Amazon gift card

LKaye

Hello. I’m after some help. 

On 6th December I purchased a mobility knee scooter from Amazon for £126.99. It was delivered on 9th except I received an incorrect item. I contacted Amazon customer services and was told they couldn’t send a replacement and that I would have to repurchase the item. They refunded the money to a gift card so I could repurchase it quickly. The second delivery came and again it was another different item. They said they would remove the item from Amazon and flag the seller. They have refunded the money to my gift card despite being asked to refund to my bank account and now say they can’t refund from a gift card. I also purchased a different scooter after the second one didn’t arrive which came out my bank account and am down quite a lot of money. Is there anything I can do?

born_again

Was this direct from Amazon or a marketplace seller?

Alderbank

Refunds are normally made back to the original method of payment.

What happened here is that you agreed for the refund for the first scooter to be to a gift card. Your subsequent and quite separate purchase of the second scooter was with a gift card so your refund was to a gift card.

Were both scooters purchased from the same seller?

LKaye

Yes from the same seller. But not Amazon apparently, sent direct by seller. 

Alderbank

I think that from Amazon's point of view, and in law, you purchased the gift card from the marketplace seller, paying for it with the refund from the scooter you returned.

In summary the T&Cs are that it is valid for 10 years and you can buy anything from Amazon's vast catalogue but you cannot redeem it for cash.

Amazon, resonably, seem to expect their resellers to point out the T&Cs when they resell a gift card. You were perhaps under some pressure to buy the gift card - they told you it would speed up delivery of the second scooter. As you are a consumer it is possible that you might be able to claim that you were not aware of the implications of accepting the gift card so the purchase was unfair, but that would depend on the exact discussion you had with the seller.