OT - fulfilled by Amazon

Following on from my previous post, I have now got a refund authorised by Amazon after one of the traders 'fulfilled by Amazon' sent me the wrong stuff then disappeared off the face of the earth.

I am now looking to get the correct item from another supplier.

However looking at Amazon and the 'Store Front' for suppliers the 'About' information for one is "M&S is committed to providing each customer with the highest standard of customer service." No details of full company name, location, registration, how long it has been trading, nothing.

I have looked at a number of Store Fronts and they all look remarkably similar. Loads of 4* and 5* reviews over the last 12 months but little other information.

My original vendor also had a store front with minimal information and a load of 4* and 5* reviews.

So how do you check on the reliability of the supplier?

The reviews don't seem to help, and the item I tried to buy now comes up under a different supplier but with the same Amazon reviews. So you can't trust the Amazon reviews about good customer service because they are not specific to one supplier.

Bizarre - I can find the same (apparent) item at prices ranging from £11.99 including delivery

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£90 + £6 delivery
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far as I can tell most (if not all) of these store fronts are boilerplate for anonymous shippers in China.

Presumably Amazon just pops them up with minimal or no checks, creams off the profit, and hopes not too many people claim when it all falls apart.

Cheers

Dave R

Reply to
David WE Roberts
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to £90 + £6 delivery

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> As far as I can tell most (if not all) of these store fronts are

There are plenty of 20Wx2 TA2020 Tripath T-Amp Class Stereo amps on eBay including some from a Middlesex based supplier if you're that worried about Hong Kong. All eBay sellers have individual feedback. Whereas Amazon appaers to be overreaching itself in castingits net too widely.

As it happens I personally have never had problems ordering stuff from Hong Kong - small photo related items mainly but have often checked the specs on Amazon before ordering the same item via eBay both both for the seller feedback and because of the additional Paypal protection. Which I've never had to make use in relation to HK/C but did with a private UK seller who lied in his item description.

michael adams

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Reply to
michael adams

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> to £90 + £6 delivery

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>

I tend to pay for stuff by credit card and then beat up Amazon first and Barclaycard second if an order is not properly fullfilled. It has only happened once and for a high value transaction which had status "left the warehouse" without ever reaching first base. It turned out to have been at the bottom of the pile during the great Xmas mail freeze and eventually resurfaced after 3 weeks. I had another where the delivery status was "Tried to deliver but you were out". This was a surprise as were were snowed in at the time with the village cut off.

I have had a couple of internet transactions go slightly pearshaped too but nothing that could not be sorted out by invoking Barclaycard to unwind the payment or threatening to do so. Merchants can only stay able to accept Bcard etc if they keep below a certain threshold of customers unwinding transactions for dubious practices or failure to supply. Obviously overseas transactions are more risky for both parties.

Also watch out for customs and duty making US bargains more expensive. I fairly often buy high value books on fulfilled by Amazon and have found some incredible bargains. I don't need brand new reference books to work from and second hand they can be incredible value.

Regards, Martin Brown

Reply to
Martin Brown

Paypal protection ? You must be joking. My experience, and that of many oth= ers, is that their cover is illusory. If the supplier has money in his payp= al account you may have some chance but if his account is zero you have no = mission. One of the broadsheet agony aunts chased the bastards to ground once but it= was a long hard road. They just tell you "Case closed" and f**k you pal a= fter that if you want to follow it up.

Having said all that I have never had problems with small electronic or pho= to related items coming from Hong Kong or China. If the items doesn't arriv= e they pony up straight away.

Reply to
fred

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> > to £90 + £6 delivery

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Paypal protection ? You must be joking. My experience, and that of many others, is that their cover is illusory. If the supplier has money in his paypal account you may have some chance but if his account is zero you have no mission. One of the broadsheet agony aunts chased the bastards to ground once but it was a long hard road. They just tell you "Case closed" and f**k you pal after that if you want to follow it up.

Having said all that I have never had problems with small electronic or photo related items coming from Hong Kong or China. If the items doesn't arrive they pony up straight away.

*************

Not had any problems so far with eBay and generally long term sellers work hard to maintain their ratings.

Still don't understand how the Amazon side works though - looks to be a load of 'bot registrations with massive 'ratings' listings on the storefront but no real solid information. As witness the one I chased which didn't respond and disappeared off Amazon shortly afterwards.

Still, my refund seems to be progressing and nobody is chasing me for two sets of (possibly fake) JVC earphones.

Reply to
David WE Roberts

If it was 'fulfilled by Amazon' then it was Amazon that sent you the wrong item, not the seller. That's the whole point.

Mathew

Reply to
Mathew Newton

Very good point - it didn't come out of the Amazon warehouse or there would have been the SuperSaver option. It is just Amazon Marketplace which has the A-Z Guarantee but not much traceability of most of the companies. My bad.

Reply to
David WE Roberts

A cautionary tale from my own experience. Bought a second-hand laptop from eBay (claimed to be in working order) only to find its hard drive was dead. As the drive was a 'user replaceable' item I took it out for a visual inspection before reporting the problem to the seller. Stupidly (as it turns out) I admitted that I'd eyeballed the drive: eBay judged that I had thereby 'dismantled' the laptop and therefore voided my rights. So no refund was forthcoming, just 'case closed'.

Richard.

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Reply to
Richard Russell

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