Mar 2, 2009

Update on Amazon customer service: Things are better, but they're not fixed

If you've been following along, you already know that Amazon botched the payment method for my order of an Aerogarden and seed kit. Here's the latest . . .

When we last left off, Amazon had charged my credit card for the entire purchase, $72.13, and credited back $60.69 to my gift certificate balance, meaning I was out a total of $79.27. In other words, Amazon owed me $7.14 (the cost of the seed kit).

I took the advice of Funky Frum and Helen and sent Amazon an email summarizing the situation and stating that if they didn't correct the payment, I was going to initiate a dispute with my credit card company for $7.14. (Fortunately, the Aerogarden and seed kit were charged separately, so it would have been easy to just dispute the charge for the seed kit.)

Despite the "Most emails are answered within 12 hours" message on the contact form, I wasn't surprised to receive no response within 48 hours. But since I sent the email on Friday, Feb. 28, I told Amazon that I would wait until 6:00 p.m. on Monday (today) to hear from them.

Yesterday, I logged into my credit card account and discovered that Amazon had credited my card with the full amount of the order. That left my credit card at $0 as to this order – they'd charged me for $72.13 and credited me for $72.13.

Meanwhile, my gift certificate balance remained at $90.69. That's $30 of gift certificate credit that I added after I thought they'd fixed the error, plus $60.69 that they credited back for an inexplicable reason. So I still owed them $72.13 – the cost of the order.

I have no faith in the email contact form, so this morning, I called that toll-free number again. Again, it sounded like the call was outsourced, but again, I got someone who understood what I was saying. That's something at least. At this point, of course, it's somewhat difficult to follow what happened, but I'm pretty sure I conveyed my message clearly: deduct $72.13 from my gift certificate balance and call it a day.

As of this writing, my gift certificate balance is still $90.69. I hope that changes soon, and that this whole saga will soon be over and done with!

3 comments:

Kacie said...

A less honest person would just say "thanks for the freebie!" and be done with it. Good for you for following through with the whole thing!

Unknown said...

I just wanted to let you know that I found the Aerogarden on clearance at Target for $49.99. Seed kits and lightbulb packs were $9.99 each.

Chief Family Officer said...

@Kacie - Thanks. It never occurred to me to take the money, and they'd probably figure it out at some point. Or maybe not, they can't seem to figure ANYTHING out.

@CE - Ooh, thanks! I'll keep an eye out!