Amazon Overcharge Vent!

Azari

GreatBeyond wrote: »

So the actual amounts that Amazon have taken from the OP's bank account are as follows -

£13.63 - 4 books - shipment 1
£16.66 - 5 books - shipment 2
£16.37 - 5 books - shipment 3
£3.84 - 1 book - shipment 4

Initially when the orders were placed and to confirm the card selected was valid Amazon communicate with the bank and let them know the cost of the order, £20 and then £30 - the bank then hold the money ready for Amazon to apply for the payment in full, this would happen at the dispatch stage.

The items weren't all able to be shipped together (in terms of 6 books in one shipment and 9 books in the other) so dispatched at different times and payment was taken for each shipment as it dispatched.

The bank appear to have recognised this with the £30 order and either used the £30 they were holding to make the payment or released the hold straight away so that it wasn't noticed by the OP.

The bank didn't recognise one of the payments was related to the £20 they were holding and kept holding the £20 until it looks like the last item was shipped (basing that on the post saying a further £3.84 was taken and the £20 was released back.)

From Amazons side they are not able to see whether or not the bank are holding money or not and they can't make the bank release it, what they can see is that £x was taken and what the payment relates to.

OK, you've nailed the 'it's automated' aspect.

That was a bit of an irrelevance, though, as I don't think anyone questioned that until this morning.

It does leave a lot of questions about the way Amazon do things, though:

1) Amazon knew the books were in stock, knew where they were, and knew how they would be picked and sent. Why pre authorise amounts when they know perfectly well that these are not the amounts they are going to take? Why not preauthorise when the picking list was generated? If someone was close to their limit Amazon's behaviour could cause the real transaction to be blocked.

2) Why charge random amounts for the books? Again, they knew what was ordered and that it was in stock. Why charge anything other than multiples of £3.33?

3) As SC pointed out, why did something that was a ring fence amount appear as a transaction going out and a separate transaction coming back in?

All in all Amazon seem to be doing things in a way that facilitates automated cock-ups when there is no clear need to do so to achieve the quickest/cheapest aim.

The-Truth

Azari wrote: »

All in all Amazon seem to be doing things in a way that facilitates automated cock-ups when there is no clear need to do so to achieve the quickest/cheapest aim.

Is that because maybe their aim is to be the cheapest with no cockups which they manage to do thousands of times but every now again again the system that is needed to achieve that goes wrong. But in reality it goes seldom wrong so little (because otherwise with their volume of transactions MSE forums would meltdown with complaints if it were frequent) that in fact their system is pretty good.

Azari

The-Truth wrote: »

Is that because maybe their aim is to be the cheapest with no cockups which they manage to do thousands of times but every now again again the system that is needed to achieve that goes wrong. But in reality it goes seldom wrong so little (because otherwise with their volume of transactions MSE forums would meltdown with complaints if it were frequent) that in fact their system is pretty good.

Quite possibly. It's certainly never happened to me.

It would be easy enough to resolve, though, either by only authorising the card when the picking list was generated or providing more information on the account page about what they have actually done.

GreatBeyond

Azari wrote: »

OK, you've nailed the 'it's automated' aspect.

That was a bit of an irrelevance, though, as I don't think anyone questioned that until this morning.

It does leave a lot of questions about the way Amazon do things, though:

1) Amazon knew the books were in stock, knew where they were, and knew how they would be picked and sent. Why pre authorise amounts when they know perfectly well that these are not the amounts they are going to take? Why not preauthorise when the picking list was generated? If someone was close to their limit Amazon's behaviour could cause the real transaction to be blocked.

2) Why charge random amounts for the books? Again, they knew what was ordered and that it was in stock. Why charge anything other than multiples of £3.33?

3) As SC pointed out, why did something that was a ring fence amount appear as a transaction going out and a separate transaction coming back in?

All in all Amazon seem to be doing things in a way that facilitates automated cock-ups when there is no clear need to do so to achieve the quickest/cheapest aim.

1) I would expect that it's because shipments are not generated instantly. The order is placed and they verify the card is valid before taking any action, once the bank confirm it's good to go the respective shipments are generated. I won't be as simple as we have stock here so that will be the one sent out, it will depend also on carrier availability to pick it up and make the delivery, ensuring that the warehouse dispatching it have carriers who can deliver it to the selected address and that the carriers who can deliver it to the address have enough availability and are making a collection from the warehouse in enough time to get it delivered for the delivery estimate.

It's also not just one order at a time they are dealing with, their system is designed to ensure everyone gets their items as quickly as possible - at their busiest time they are dealing with several million orders in a day.

2) I have know idea why the charges were showing random amounts.

3) The OP would be best asking their bank why that is the case, Amazon would have no control over how something will appear on someones bank statement.

Amazon as a company are constantly automating processes to ensure that they are able to get things done as cheaply and efficiently as possible - now it's not impossible that there isn't a better way that they haven't thought about but I would imagine that the way they process payments and orders has been chosen for a reason.

Edit: This is all getting a bit off point and I'm finding myself defending their system. This is not what I intend to do, the only point I wanted to make was that a mistake wasn't made in terms of how this was processed and explain why this happened which I think I have managed to do.

JReacher1

Azari wrote: »

Quite possibly. It's certainly never happened to me.

It would be easy enough to resolve, though, either by only authorising the card when the picking list was generated or providing more information on the account page about what they have actually done.

Retailers authorise the card at point of order to ensure that the customer has enough funds to pay for the order. If they authorise downstream then there is a chance the customer may no longer have available funds to process the order.

The retailer will want to ensure the order can be paid for before it starts pushing the order through their system.

I think the majority of retailers authorise on order and charge on despatch.

JReacher1

The random amounts are because all books are different prices. If you buy three books at

£5
£4
£3

Then you save £2. This £2 is proportionally split amongst the three books to take around 66p off each one.

If you said all three books were £3.33 then you are in theory over charging the customer for book 3 (as that only cost £3).

Therefore the best way to split a discount on an order is to proportionally apply it. As opposed to repricing all items in an order to fit the promotion being offered.

BlueEyedGirl

JReacher1 wrote: »

Retailers authorise the card at point of order to ensure that the customer has enough funds to pay for the order. If they authorise downstream then there is a chance the customer may no longer have available funds to process the order.

The retailer will want to ensure the order can be paid for before it starts pushing the order through their system.

I think the majority of retailers authorise on order and charge on despatch.

Not the ones I use. JD Williams don't, I placed an order yesterday for several items and nothing is pending on my bank account. My previous experiences tell me they take payment for each item individually as it is picked and ready to be despatched.

JReacher1

BlueEyedGirl wrote: »

Not the ones I use. JD Williams don't, I placed an order yesterday for several items and nothing is pending on my bank account. My previous experiences tell me they take payment for each item individually as it is picked and ready to be despatched.

You will always get the odd company that are different.

JD Williams are an unusual case as they are a historic credit account catalogue company with a bespoke in house developed IT system to cater for this.

BlueEyedGirl

JReacher1 wrote: »

You will always get the odd company that are different.

JD Williams are an unusual case as they are a historic credit account catalogue company with a bespoke in house developed IT system to cater for this.

Maybe, but I do not have a credit account with them, I pay up front with a debit card!

BlueEyedGirl

JReacher1 wrote: »

How many problems have you had in the 2,000 plus items you've ordered?

At a guess, hardly any until this year. Thinking on it most of the problems have been since Amazon started using there own couriers!