Amazon Marketplace seller and refusal (so far) to cancel order

[BlissC]

On the 28th March I placed an order with an Amazon.co.uk Marketplace seller to replace an item I'd bought a couple of months ago and then mislaid. Of course as happens with these things, no sooner had I ordered a replacement, but I found the original! *sigh*

 

Checking the seller's returns policy, it stated that to cancel an order before it had been dispatched, you should email them as soon as reasonably possible. Less than 24 hours after placing the order with the Amazon Marketplace seller, on the Monday, the 30th, I emailed them to request cancellation of the order. The response I got was,

"We are unable to cancel your order, once the order has been completed.

Please return any unwanted items for a full refund/exchange."

 

My response of course was to ask whether the item had been dispatched, as I hadn't received a dispatch notification. Their reply (6.30pm on the 30th):

 

Thank you for your recent email.

 

I can confirm your order has been despatched.

 

Our standard delivery service guarantees that all orders are usually received within 3 to 5 working days, but to allow a maximum 7 working days before tracing the delivery of your goods. (This does not include weekend or bank holiday days).

 

Unfortunately, we cannot specify which day the courier will attempt delivery, however if you are not at home when they do call, they will either leave your parcel with a neighbor or leave a calling card for you to arrange delivery. If you have not received the parcel in the time stated we can arrange for a trace to be placed on the parcel.

 

To this, obviously my response was to ask "Are you saying it's been dispatched?" because I hadn't received a dispatch notification, and pointing out to them again that I'd already been in contact requesting cancellation of the order.

 

Response (11.30am on 31st March):

 

"Unfortunately we are unable to cancel an order placed via Amazon at the moment due to the way they are processed.

 

Sorry for any inconvenience caused."

 

On Thursday last week a courier tried to deliver the item, but I could tell from the sticker on the package which company it was from, and refused to accept delivery of it, explaining to the courier that I'd been trying to cancel the order since before it was dispatched. She said, no problem, and off she went. Later that day I got a phone call from the courier's supervisor asking me to confirm that I'd refused to accept delivery of it, which I confirmed. End of story, I thought.

 

Then this morning (8.20am) I got an email from the company to say that the item was:

 

"out for delivery today and is due to be delivered between 09:49-10:49. Can you please ensure that someone will be available to sign for the parcel"

 

There was a button to press to change the delivery date (not much use two hours before the email said it was due to be delivered!). I was going out this morning anyway for an appointment so I thought they'd simply be unable to deliver the item, and even if the courier left a card, if I didn't arrange redelivery, they'd hopefully get the message...

 

...not quite that simple, because when I returned this afternoon I found the courier had left a card saying....

 

"Sorry we missed you, as you were unavailable to sign I am pleased to inform you that the sender has authorised us to leave your goods."

(their bolding)

 

....and they'd gone and left it with a neighbour, who, not knowing the history of my dealings with this company of course took it in. (how many times when I actually want a courier company to leave something with a neighbour do they insist they can't? Typical!)

 

Of course my nice friendly neighbour brought the package round when she realised I was home, and I've ended up by default with the damned thing sitting here!

 

My annoyance is two-fold - one that the company has been less than helpful to say the least, and the second that to now return the damned thing to them means me going to the post office, which isn't an easy option as I'm disabled, so on top of postage to send the damned thing back it'll cost me £4 in taxi fares to get there and back.

 

My initial response was going to be to stick it outside the front door and email them and tell them where they'd find it if they wish to fetch it back, but on reading up on the Distance Selling Regulations I noticed that it does say that if you've received goods you have to take "reasonable care" of them prior to returning to the seller.

 

I'm not sure what my next move should be or quite how to respond to the company (except re-iterate the story yet again, as they just don't seem to be able to understand simple words).

 

Anyone got any advice on what I should do next?

[perplexity]

It doesn't mean you are going to going to the post office, not at all.

 

The provision of the UK Distance Selling Regulations that you seem to have missed is this, which is absolute, when a consumer cancels a distance contract:

 

(4) The consumer shall not be under any duty to deliver the goods except at his own premises and in pursuance of a request in writing, or in another durable medium available and accessible to the consumer, from the supplier and given to the consumer either before, or at the time when, the goods are collected from those premises.

In your position I'd be inclined to hand the goods to Trading Standards, with a complaint about the way that Amazon have dealt with this.

 

So long as you did inform them that the contract is cancelled your right to be reimbursed is also absolute.

 

With regard to the duty of care, in my opinion you'd be well within your rights to have stuck it outside the front door, email etcetera. Nobody has to accept a delivery that they would rather not receive, unless it's a court summons or something of the sort, and a courier is not entitled to leave a delivery with a neighbour if it was addressed to you, unless you specifically authorised a neighbour to receive a delivery.

 

I'd be giving them Hell for that.

 

It would nice to think it possible to get back to Amazon to sort it out reasonably, but the feeling of this is that it's daft to expect as much in view of what happened so far. See what Trading Standards have to say. Give them a ring.

 

[BlissC]

Thanks, I've contacted Trading Standards by email (I'm hard of hearing and don't 'do' phones unless absolutely essential ).

 

I've never had a problem with Amazon, and their returns policy I've always found to be great - Amazon themselves allow you to totally cancel an order up to the point where the order status changes to 'processing', which I've done in the past, and whenever I've needed to return or exchange things with Amazon themselves, their customer service has always been great. Some of their Marketplace sellers are a different matter though, and I've had problems with some of them in the past. I know I can file a complaint with Amazon about the seller (which I will be doing), but I just wanted to check where I stand with returning the item to make sure I've got my facts right.

 

Thanks for the advice.

[Conniff]

I can't see what the fuss is about. You have 7 working days starting the day after you received it, so, just send them in writing a rejection under the DSR and let them collect it, you don't need a reason - simple.

[BlissC]

Can I do that, even though it says in their policies page on Amazon that they don't offer a returns collection service?

 

That was my initial reaction yesterday when my neighbour brought it round. I was simply going to email them and tell them it was outside the front door where they could collect it from, but then I thought I ought to check that I was doing the "right" thing.

[Conniff]

Under the DSRs they do - perplexity will be back later and explain it fully for you.

 

Cancellation periods for goods

 

• where written confirmation and additional information is provided before or at the time of delivery of the goods, the cancellation period is 7 working days beginning with the day after the day on which the goods are delivered;
  
• where the written confirmation and additional information is provided after the goods are delivered but within a period of three months beginning with the day after the day on which the goods are delivered, the cancellation period will end after 7 working days beginning with the day after the day on which the written confirmation and additional information is provided;
  
• Example: the written confirmation and additional information is provided to a new customer three weeks after he placed an order. The cancellation period will be 7 working days from the day after the date the written confirmation was provided.
  
• where the obligation to give written confirmation and additional information is not fulfilled within three months beginning with the day after the day on which the goods are delivered, the cancellation period ends after three months and 7 working days from the day after the day on which the goods are delivered.
  

[perplexity]

The statute itself is fairly clear as it stands, except that it is easy overlook this:

 

(3) This paragraph applies to a term which requires the consumer to return any goods supplied to him under the contract if he cancels it under regulation 10.

 

(4) A term to which paragraph (3) applies shall, in the event of cancellation by the consumer under regulation 10, have effect only for the purposes of regulation 14[5] and 17[8].

That makes it perfectly clear that a buyer could never be forced to return the goods if he would rather not.

 

14(5) would then be the tricky bit, because it says that "the supplier may make a charge, not exceeding the direct costs of recovering any goods supplied....". However, seeing that Amazon is not so willing to come to collect the goods in any case, too bad for them!

 

The matter that Trading Standards ought to be having a word with Amazon about is the deception of the consumer, who is fooled into believing that the upshot of all this is some sort of duty to return the goods, or pay for the purchase. It is rather the duty of a supplier inform the consumer that the right to cancel exists! A misleading commercial practice could be prosecuted as a criminal offence under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, because it "it causes or is likely to cause the average consumer to take a transactional decision he would not have taken otherwise". There is no excuse for a firm like Amazon to fail to be aware of that, and with regard to the delivery of an order that was already cancelled the inference in terms of fair play is obvious enough.

 

It is debatable whether or not the the Unsolicited Goods and Services Act 1971 applies, but the principle ought to, it being a criminal offence for a business to pressure a person into paying for "what he knows are unsolicited goods sent to another person with a view to his acquiring them".