Illustration by Dustin Elliott

By Christopher Elliott
Guest Columnist

Leah Davidson returns her iPhone 11 to a third-party seller on Amazon. But the seller claims the box is empty. Does she still get her money back?

Christopher Elliott

I recently bought an iPhone 11 through a third-party seller on Amazon. I returned the phone via UPS, and I have a receipt that verifies the package was delivered.

The seller claims it received an empty box. I’ve shown the seller my receipt, which says there was a phone in the box. The third-party seller keeps asking Amazon to intervene. But Amazon says they are unable to take further action, so my request keeps getting tossed back and forth.

Can you help me get my $319 back? — Leah Davidson, Sunnyvale, Calif.

Amazon should have refunded your $319, even if you were dealing with a third-party seller. How do I know that? It says it right here, in Amazon’s A-to-z guarantee.

Specifically, Amazon says you can get a refund if your returned item, sent with a label provided by the seller, is lost. I’m surprised Amazon didn’t immediately take responsibility for your iPhone.

Instead, it looks like the seller ultimately didn’t accept your return when it received your box, claiming the package was empty. But you had written evidence from UPS showing it weighed over a half pound when it was delivered. As I understand it, the correct procedure would be for the seller to file a claim with UPS rather than to recharge you.

Your case is a little unusual. A few months after your attempted return, Amazon says your credit card covered the loss — except the card paid the third party, not you. I didn’t even know a card could do that, and I’m going to have to look into that maneuver. It’s new to me.

So the reseller was made whole, but you were still out $319. It looks like Amazon’s records showed that it had already refunded you and didn’t recharge you for the phone. But your bank says Amazon recharged you, so it was a matter of connecting your credit card with Amazon and the third party to clear up the matter.

A brief, polite email to one of Amazon’s executive contacts should have fixed this. But alas, it did not.

Amazon kept bouncing you to a lower level of customer support. It looks like the representatives you dealt with didn’t have a clear understanding of your problem or how to fix it.

Like other big companies, Amazon relies on artificial intelligence to handle some of its customer service functions. As I reviewed your case, it seems AI might have handled — or maybe it’s more accurate to say, mishandled — your refund issue. It’s always helpful to have a set of human eyes on a tricky refund case like this, so I hope Amazon can fine-tune its processes to ensure this doesn’t happen again.

No question about it, this case needed a person who could look at all of your correspondence with Amazon at every level and with the third-party seller. So I contacted Amazon on your behalf.

Amazon reviewed your case and gave you a full refund but did not explain what went wrong. Perhaps they outsourced the explanation to an AI.

Christopher Elliott is the founder of Elliott Advocacy, a nonprofit organization that helps consumers solve their problems. Email him at [email protected] or get help by contacting him.