggest that "CS hadn't a clue". In fact, I made this point to you earlier as OP said that they discussed "every excuse this morning" - by definition that means that the CORRECT excuse was also given, as it is a subset of "every excuse". To me that suggests that the ears weren't open.... not to berate OP, though, because they were probably angry at the time.

Just out of interest, how do you think the conversation with CS went. Was it:

CS: Yes madam, that's how our systems work, it will be corrected in a day or two.
BEG: I don't believe that, tell me another.
CS: String of spurious excuses.

or was it:

CS: String of spurious excuses.
CS: Yes madam, that's how our systems work, it will be corrected in a day or two.
BEG: I don't believe that, tell me another.
CS: Sorry, I've run out of excuses.

If CS knew what they were talking about the conversation would have taken about 30 seconds and would not have required the OP to send a screenshot of her bank account.

GreatBeyond

Sheldon_Cooper wrote: »

The root of the problem is Amazon not simply taking the amounts that had been agreed between themselves and the customer.

Amazon did not take a penny more than the agreed amount - the OP's bank were holding the £20 and then made it available again to the OP.

The only money that Amazon have taken is the £50.