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

born_again

Seems odd that the person does not have a bank account, as how do they receive any benefit payments. 
Usually in such cases the bank account would be overseen & run by someone from either their family or their social worker/council care dept. (deputyship )

I would find it odd that any council dept would spend £2K on vouchers in such as case. 

elsien

They haven’t. The support worker allegedly has.

Undervalued

zlorf said:

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. 

I am astonished that this is even allowed by the organisation your work for?

Undervalued

outtatune said:

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.

Exactly this ^^^^^^^^^

GDB2222

The OP has asked for help with Amazon. I don’t think that all these criticisms are warranted. 

zlorf

I won't go into the specifics of the person's situation as to why they can't (currently) have a personal bank account - not least because it doesn't relate to my question.

Outtatune, while you sound like a very knowledgeable person, please accept that you don't know (or need to know) anything about the person in question, their circumstances and the restrictions which have been imposed upon them.

The person's assigned Social Worker has authorised Amazon Gift Cards to be purchased, and items to be purchased via Amazon in this way.

The individual used to physically collect cash from a local Social Work office every fortnight, but has now been issued with a prepaid card which they can use to withdraw cash at ATMs.

Rest assured the Social Worker has also been updated at every step with this issue which has been going on for over a week now.

We have all the evidence necessary as proof of purchase, and have attempted to attach the photos to emails which seemingly aren't read by a human being.

The last contact with Live Chat asked me to email the receipt photos to "image-attachments@amazon.co.uk" and we received yet another template email stating "your order has been cancelled, place another order".

What's the best course of action?

Undervalued

GDB2222 said:

The OP has asked for help with Amazon. I don’t think that all these criticisms are warranted. 

Apart from being frustrating to deal with it is not clear Amazon are doing anything wrong here. It is a very difficult situation and as the OP themselves said at the beginning, it was a set of transactions very likely to have triggered Amazon's fraud protection markers, as it would for most other large retailers.

It is not clear who the OP works for. If it is a large organisation and the OP was acting within their authority then the organisation should use their resources, or if necessary a solicitor, to deal with Amazon and safeguard the client's money. If the OP is a "one man band" then it is more difficult but hard to see that more calls / online chats with a call centre is going to fix this. If operating as a self employed carer then I hope the OP has liability insurance to protect themselves and the client.

zlorf

elsien said:

 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.

No, the individual's Amazon account is 2+ years old and has been used to make many purchases (using Gift Card credit bought with cash from supermarkets) for both big and small items. Some of the largest/most expensive purchases included a gaming chair and a PS5 console, plus games, etc. This is the largest purchase of Gift Cards, and the largest single purchase, to date, though.

I have no problem supplying any kind of information as proof, including photos of receipts or even putting them in touch with the Social Worker, but I seemingly can't get anyone to accept or even read any of this evidence!

No specifics have been mentioned about any particular part of the Gift Card policy at all - and I've looked through it, and can't see they have broken any of the terms and conditions.

I am just repeatedly told to "wait 24-48 hours" and the accounts department (whom customers themselves cannot contact directly) will respond with a "resolution".

One seriously annoying aspect of Live Chat is that there is no option to have a copy of the chat transcript e-mailed to you after the window closes. So, I've been scrolling and saving millions of screenshots of these maddening conversations. 

Thanks for the suggestion of reaching out via twitter, though. That could be worth a try.

Aylesbury_Duck

GDB2222 said:

The OP has asked for help with Amazon. I don’t think that all these criticisms are warranted. 

I generally agree, but I suspect the suspicions and criticisms of the process are probably the same things that have caused Amazon to take the action they have.  I suspect this is going to take a lot of unwinding and at this time of year, the time taken to do so is probably going to be longer than usual.

It sounds as if OP is acting entirely honestly, above-board and with their employer and client's consent.  However, it looks very odd and I can understand why a retailer would put a stop on it until they know more.

GDB2222

zlorf said:

elsien said:

 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.

No, the individual's Amazon account is 2+ years old and has been used to make many purchases (using Gift Card credit bought with cash from supermarkets) for both big and small items. Some of the largest/most expensive purchases included a gaming chair and a PS5 console, plus games, etc. This is the largest purchase of Gift Cards, and the largest single purchase, to date, though.

I have no problem supplying any kind of information as proof, including photos of receipts or even putting them in touch with the Social Worker, but I seemingly can't get anyone to accept or even read any of this evidence!

No specifics have been mentioned about any particular part of the Gift Card policy at all - and I've looked through it, and can't see they have broken any of the terms and conditions.

I am just repeatedly told to "wait 24-48 hours" and the accounts department (whom customers themselves cannot contact directly) will respond with a "resolution".

One seriously annoying aspect of Live Chat is that there is no option to have a copy of the chat transcript e-mailed to you after the window closes. So, I've been scrolling and saving millions of screenshots of these maddening conversations. 

Thanks for the suggestion of reaching out via twitter, though. That could be worth a try.

You haven’t said what sort of device you’re using. In windows I expect control a, followed by control c, will copy the whole chat ready for pasting into a document.