Expensive phone discarded by Amazon Returns

LaHostessAvecLaMostess

born_again said:

LaHostessAvecLaMostess said:

In Luxembourg?  Because the legal entity is in Luxembourg, not the UK and the T&C's state that it is under Luxembourgian law, not UK law.

Whilst I appreciate that the glorious nation of Luxembourg may be a nice place to visit, it could be quite expensive to do so for a court case.

>>>If you are a consumer and have your habitual residence in the EU or the UK, you additionally enjoy the protection afforded to you by mandatory provisions of the law of your country of residence<<

https://smile.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html

You stated that Amazon UK Services Ltd does not exist in the below thread and have been proved wrong..

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6312978/amazon-to-stop-accepting-visa-credit-cards-from-january-2022-here-s-all-you-need-to-know#latest

The OP didn't do business with that entity, they did it with Amazon EU, based in Luxembourg.

You can't go suing someone just because they have Amazon in their name.  Well you can, but even if you get a judgement by default it'll be a piece of cake to overturn.

born_again

Perhaps you need to read the Op.

>>> Two months ago I bought a £850 phone from Amazon.co.uk. <<<

Alderbank

I think everyone's right in a way.

I've just checked my prime membership which is at Amazon.co.uk.
The terms and conditions of Amazon.co.uk say:

s14 Applicable Law 
These conditions are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, and the application of the United Nations Convention of Contracts for the International Sale of Goods is expressly excluded.

If you are a consumer and have your habitual residence in the EU or the UK, you additionally enjoy the protection afforded to you by mandatory provisions of the law of your country of residence.

We both agree to submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of the district of Luxembourg City, which means that you may bring a claim to enforce your consumer protection rights in connection with these Conditions of Use in Luxembourg or in the EU country in which you live.

Ergates

littleboo said:

I would have thought that Amazon have a duty of care to property sent in error, in the same way that if they dispatched the wrong item to a customer, it would be reasonable for you to allow them to collect the item and not bin it straight away.

You would, but you'd also expect Amazon to pay taxes on the billions of pounds of sales they make in the UK, but they've largely managed to wangle out of that one so....

LaHostessAvecLaMostess

born_again said:

Perhaps you need to read the Op.

>>> Two months ago I bought a £850 phone from Amazon.co.uk. <<<

I'm aware of the OP although this thread has been hijacked by someone else.

When you buy from Amazon in the UK you're buying from Amazon EU, who appear to have no UK presence at all.  It's precisely for this reason that Amazon are having their spat with Visa.  As they're based in the EU rather than the UK the interchange caps don't apply.

You are not doing business with Amazon Services UK, who I suspect are paid by Amazon EU to provide services, and are not a consumer-facing entity.

Taking Amazon EU to court in the UK is pointless as they have no UK assets (or presence) as far as I can tell, so they can safely ignore any judgement.  Although you could ask the courts in Luxembourg to enforce the UK judgement they could refuse, and even if they don't it'll likely involve a trip to Luxembourg which rather defeats the object of suing them in the UK.

Manxman_in_exile

LaHostessAvecLaMostess said:

Fentoozler90 said:

Manxman_in_exile said:

ramthor said:

Fentoozler90, sorry to hear about your issues with Amazon.

I am the original poster on this thread which I did ask to be deleted after all the hostility received for only asking for advice on a public forum supposedly aimed at helping the consumer. I see you are getting the same treatment as I have been given which is sad but not surprising for me. That's why I never posted anything here since and I never will. This reply is because I got notified on my email about the thread being active again after such long time.

If you are interested to know what happened to the phone that Amazon "discarded" just because they could... well it's still discarded and no compensation was ever given. I returned the non-5G version that I bought from Amazon and issued a full refund and that's it as far as Amazon is concerned. 

If this thread remains visible, then it can act as a warning for other people in the same situation: if you make a mistake in returning something to Amazon, you can say good-bye to it forever. You're never going to see it again.

Bottom line, Amazon is above the law and posting for advice on this forum is a waste of time.

I think if you bothered to read the replies to this thread properly you will see that you were given good advice from the outset.  In the very first reply Aylesbury_duck advised you to make a written complaint to Amazon (if you had not already done so) and that if that did not resolve the matter then you would have to sue them etc etc.  That advice was later repeated by Aylesbury_duck and also by Waamo.  It's basically the same advice that I've given to Fentoozler90 above earlier today, except that I've added that Amazon need to be sued for the tort of conversion where they've deprived somebody of their property.

It's true that some posters (including myself) queried how you could possibly have mistakenly returned your husband's phone to Amazon rather than the one you had just bought from them.  It seemed an unlikely thing to have happened.  You were told at the time that Amazon would also almost certainly challenge your account of what had happened so it would be as well for you to get used to defending your version of events rather than everyone saying how sorry they were for you for making such a mistake.

Amazon aren't above the law but they will continue to act as if they are so long people allow them to get away with it by not suing them.  Did you follow the advice to send them a Letter Before Claim and then follow it up?

(FWIW I don't buy anything from Amazon because I don't like how they do business... )

I’ve started proceedings with a small claims court today thank you all for the advice nobody here has said anything Amazon hadn’t which is why I have evidence of every correspondence I even started informing them I was recording there calls just as they were since when I asked for the call records they refused to give me them. http://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk is my next step following one final letter affording Amazon to offer a reasonable resolution. 

In Luxembourg?  Because the legal entity is in Luxembourg, not the UK and the T&C's state that it is under Luxembourgian law, not UK law.

Whilst I appreciate that the glorious nation of Luxembourg may be a nice place to visit, it could be quite expensive to do so for a court case.

But why is any of that relevant in the OP's situation?  

If he decides he wants to sue Amazon, the OP's cause of action wouldn't have anything to do with contract law or what jurisdiction governs the contract, would it?

That's because he wouldn't be suing them for a breach of contract at all - he'd be suing Amazon because they've either lost or destroyed property* belonging to him.   I'm pretty sure the law doesn't allow a person to deprive another person of their property, either by destroying it or by just losing it, without being liable to pay the property owner compensation.  It must be covered by the tort of conversion and/or the duties of an involuntary bailee, mustn't it? It's irrelevant whether the original contract of sale is governed by Luxembourg law or not because the OP wouldn't be suing under contract law - they'd be suing under English and Welsh tort law for the recovery of their property or its value.

And as to the defendant, surely the OP would be suing whichever Amazon entity he "returned" the wrong computer to and which has lost or destroyed it?  (But I agree that if the OP decides to sue he does need to make sure he's suing the "right" Amazon.  How he ensures that I freely admit I don't know as I have never bought anything from Amazon and don't intend ever to do so... )

It's because this isn't really a run of the mill consumer issue about consumer rights or faulty goods and contract terms etc, that I advised the OP yesterday to visit the Consumer Action Group and seek their opinion as to what their options are in this situation.  I'm pretty certain I've read threads on there where they've helped people get compensation for destroyed property based on conversion claims against people like Hermes. 

Again I strongly advise the OP to visit CAG and ask their advice as to how - or even whether - to proceed.  Because this isn't a straightforward consumer or contract claim he will need advice as to how to draft a LBA and Particulars of Claim. 

And - of course - the OP needs to remember that Amazon tend not to like being sued (or so I've read... )


*Remember - the property we are talking about that Amazon have discarded/lost/destroyed is not covered by any contract with Amazon - it was bought from Currys.

Money_Grabber13579

LaHostessAvecLaMostess said:

Ergates said:

LaHostessAvecLaMostess said:

Ergates said:

LaHostessAvecLaMostess said:

Fentoozler90 said:

I’ve actually gone through something similar or better yet going through it now and really stuck with my options my wife and I bought Mac book pros one from Amazon and one from pc world about a week apart the new M1 one turns out I couldn’t install windows with it not having an intel processor in it so I contacted Amazon and asked if I can return it and order an intel variant they said yes so I did a few weeks later I got an email from them saying the one I returned wasn’t bought from them and they are discarding the incorrectly returned item bare in mind my Amazon order had no serial number for the laptop and the invoice from pc world didnt either both laptops were 13” space grey I’ve chased and chased to find out why they would discard it and apparently they aren’t liable for any damages for throwing away my item just keep saying if I return the correct one they will happily refund me 

Yeah, right.

So they just threw a grand plus item in the bin and told you to go swivel?

I can actually believe a company like amazon would do that.   They'll have a policy in place - incorrectly returned goods must be discarded - and it'll be applied totally inflexibly (because their employees aren't allowed to have the slightest bit of autonomy) even when it defies all common sense.  It's the exact kind of result you'd expect when *everything* is about driving efficiency and employees are treated like flesh robots.

A bit like the case where eBay insisted a buyer destroy a $2500 antique violin because they thought it was counterfeit, and eBay policy says buyers must destroy counterfeit goods before they can get their money back.  The fact that it was still clearly a valuable antique violin and this was a grotesque act of vandalism was irrelevant as the policy was the policy and must be followed.

I can't, it'll put them on the hook for billions (if we believe the newbies on here.)

Second question, why do they only discard MSE newbie items?  Or do they have a policy for that too?

That's just a variation of the anthropic principle - they don't only discard MSE newbie items, but having an item discarded by Amazon would be an incentive to create an account to ask what to do.  The majority of posts in the Consumer Rights (and the loans and the banking) forum are created by newbies who have encountered an issue of somewhat and want advice (or sometimes just to rant). 

Also, The web is full of stories of people accidentally sending the wrong item back to Amazon and them binning it - which isn't that surprising really as it states on their terms and conditions page that this is what they'll do:

Amazon.co.uk Help: About Our Returns Policies

Mistaken Returns
Please ensure you enclose the correct and complete item when making a return. The correct item must be returned to receive a refund.
If you have accidentally sent the wrong item to Amazon, please contact Customer Service as soon as possible as Amazon does not store mistakenly sent items. Amazon cannot guarantee your item will be found and returned, and no compensation is provided for incorrect items sent to Amazon.

There is a point where a healthy skepticism become cynicism - not everyone is a liar.

I'm aware of that but there are a hell of a lot of people who post somewhat regularly however the recent theme is for newbies to all have their times pinched or destroyed.

Not all newbies have had their items destroyed.  Some have had their accounts banned and are returning under new names to continue posting the same old rubbish that got them banned in the first place…

Money_Grabber13579

LaHostessAvecLaMostess said:

born_again said:

Perhaps you need to read the Op.

>>> Two months ago I bought a £850 phone from Amazon.co.uk. <<<

I'm aware of the OP although this thread has been hijacked by someone else.

When you buy from Amazon in the UK you're buying from Amazon EU, who appear to have no UK presence at all.

Do they not?

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/BR017427

when you purchase from Amazon, you are purchasing from the UK Branch of Amazon EU Sarl, which is very much a UK presence. It might not be a UK legal entity but it’s still a presence and Amazon’s own website confirms that they operate in accordance with UK law. 

Manxman_in_exile

Just to add to the earlier post, I still think the OP's best bet at sorting this out is to get someone at amazon to understand what has happened here.  If Amazon won't accept this, what else can the OP do?

LaHostessAvecLaMostess

Money_Grabber13579 said:

LaHostessAvecLaMostess said:

born_again said:

Perhaps you need to read the Op.

>>> Two months ago I bought a £850 phone from Amazon.co.uk. <<<

I'm aware of the OP although this thread has been hijacked by someone else.

When you buy from Amazon in the UK you're buying from Amazon EU, who appear to have no UK presence at all.

Do they not?

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/BR017427

when you purchase from Amazon, you are purchasing from the UK Branch of Amazon EU Sarl, which is very much a UK presence. It might not be a UK legal entity but it’s still a presence and Amazon’s own website confirms that they operate in accordance with UK law. 

Zero filing history, zero assets.

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