Purchased £2000+ worth of Amazon Gift Cards, unable to spend them.

zlorf

I am a Support Worker for a person who requires 24-hour support due to a disability. The individual wanted to purchase an expensive TV for their Christmas gift, but without access to a bank account or an easy way to make online purchases, I supported them to buy Amazon Gift Cards (with cash which they physically collect from the Social Work department).

We retained the receipts, as we do with all purchases, and loaded the Gift Card credit onto their Amazon.co.uk account. They ordered the TV, which was sold by another electrical retailor through Amazon's webstore.

Obviously, purchasing multiple Gift Cards of £100.00 to £250.00 and attempting to buy a £2000+ TV was something which understandably popped up on Amazon's radar. 

Amazon immediately cancelled the order, and I received an e-mail from gc-accounts-verification@amazon.co.uk, which stated the order was cancelled and instructed me to reply to the message, attaching photos of the receipts for proof of purchase of the Gift Cards. Worryingly, the e-mail says that if I continue abusing the terms and conditions of the Gift Card Policy (I read it, and I have not) they may remove the Amazon credit from the individual's account without issuing a refund.

I sent the e-mail as a reply and attached 14 individual images of all the receipts. I got a reply saying "This e-mail address does not accept incoming messages"

I attempted to order the TV a second time, and again, some hours later the order was cancelled.

Over the last week I have had multiple phone calls and Live Chats with customer service agents later (many of whom simply told me to "wait 24 hours for a resolution"). 

I was told to, again, e-mail the same address with photos and was assured it would be dealt with. Again, the address responded saying it did not receive incoming messages.

Today, another Live Chat agent told me to e-mail the images to "image-attachements@amazon.co.uk". They reassured me the spelling of "attachements" was correct (indeed, it was not).

The individual I support is out of pocket for £2000.00, and I have a duty of care towards them and their finances. Amazon's customer services process is unhelpful, and I have actually caught a few of these agents blatantly lying to me in order to get rid of me now.

What should I do at this point? Is the complaints procedure equally unhelpful?

Thanks in advance for any guidance. 

user1977

Can the gift card balance be used for lower value purchases, or is the whole amount blocked?

What was the reason for doing it via gift cards?

outtatune

What is the 'Social Work department'?

zlorf

We've been able to purchase multiple lower cost items over the last few years year using Amazon Gift Card credit. The highest single purchase was probably a Playstation 5 console. The total amount we've spent this way, including all the other purchases, has been well over £2500.

Only these recent TV orders have been cancelled/refused.

As for why the person uses Gift Cards purchased with cash - they do not have a bank account.

Bella_Budget

Have you contacted the individual's social worker or even duty worker due to the holidays to make them aware of this situation? Does the person have capacity re finances or is there a financial guardian? If so, they need to be alerted. I know nothing about Amazon complaints but you, as you say, have a duty of care to your client but also to yourself. You need everyone who has an interest to know and understand what is going on so you do not leave yourself open to accusations of financial abuse.

m-holland

The person I care for receives similar payments from the local authority's social work. 

Not only is what the money highly specific on what it can be used for, they insist on a seperate bank account and receipts kept for everything.

This just sounds odd.

elsien

 I agree with the other’s comments. Collecting cash from social services seems an odd way of going about things. I’m guessing they have an appointee for their benefits if they don’t have their own bank account, which implies possibly some concerns around their capacity around finances. So was this decision to buy 2K worth of Amazon cards a way to circumvent any protective measures in place? Because if it was that’s a safeguarding, as you have seriously over reached a financial duty of care.

Because otherwise I really don’t see why they couldn’t just either open a bank account or get a pre-paid card and buy it themselves. Or ask their appointee to buy it for them. 

To answer your question though, Amazon don’t really have a clear escalation method for complaints. Have they given you any sort of reason why the email says that you’ve violated the gift card policy? To be honest it probably just looks dodgy AF, as you have acknowledged. Was  the account created specifically for this with no other purchases because if so, it’s probably set off all their fraud alerts. 

You also need to bear in mind that to you  get this resolved this time of year,  they are going to be inundated with returns and questions and getting replies is not going to be a quick process. You may have to persevere through live chat, and make sure you’re downloading copies of all the chats. Although I’m told that the phone staff can be slightly more help than live chat.
the alternative is to try and get hold of someone via Twitter, or use this email address.  managingdirector@amazon.co.uk.

TELLIT01

The whole scenario seems strange.  I thought cash payments from 'Social Services', actually now DWP had stopped some years ago.  They don't generally have any cash on site at all.  If that amount of cash was paid to the benefit claimant, surely the obvious thing to do was pay it into the carers account and then pay for the TV from their account.

I suspect that the Amazon Gift Card numbers have now been blocked by Amazon so any purchase with them may be problematic.

kazwookie

Is this in the UK or USA?

elsien

As they are using amazon.co.uk. Presumably the UK..

outtatune

Since the OP hasn't replied to my earlier question ...

I'd expect a disability support worker to know how the UK benefits system works, as helping their clients navigate the benefits system is a key part of their role. They would probably know what the DWP is called; they'd know what the Benefits Agency is called. They'd know what their local authority social services department is called. They'd know that in the UK benefits are almost always paid into a bank account, and they would know that basic bank accounts are readily available. They would know that part of their role is to help their clients open a basic bank account if they don't already have banking services. They would wonder why this particular client, while being wealthy enough to afford expensive purchases like £2k+ TVs and PS5s and to not need their benefits for everyday expenses does not have a bank account. They would know that benefits are only paid in cash in exceptional circumstances, and even then only for small, specific amounts for specific purposes. They would know that social workers and benefit agency staff do not keep large amounts of cash lying around, for their own safety.