In the early days of online shopping, lots of consumers were wary.
If they received an item they didn’t like and they wanted to return it, they’d often have to pay to ship it back to the seller.
The added cost turned off a lot of shoppers.
Amazon changed all that. While it now has actual Amazon locations where shoppers can return items for free, it also allowed customers to return most packages to Kohl’s or Whole Foods, which Amazon bought in 2017. (It also allows returns to UPS Stores, but now it costs $1 for some packages.)
The process is pretty simple. The consumer initiates the return on the Amazon website and brings the package to the retailer. The retailer scans a code, takes the package and usually, consumers see their refund in short order.
But that’s not what happened when Jocelyn Cornine returned an Amazon purchase to the Whole Foods in Parsippany on April 25.
Nearly a month later, the $138.60 return still had not been credited to her account even though the account showed Amazon received the product.
“I use Amazon constantly,” the Morris County woman said, noting she always returns items to her local Whole Foods. “This is the first time I’ve had a problem with a return.”
Cornine said she monitors all of her account balances daily, but when she didn’t see a refund posted, she grew concerned. She said she poked around on the Amazon website, which said not to ask for assistance until it’s been two weeks since the product was returned.
So she waited.
After the two weeks, with no refund, she chatted online with an Amazon representative.
“They gave me a reference number and told me it would be an additional three to five business days,” she said.
On May 21, which was the sixth business day, there was still no refund. She started a chat with Amazon again.
“I was reasonably calm until they told me that (a), they already had the product back; (b) my refund was blocked; and, (c) that it was blocked because of an error on their end,” Cornine said.
The chat, which lasted 42 minutes, ultimately yielded a credit offer of a $5 “token of apology” and a promise of the refund within 24 hours.
But 48 hours later? Still no refund.
“I just want my money back,” she said. “I don’t give a rat’s keister about the $5 they promised me for my inconvenience.”
She asked Bamboozled for help.
After reviewing the purchase history and the chat transcripts, we asked Amazon to review what happened.
“We’ve reached out to the customer to apologize for the inconvenience and are resolving it directly with her,” spokesperson Taylor Whitehurst said.
Our questions about how many returns Amazon handles through Whole Foods, Kohl’s and other locations were not answered.
We also asked what went wrong in this case so other shoppers can learn from it. That question wasn’t answered, either.
Cornine, though, got an email from Amazon later that day saying it was working on the case, and on May 24 — 29 days after she dropped the package at Whole Foods — she received another email saying the refund was being processed.
The money was in her account three days later.
Cornine said she will continue to drop off her returns to Whole Foods because the mistake was on Amazon’s side. And because it was the first time Amazon made this kind of error, she will keep shopping there, too.
She also had some advice for other shoppers.
“Document everything, never give up, and if all else fails, contact Bamboozled!” she said.
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Karin Price Mueller may be reached at KPriceMueller@NJAdvanceMedia.com. Follow her on X at @KPMueller.
