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Comment by xiaoma | Hacker News Reader

>"About 2 years ago I sold an item through the marketplace, shipped through Amazon, and at 30 days the buyer requested to return. I ignored him, and then... (blah blah blah) I haven't used Amazon to buy or sell anything since"

So it sounds like buying on Amazon is great way to avoid merchants who ignore support requests. Thanks for the info.

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There was nothing illegal or immoral about ignoring a request I wasn't going to accept. It was after 30 days and his window for returning had closed.

Certainly I wouldn't do business with someone like you who feels that fraud is justified when some arbitrary condition you place on the other party isn't satisfied to your liking.

>"someone like you who feels that fraud is justified"

This is completely unjustified and against site guidelines.

Of course fraud isn't justified (which FWIW xiaoma in no way claimed), but if you completely ignore a request, it's not really a surprise if people go over your head and contact Amazon. "I requested a return and seller is ignoring me" may well end up with Amazon issuing a refund regardless of what your return policies say, whereas just responding with your policy details may well end the matter there (assuming the buyer isn't fraudulent).

I had something vaguely similar with Play-Asia about a year ago. Part of an order arrived damaged, and after three weeks of back-and-forth with support was no closer to receiving a replacement item or refund. I ended up filing a PayPal complaint (specifying that only part of the order was in dispute, and that I was only seeking a refund on a single item), but Play-Asia completely ignored this -- PayPal issued a refund on the entire order as a result.

BTW, why did the buyer wish to return the item? If the item had developed a fault, I'm not sure his claim of "Item not received" is _wholly_ unjustified.

Amazon's policy says you have to respond to buyer's inquiries within 24 hours. You literary had to just reply "Sorry my return policy is 30 days and it's been 40 days." One single sentence and you probably could have avoided the return completely. You could do that in bed. What did you think would happen if you ignored the buyer? Of course they are going to complain to Amazon.

>Certainly I wouldn't do business with someone like you who feels that fraud is justified when some arbitrary condition you place on the other party isn't satisfied to your liking.

Read the comment you are replying to, it does not say that and it does not imply that.

Yes, he did. His response to me getting defrauded out of $250 was essentially, "Amazon did right. You deserved to be defrauded by them for not responding to a support request. I am happy they alienated you enough to get you off of their platform, because I wouldn't want to do business with bad people like you anyway." I'm exaggerating for clarity, but that's how I read his comment.

This pisses me off because it obscures the simple fact that Amazon had all the information it needed to see that he had actually received the item, but considered it "not delivered" anyway. It was fraud on the buyers part, theft and stupidity on Amazon's part for not seeing it, and it's emminently stupid for some random on the internet to say that ignoring an invalid return request deserved this response.

Again, this is not the case. Reread my comment. I didn't write anything at all from the perspective of you, the merchant.

As a customer, I love dealing with Amazon. This doesn't mean that I'd enjoy being their partner, supplier, employee or anybody else they deal with.

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