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Amazon, I believe, checks for the weight of the package to ascertain if the contents are what they were supposed to be.

A missing DVD cover discovered by a weight discrepancy?

Who’s to say it was returned in the original envelope?

Perhaps more likely the extremely light items weight is hidden in the variance of the return packaging weight and so those packages have to be opened?

A missing cover sounds like it would be visible without opening the product packaging (which would be the cover itself, no?), i.e. they can easily notice the omission by comparing the returned item against a reference image.

In the OP case the product packaging was filled with dirt, which is not as easily discoverable without opening product packaging.

Ah, they open the shipping envelope. They don’t open the product box itself. Of course.

Source

When you open the case, the nitrogen gas which was included to help avoid decomposition escapes, hence the half refund.

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