Amazon Demand a Police Report - Police won't issue one?????

powerful_Rogue

savergrant said:

BrianBadonde said:

I am totally exasperated with Online Shopping / Couriers.   After recently receiving an item from Currys only to find the item had been swapped inside the box with a cheaper one, I decided to buy the item from Amazon.  In fact, we went for a more expensive model.

So I ordered a Webcam, Tripod & Remote from Amazon.    The Webcam & Tripod were shipped first.   Amazon sent us a One-off Code to give to the delivery driver.   Great idea!!!   I'm sure they get Scammers claiming none delivery...  It's the first time we've had this One-off Code.

Driver arrived with one package.   Wife said there should be 2 items.   Driver said he only had instruction for one item & showed her his phone.   Wife opened the box in front of the driver to find only the Tripod in the box.   The £254 Webcam not inside.   The driver said the Webcam must be with another driver.   Sounded fair enough.    Soon as he left, we receive an email from Amazon....BOTH ITEMS HAVE BEEN DELIVERED.

So I immediately contacted Amazon.   They were helpful at first.  They said well it sounds like the item has been stolen by a 3rd Party & instructed me to report it to the Police & obtain a Crime Report.

Unfortunately, despite much pleading & begging over the phone & 2 Police Stations, they will not issue a Full Crime Report!    We have a Crime Number.   Amazon won't accept this.

I am trying to contact Amazon UK = Impossible.   Just doing the rounds of overseas Call Centres telling me the same thing.


I don't know what to do?

Did the Box have a weight specified on the label? Although the tripod is likely to have been heavier than a webcam, hopefully the absence of a webcam would make a difference to the weight. If there is no sign of tampering then the webcam was probably never in the box, whether by mistake or deliberate fraud.
It sounds like you had no reason to suspect the webcam was meant to be in the same box until amazon emailed confirming delivery? 
I saw something a while back which recommended always filming yourself opening parcels(I find this very difficult to do) but it should prove that you have received a box but not necessarily what the retailer believes to be contained in the box.
If you can't prove that the box didn't contain the item you might have difficulty holding the retailer liable, as it is only your word against theirs.

Not really. Slit the bottom of the box, take item out. Film from the top opening and vola, no item! Plus personally I always feel it seems a little suspicious when someone is filming themselves opening a parcel.

savergrant

powerful_Rogue said:

savergrant said:

BrianBadonde said:

I am totally exasperated with Online Shopping / Couriers.   After recently receiving an item from Currys only to find the item had been swapped inside the box with a cheaper one, I decided to buy the item from Amazon.  In fact, we went for a more expensive model.

So I ordered a Webcam, Tripod & Remote from Amazon.    The Webcam & Tripod were shipped first.   Amazon sent us a One-off Code to give to the delivery driver.   Great idea!!!   I'm sure they get Scammers claiming none delivery...  It's the first time we've had this One-off Code.

Driver arrived with one package.   Wife said there should be 2 items.   Driver said he only had instruction for one item & showed her his phone.   Wife opened the box in front of the driver to find only the Tripod in the box.   The £254 Webcam not inside.   The driver said the Webcam must be with another driver.   Sounded fair enough.    Soon as he left, we receive an email from Amazon....BOTH ITEMS HAVE BEEN DELIVERED.

So I immediately contacted Amazon.   They were helpful at first.  They said well it sounds like the item has been stolen by a 3rd Party & instructed me to report it to the Police & obtain a Crime Report.

Unfortunately, despite much pleading & begging over the phone & 2 Police Stations, they will not issue a Full Crime Report!    We have a Crime Number.   Amazon won't accept this.

I am trying to contact Amazon UK = Impossible.   Just doing the rounds of overseas Call Centres telling me the same thing.


I don't know what to do?

Did the Box have a weight specified on the label? Although the tripod is likely to have been heavier than a webcam, hopefully the absence of a webcam would make a difference to the weight. If there is no sign of tampering then the webcam was probably never in the box, whether by mistake or deliberate fraud.
It sounds like you had no reason to suspect the webcam was meant to be in the same box until amazon emailed confirming delivery? 
I saw something a while back which recommended always filming yourself opening parcels(I find this very difficult to do) but it should prove that you have received a box but not necessarily what the retailer believes to be contained in the box.
If you can't prove that the box didn't contain the item you might have difficulty holding the retailer liable, as it is only your word against theirs.

Not really. Slit the bottom of the box, take item out. Film from the top opening and vola, no item! Plus personally I always feel it seems a little suspicious when someone is filming themselves opening a parcel.

If the box is new then it is usually quite easy to see if tape has been cut or removed once you have viewed the box from all angles imo.
And sadly it is not unbelievable that op is telling the truth. However on the balance of probabilities if it came to court it would be hard to win.
It is a different matter if the box has been resealed, as there would be no way of knowing whether the box had been opened before or after receipt. In the old days we used to be able to sign 'received unchecked' but now?
As regards to the title of the thread, is it really a Police matter if you receive a box without the item in it if there is no evidence the box has been tampered with?

Grumpy_chap

savergrant said:

As regards to the title of the thread, is it really a Police matter if you receive a box without the item in it if there is no evidence the box has been tampered with?

I understand, from other threads in these forums mostly, that Amazon can respond to a claim of "parcel delivered, empty box" with a request for the claimant to report as a theft and obtain a Police crime reference number.  That is, I suppose, an acceptable view for Amazon to take as, if the item was dispatched but did not arrive to the recipient, then someone somewhere along the shipment chain has seemingly stolen the item (especially where reported the package was intact).  I suspect Amazon also use that request as a method of filtering the purely spurious "item not received" claims.

It seems now as though the OP does, indeed, have that crime reference number that has been requested by Amazon:

BrianBadonde said:

We just received a call from the Police, who confirmed this is recorded as a Theft & have been given a new Crime Reference Number.   Apparently the first number was just a Logging number.   Now we have the official one.

savergrant

Grumpy_chap said:

savergrant said:

As regards to the title of the thread, is it really a Police matter if you receive a box without the item in it if there is no evidence the box has been tampered with?

I understand, from other threads in these forums mostly, that Amazon can respond to a claim of "parcel delivered, empty box" with a request for the claimant to report as a theft and obtain a Police crime reference number.  That is, I suppose, an acceptable view for Amazon to take as, if the item was dispatched but did not arrive to the recipient, then someone somewhere along the shipment chain has seemingly stolen the item (especially where reported the package was intact).  I suspect Amazon also use that request as a method of filtering the purely spurious "item not received" claims.

It seems now as though the OP does, indeed, have that crime reference number that has been requested by Amazon:

BrianBadonde said:

We just received a call from the Police, who confirmed this is recorded as a Theft & have been given a new Crime Reference Number.   Apparently the first number was just a Logging number.   Now we have the official one.

I just think the police will say to take it up with the sender, there's no evidence a crime has been committed.
At the end of the day it is the company's word against the op's.

dumpster_fire2025

savergrant said:

powerful_Rogue said:

savergrant said:

BrianBadonde said:

I am totally exasperated with Online Shopping / Couriers.   After recently receiving an item from Currys only to find the item had been swapped inside the box with a cheaper one, I decided to buy the item from Amazon.  In fact, we went for a more expensive model.

So I ordered a Webcam, Tripod & Remote from Amazon.    The Webcam & Tripod were shipped first.   Amazon sent us a One-off Code to give to the delivery driver.   Great idea!!!   I'm sure they get Scammers claiming none delivery...  It's the first time we've had this One-off Code.

Driver arrived with one package.   Wife said there should be 2 items.   Driver said he only had instruction for one item & showed her his phone.   Wife opened the box in front of the driver to find only the Tripod in the box.   The £254 Webcam not inside.   The driver said the Webcam must be with another driver.   Sounded fair enough.    Soon as he left, we receive an email from Amazon....BOTH ITEMS HAVE BEEN DELIVERED.

So I immediately contacted Amazon.   They were helpful at first.  They said well it sounds like the item has been stolen by a 3rd Party & instructed me to report it to the Police & obtain a Crime Report.

Unfortunately, despite much pleading & begging over the phone & 2 Police Stations, they will not issue a Full Crime Report!    We have a Crime Number.   Amazon won't accept this.

I am trying to contact Amazon UK = Impossible.   Just doing the rounds of overseas Call Centres telling me the same thing.


I don't know what to do?

Did the Box have a weight specified on the label? Although the tripod is likely to have been heavier than a webcam, hopefully the absence of a webcam would make a difference to the weight. If there is no sign of tampering then the webcam was probably never in the box, whether by mistake or deliberate fraud.
It sounds like you had no reason to suspect the webcam was meant to be in the same box until amazon emailed confirming delivery? 
I saw something a while back which recommended always filming yourself opening parcels(I find this very difficult to do) but it should prove that you have received a box but not necessarily what the retailer believes to be contained in the box.
If you can't prove that the box didn't contain the item you might have difficulty holding the retailer liable, as it is only your word against theirs.

Not really. Slit the bottom of the box, take item out. Film from the top opening and vola, no item! Plus personally I always feel it seems a little suspicious when someone is filming themselves opening a parcel.

If the box is new then it is usually quite easy to see if tape has been cut or removed once you have viewed the box from all angles imo.
And sadly it is not unbelievable that op is telling the truth. However on the balance of probabilities if it came to court it would be hard to win.
It is a different matter if the box has been resealed, as there would be no way of knowing whether the box had been opened before or after receipt. In the old days we used to be able to sign 'received unchecked' but now?
As regards to the title of the thread, is it really a Police matter if you receive a box without the item in it if there is no evidence the box has been tampered with?

I really don't think it would be difficult for someone to run a Stanley knife (other sharp knives are available) down the middle seam and the tape at both ends, remove an item and then repackage it with Amazon-branded tape. And I don't think it would be obvious to a person who wasn't specifically looking for this that it had happened, outside of them doing a particularly poor job of it.

However, I am not sure what this proves exactly.

There seem to be two possible scenarios here. Either the item never went in the box in the first place (which should be easily traceable by Amazon and I wouldn't be surprised if they have automated systems to pick up on this as the parcel passes through the warehouse) or it went in and someone removed it at some point after it was packaged.

The former seems unlikely due to the reason I gave, and it being easy for Amazon to check after the fact, so we're left with the latter. So we have a video of someone opening a box which, by rights, almost certainly has been tampered with so what does this "great unboxing" prove exactly? If it's not obviously tampered with, then they've done a decent job of getting it out, and if it is somewhat obvious, it doesn't prove the recipient wasn't the one who did it.

I've seen some people claim to do "uncut" filming of this but with the right video editing skills, I don't think it's difficult for anyone other than a rank amateur to make a plausible "unedited" video for the purposes of ripping online retailers off with. And ultimately these retailers just don't have the time or the resources to start forensically examining videos like this when they can just as easily refuse to accept them.

savergrant

In op's case there is another possibility, they were expecting the order to come in two parcels but only one was delivered. So it is possible that the webcam was packed separately but the op only given one collection code which was linked to both packages, someone has been aware of this and intercepted the higher value package.
I would agree it is likely that a business like amazon would keep accurate weights of packages, so substitution with a bit of extra bubble wrap would not work, although substitution with junk of the same weight might.
Are amazon still saying the items were sent as two parcels?

BrianBadonde

OK, latest development.   Amazon now offering a REFUND!

Problem is I purchased the item at £254.   It's now priced at £299.    So I refused the Refund & said I want the item.

The call centre can't do that & I can't find ant way to Escalate.


Any ideas?

powerful_Rogue

BrianBadonde said:

OK, latest development.   Amazon now offering a REFUND!

Problem is I purchased the item at £254.   It's now priced at £299.    So I refused the Refund & said I want the item.

The call centre can't do that & I can't find ant way to Escalate.


Any ideas?

Amazon don't send out replacements. They always refund and get you to repurchase.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

BrianBadonde said:

OK, latest development.   Amazon now offering a REFUND!

Problem is I purchased the item at £254.   It's now priced at £299.    So I refused the Refund & said I want the item.

The call centre can't do that & I can't find ant way to Escalate.


Any ideas?

Take the refund  

Amazon's CS is overseas and script based. Have a look on camelcamelcamel, their price will probably drop back down soon. 

BrianBadonde

I just noticed I missed a load of replies here.   I'm not getting any notifications.    

So thanks for all who contributed.