Originally published at: Amazon tried to stiff a man who ordered an iPhone and got dog food instead | Boing Boing
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Suggestions for clarity:
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This is a pretty common scam on Amazon. A third party takes an order for a pretty pricey item and ships something that is worthless. Since an item was shipped, delivered and accepted, the order is considered to be fulfilled. Hard to get your money back, and the vendors tend to be fly-by-night operations that go away quickly.
Any time there is a system, someone will figure a scam for it. Because people suck.
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It seemed appropriate. 
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With UK consumer protections buying on a credit card helps too. If Amazon wants to give you the runaround you can pass the chat log to the CC and get a chargeback.
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And I wonder how you can film opening a phone order when your new phone is to be your camera…
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So this is why those unboxing videos became a thing.
Huh. I wonder if there is some way to manipulate a video so that it looks like I’m opening my order and finding dog food…
And that’s how I get caught.
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I’ve actually considered doing this a few times, though generally i’m not making high dollar purchases so i don’t usually think to do so
I usually think of it after the box is open.
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Importantly, if the item is more than £100, you’re best off going with a Section 75 case, rather than a chargeback- chargebacks use the credit card’s dispute resolution process and are ultimately up to the company, whereas section 75 is part of consumer law and gives you much more leverage.
Also, does anyone know if you can feed dog food to a bobcat?
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I had a similar issue with Amazon once.
Ordered a used (like new) cell phone from Amazon Warehouse. Received a wonderful used (like new) cell phone package. Quick chat with customer service and the charge was refunded. I really thought I would have to fight for it.
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I think how that goes depends a lot on order history. I order plenty of stuff I shouldn’t and rarely have an issue so when I do, I usually get refund or replacement very easily.
In other words, they’re weighing up my future profit agains the odd item loss, I reckons.
Once I ordered an expensive “refurbished” headset from Amazon Warehouse. I received the correct headset carton, with a T-shirt inside. The T-shirt was very nice, but not worth $150.
Amazon took about 2 months to issue a refund.
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Absolutely. Amazon knows whether you’ve been naughty or nice. Why, judging by all the solicitations from credit card companies I get, what with they pleading sign-up bonuses, you could probably get away with $100 in merchandise a year if you do it right. I think most people hold on to their “credit” as “insurance” however for when a shipment does become inevitably botched.
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The next scam: ordering an expensive item, receiving it, and then claiming you received dog food instead.
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Bobcat, her eyes enormous: you STARVE bobcat? you starve her body with the rubbish food? oh! oh! jail for Purplecat! jail for Purplecat for One Thousand Years!!!
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I haven’t had Prime in years and avoid Amazon as much as possible now (which is still, unfortunately, a non-zero amount). Could this be related to the fact that Amazon has made it very difficult to tell if a product is from Amazon or a reseller? I was looking at a niece’s wish list and I think every product was sold by something other than Amazon. It used to be you’d avoid resellers to avoid these issues, but I don’t know if that’s even possible any more.
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Amazon tried to stiff a man who ordered an iPhone and got dog food instead
Amazon tried to stiff a man who ordered an iPhone and got dog food instead
Um, parsing?
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Use your existing phone, perhaps?
Might be luck on my part, but i’ve had Amazon literally gift me free stuff repeatedly*.
*Some context: there was a new area of houses built in the next town over to me and our addresses are extremely similar.
As in just one character difference in the postcode, very similar town names (same town name, just with ‘down’ affixed to the end on one) and a very similar road name (again exact same roadname, just with ‘wood’ affixed to the end)
I think we recieved about 6 or 7 amazon packages for that new house over a couple of months, each time i contacted support they just told me to keep the items… 
