Section 75 & Amazon Marketplace

flippaxxx

Does anyone have any experience or advice about getting a Section 75 claim refusal overturned for a purchase on Amazon (Marketplace)?

Martin’s guide says “some say it SHOULD be covered but you may have to fight”. Question is, how do I fight it?

Scenario is expensive piece of electrical equipment (£1k+) is faulty within 6 months of purchase (but over 90 days for Amazon A-Z guarantee or 120 days for chargeback), Amazon have removed the seller from their site so I have no way of contacting them directly for a return/refund and Amazon CS is refusing to help. This was a sale directly from Amazon’s listings, not clicking into “buy new or used” but it’s appearing on the credit card statement as “Amazon Marketplace” so CC declined the claim. 

CC is Nationwide if that make a difference.

Browntoa

Are the marketplace sellers still trading elsewhere , a.more direct approach may be required like small claims against the trader

What was the sellers trading name 

flippaxxx

No, I can’t find any details of them. Looks like they are/were based in China so I don’t think that’s an option. No direct website or anything. 

born_again

Only direct Amazon payments are covered.
When using the marketplace you are paying Amazon to move the money to the retailer. just the same as Paypal is often not covered by S75. 
No debtor, creditor link.

flippaxxx

I get it with PayPal - you pay to transfer the funds to PayPal for them to pay on. Your receipt says “paid with PayPal” and quotes your PayPal handle. They have their own protection. With Amazon my invoice clearly says “paid with visa [last 4 digits]”. It’s not using Amazon Pay or similar. 

It’s clearly a grey areas as demonstrated on the section 75 page on here - it should be covered (I get that it might not for second hand goods and the like through Amazon but that’s not the case here). 

eskbanker

flippaxxx said:

I get it with PayPal - you pay to transfer the funds to PayPal for them to pay on. Your receipt says “paid with PayPal” and quotes your PayPal handle. They have their own protection. With Amazon my invoice clearly says “paid with visa [last 4 digits]”. It’s not using Amazon Pay or similar. 

It’s clearly a grey areas as demonstrated on the section 75 page on here - it should be covered (I get that it might not for second hand goods and the like through Amazon but that’s not the case here). 

Unfortunately the ombudsman is likely to side with the credit card provider, ruling out that option, so realistically your only route would be court, if you felt you had a strong enough case....

https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/files/297760/DRN-1103505.pdf

flippaxxx

that’s really helpful esk. Not good news but helpful. 

I wouldn’t have dreamt that would be the case with Amazon... at least with PayPal you get their protection for 6 months which is in line with the Consumer Rights act for refund of faulty goods. 90 days with Amazon’s A-Z guarantee leaves a big gap open after that if things go wrong. 

There’s been a lot of publicity about Paypal and section 75 but this is way worse IMO. 

MalMonroe

May I suggest an alternative route?

I would contact amazon and keep on at them until I got a refund. When you think about the people running amazon (looking at billionaire Jeff Bezos here) and how much they receive from sales, it really is astounding that they cannot, nay WILL not!, guarantee a refund or replacement for items such as the one you were sold. Amazon will still have a record of the seller, even if they have been removed from the site (why was that, I wonder?).

The problem here is NOT that you want to do a return, you want to send back FAULTY goods which surely should have lasted longer than 6 months.  You do have rights under the Credit Consumer Act 2015, surely? Goods have to be fit for purpose. And yours were not. Over £1k is a lot of money to lose, do not let them get away with this!! Please fight for your rights, because you do have some.

https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/regulation/consumer-rights-act-aKJYx8n5KiSl

Good luck! But please don't give in. Jeff B is rich enough.

Sandtree

flippaxxx said:

No, I can’t find any details of them. Looks like they are/were based in China so I don’t think that’s an option. No direct website or anything. 

Go into the order and then bring up the invoice. It will display the sellers details.

The issue is that you havent paid the merchant directly with your credit card, you've paid Amazon who's then paid the merchant and so the chain is broken from a S75 basis. I have seen one or two cases where the Financial Ombudsman has pointed out that they are not bound in the same way as the courts and have said S75 applies to iZettle etc whereas others may not but not seen them go as far as including the likes of PayPal or Amazon

flippaxxx

I’m hitting a brick wall with Amazon but still trying to progress down that route in tandem. They actually suggested contacting the bank for a chargeback but as it’s now passed 120 days it’s a no go, hence trying the section 75 route.

My understanding is that a chargeback is effectively a forced refund (which they can dispute but said they won’t) so why they can’t just refund directly is crazy. They have no contact or accounts with the seller so it would be a chargeback to Amazon...

All their management are now saying is “get a handyman to repair it” which is frankly insulting (it’s a specialist piece of kit and it’s the electrics that are faulty - I’d rather not risk a fire thanks) but believe me I will keep trying.

I can’t even download the invoice any more on the account because they have been removed from the marketplace which is another issue...

I will certainly be thinking twice before buying anything again that’s not direct from Amazon that’s for sure. How they can just kick sellers off and shrug their shoulders with no recourse is ridiculous.

born_again

flippaxxx said:

I get it with PayPal - you pay to transfer the funds to PayPal for them to pay on. Your receipt says “paid with PayPal” and quotes your PayPal handle. They have their own protection. With Amazon my invoice clearly says “paid with visa [last 4 digits]”. It’s not using Amazon Pay or similar. 

It’s clearly a grey areas as demonstrated on the section 75 page on here - it should be covered (I get that it might not for second hand goods and the like through Amazon but that’s not the case here). 

Amazon Marketplace is in effect EBAY but under a different name (many retailer moved from ebay to amazon as it sounds better). Amazon simply process the funds, they have nothing to do with providing the goods. Just the same as Ebay they provide some protection, but have time limits.

Sadly not grey, as far as banks go it's black & white. No debtor creditor link.