ULPT: Borrow it from Bezos

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KevinFromRadioShack@reddit

60% of the sales through Amazon are from independent sellers, you aren’t hurting Bezos you are hurting the small seller. All return related cost are passed back to the seller on top of them now having a used unsalable product

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Eastern-Astronomer-6@reddit

Excessive returns will get you banned from the platform, so use sparingly.

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Jimlad73@reddit (OP)

Luckily my wife has packages almost daily arriving from Amazon so my return % is very low

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skylarpaints@reddit

Previous rep for amazon customer service in conversation relevant departments.

You best believe they are gonna track it another way than just volume of returns vs amount of orders overall. Be careful. Your wife is gonna be rightly very mad when her account gets warned through email, then restricted to only digital purchases on her account, and then closed as you ( not your wife in actuality ) are not what amazon considers a consumer it is interested in doing any business with.

And then if that happens, good luck to either of you making a new account that isn't related in any way to her then old account.

It happens more often and a lot quicker than one would think nowadays.

This is a warning to everyone else looking to take the advice from this post in general.

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strangelove4564@reddit

LPT: Hang out with a street gang, enter federal witness protection program, start new Amazon account.

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IndyAndyJones777@reddit

Amazon still knows, and after banning your new account that street gang starts seeing your new identity for sale on Amazon. But only with Prime.

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banantalis@reddit

And one short ad.

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samisnotokay@reddit

The phone number thing screwed me so bad recently... Got a fire tablet for Christmas (I think that's what it's called?) and I couldn't use it until I verified my phone number, turns out my Amazon account is connected to my old # that I don't have access to anymore so I tried to change it. As it turns out!!!!! Someone this number belonged to in the past had an account with it on file so I couldn't change it.

Cue Amazon support. Aka the AI bot that loves to do anything BUT help. Eventually after fighting with it I got transferred to an agent. I'd include the screenshot but it isn't letting me. Basically I said "my current phone number ending in YYYY is associated with someone else's account" and they literally said "but it's right there on your account. The number ending in XXXX" so I sent in all caps "PLEASE LISTEN TO ME" and they transferred me to another agent who fixed the issue in maybe 5 minutes 😂😂 I can imagine this would be even more difficult for someone whose account is flagged

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slaorta@reddit

Something similar happened to me when I was working for Amazon flex. I ended up being effectively fired for over 3 months before it got straightened out over 100 emails later. It was my full time job at the time I lost access. Absolutely horrible.

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skylarpaints@reddit

Oh my goodness, I got calls all the time while working in Amazon's account change department for people using flex, and that was a real tough call usually.

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GaGa0GuGu@reddit

Unethical life pro tip: Consider resetting the password of the previous user of the phone number.

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Jack_Spatchcock_MLKS@reddit

Lots of websites for temp use phone numbers. It's disturbingly easy, actually....

Like if I need a confirmation code or whatever, but don't have a phone.... Is their intended purpose I'm guessing....

IllMutation@reddit

The new phone, tablet, IP address, VPN, and delivery address are so real that it’s unbelievable how they can tell if you’ve been doing this again. It’s happened to me before.

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Oldman1249@reddit

i use self checkout at whole foods and ring my organic apples up as non-organic apples

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Extra-Account-8824@reddit

vpn and use a P.O box...amazon doesnt know shit lmao.

just call customer service after 8pm PST thats when customer service kicks over to india and those people dont give 2 shits.

i got 2 free PCs and a ton of other stuff from amazon.

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subiedoo96@reddit

Yeah it’s about to happen to me I think unfortunately

For years Amazon had a program call try it before you buy it where the whole point was to just order clothes you might not even want just to try it on.

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tnemmoc_on@reddit

I still have it on my account.

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panda5303@reddit

They still have it. I currently have 2 try it before you buy it sitting in my cart.

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ButterscotchButtons@reddit

I'm surprised they did away with it.

It appeals to people, but the real benefit is to the retailer, because in effect it just shortens the return window, and most people don't send the stuff back in time.

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Electronic_Permit351@reddit

Yeah, I just bought a surge protector with a backup battery, and almost everyone I looked at exclusively said, "No returns." I know people do this with generators a lot after a storm passes or doesn't pass, rather. So I get it in that end.

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TheRealGunn@reddit

skylarpaints@reddit

So I was one of the agents who launched Prime Now when it first was developed. Holy moly what a shit show that was. I can't tell yall how bad it was, but it was an absolute nightmare for everyone working PrimeNow.

They knew about the abuse, it was literally every other call for us. There was one person we knee by first name and literally had to work together in real time to try to handle it was insane.

But it's literally Amazon's fault for not making it to where people couldn't scam the platform and the service.

There are very few ways yall can scam amazon now.

And those ways are...?

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AngelComa@reddit

OK people will just shop somewhere else.

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IAmImi2@reddit

Do people who really just had bad luck with Amazon and they weren't trying to scam end up getting banned?

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daddybearmissouri@reddit

I've been doing this for years. Fuck Amazon.

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ExtensionResearch284@reddit

That's what I thought too til I got banned. I return things rarely now. They don't care how much you buy vs how much you return.

Yeah, not in my case. Was with them for 7 years. Had over $2k worth of stuff ordered within a 4 month span.

Because you're throwing the word addict around carelessly. If they have money, and it doesn't harm them in any way, then they're fine.

They COULD be addicts, but you don't know that.

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layout420@reddit

I get what you're saying but just because you have the financial means, it is still an addiction. For instance, my wife is most certainly addicted to shopping. She probably spends thousands of dollars per month or so and just because we are financially well off doesn't mean she's not addicted. She is 100% addicted to retail therapy. I've set limits and it's never been an issue but if we didn't have a high household income, she'd be in major debt. She cannot help herself and is prone to making bad financial decisions as a result. The worst thing they ever did was make online shopping so convenient that it's easy to get yourself into debt.

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diamondpredator@reddit

That DOES sound like an addiction. My point was, the person I was responding to doesn't know the details, just that there's a lot of shopping being done.

if you have to exaggerate then you don’t have much of a point.

With clothing don't they have a special system where it is shipped to you to try on before you actually "buy" it?

I know I've done it with shoes, where they send me the pair and I can try them on, with them charging me after a certain time frame if I don't return them for not fitting.

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Porgdaporg@reddit

They are actually discontinuing that option this month from what I’ve heard

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esco250@reddit

That might be what she’s doing, I’m not entirely sure since I don’t really use amazon.

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_SteeringWheel@reddit

"but most unused"

Stop buying and returning crap.

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diamondpredator@reddit

Learn to read.

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SoggyMcChicken@reddit

Did you miss the clothing that doesn’t fit part or nah? Also how do you know it’s crap before getting it?

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camelCaseCoffeeTable@reddit

I don’t work for Amazon, so this is all speculation from someone who does work in tech and has experience considering edge cases.

I’d be surprised if they went off % of packages. It allows for this exact workaround to essentially turn them into a rental service, which they don’t want to be.

If it were me in the room designing the infrastructure to detect this, I’d absolutely push for total value of returns in a monthly/yearly cycle. Once it hits that, the account is flagged for manual review and appropriate action taken.

Again, I’m not an Amazon employee, I’m not saying this at all authoritatively. But I do have 10 years of experience as a developer and I don’t think I’d push for percentage of packages to be my metric when trying to stop this behavior, since it allows such an easy edge case workaround.

Of course, there’s also the (very real) possibility Amazon is ok with this workaround - after all, it means you buy a lot from them so maybe you get more leniency. I definitely could see that being the case as well

TL;DR: I wouldn’t necessarily count on a large number of delivered packages protecting you from blowback from Amazon.

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diamondpredator@reddit

Of course, there’s also the (very real) possibility Amazon is ok with this workaround - after all, it means you buy a lot from them so maybe you get more leniency. I definitely could see that being the case as well

It's this. As you said, you're a dev, not bizdev lol. The percentage of people that would take advantage of this is much smaller than most would think. They're fine with a little hassle because people that buy a lot of shit from them also keep a lot of the shit they buy.

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Adventurous-Yak-8929@reddit

I don't work for amazon but I do work as a clown and have experience packing people into small cars.

DivineActions@reddit

I think clothes are different anyway, what you’re describing is what they expect. Either way, even if they did ban your account it’s not that serious. You could just create a new one lol

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aweroraa@reddit

I wonder how they blacklist.

If it’s address based, you could get around it with a PO Box.

If it’s card/bank account based, you could get around it with a prepaid Visa.

If it’s name based, make up a name.

Idk, maybe if they can’t identify you they just limit returns and/or what you can buy 🤔

Idk, just trying to think unethically :)

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FenixVale@reddit

If it's address based and you use a PO box they can likely deduce relevance from local proximity if it's in the same neighborhood/town

If it's card, you can use a prepaid sure. But it's def not card.

Name based will cause issues with mailing as packages may be rejected due to a name that isn't related to the address.

phanda-exe@reddit

No they do not. The resources needed for that would outweigh the cost of essentially banning customers.

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phanda-exe@reddit

And if they did, you can get a new IP by unplugging your modem for 15 minutes or ask Comcast to reprovision your connection

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Zincktank@reddit

This hasnt been my experience. I had my Amazon account banned from giving reviews because I was critical of one single product and that seller went ballistic.

They finally did this to me a few years ago. I signed up with another email address, same credit card and address, all good 😂

This is unethical in the sense that what you “borrow” and then return likely goes into the garbage.

I get the work the system angle, but it just produces more waste from the products themselves, shopping them back and forth. You’re essentially making expensive items single use and it’s just wrong.

Consider buying and selling on marketplace as a next-to-new item? I known many that would love to score a lightly used tool for example.

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luminara33@reddit

Is this still available?

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HoleInYourMesh@reddit

Friend of mine had his power cut for a day due to maintenance. Bought a laptop at a big retail store, played Factorio in a bar for a day, returned the next day no questions asked.

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Paiges1329@reddit

Also most returns get thrown away since just more cost effective to not deal with if just consider that too 😔

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I know it isn't what you were referring to, just adding my own experience for the sake of discussion.

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FinanciallySecure9@reddit

Have you heard about Amazon mystery boxes? For $50 you get brand new or gently used Amazon stuff.

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Arnas_Z@reddit

But hey viva capitalism right and people are not going to care about this part let alone scroll down enough to see

Aaaaand this is how returns get ruined for everyone.

ilikedrhouse@reddit

Most of the returns go straight into a landfill because it’s cheaper for Amazon to throw them away than it is to rebook the inventory and resell it.

Doing what you’re doing is literally poisoning the planet one Amazon return at a time.

Seriously. C’mon man.

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PapayaNo6997@reddit

You know a lot of time it isn’t Bezoz or Amazon that takes the brunt of the expenses right? It’s independent sellers. And not all of them might be big enough to be able to deal with this loss. This isn’t unethical. This is absolute assholery

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TrashMouthDiver@reddit

Walmart will take anything back. Food is the only thing they REQUIRE a receipt for.

We've returned everything you can think of. EVERYTHING. Used vacuum cleaner, hairbrush, make up, nail polish, shoes, clothes, games, mouthwash, doesn't matter and they don't care.

pm_mba@reddit

Because of shit like this Amazon doesn’t have a return policy in India. Don’t abuse it.

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KheyotecGoud@reddit

This used to work great. Last year Amazon was purchased by a new company and now even legitimate people and legitimate returns are being denied. Too many returns in a period will ban your amazon account now regardless of the reason.

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Dawn_of_an_Era@reddit

Are you forgetting this is quite literally a sub for doing unethical things?

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LusoInvictus@reddit

TIL books are refundable... Batteries and DVD/Blu-ray are too but it's just stupid.

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ongoldenwaves@reddit

Do what you want to Bezos. He's an ass as is his old piece of shoe leather greedy wife. But this is shit for the environment.

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ILoveStealing@reddit

Didn’t realize unethical LPTs drew the line at the environment.

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Dawn_of_an_Era@reddit

Unethical LPTs actually draw the line at unethical.

Now this is an ULPT I needed to see

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I_am_pretty_gay@reddit

Power tools, technology, whatever you need. Amazon is your item library.

my local library has those things

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xX_1337n0sc0p3420_Xx@reddit

I might know someone who did that with a brand new smartphone for a 3 week vacation.

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the-bearded-omar@reddit

Fuck Amazon, cancel your account. Why are you spending money on cheap garbage you don’t need to increase the wealth of a billionaire who is using said wealth to influence our political system to his advantage at our expense?

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Total_Fail_6994@reddit

Here's another: often, you need one inexpensive item, but they're only sold in large quantities. Take one and return the rest.

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poopsmith27@reddit

60% of products on amazon are from 3rd party sellers, aka small business owners, meaning if you do this you’re hurting them.

Morality and consideration toward Amazon or Bezos isn’t necessary at all, but maybe more so towards the environment and collective interests of sustainable living, etc.

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IllMutation@reddit

I don’t think I fully grasped your comment, but I’ve bought things off Amazon that looked completely used before.

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Rom-TheVacuousSpider@reddit

I’m going to partially copy my comment from a recent post:

Spend some time on the Amazon sub and you will realize YMMV with this tip. Amazon has cracked down on returns and switched to more incompetent customer service agents.

There is a chance your refund is reduced, not tracked properly, or denied. CS agents sometimes straight up lie nowadays to get you off the chat.

Going to also point out that returned stock can and is being sold as new by Amazon. Incompetent and overworked employees tend to not check every returned item thoroughly. So your item may end up being sent right back out to another person. Including a third party buyer because stock can be shared sometimes.

So please use correct reasons for return for best results. “Wrong size” or “didn’t want anymore” tend to not get you the full refund. Reasons that would be the seller’s fault tend to get you full refunds. Please use “damaged” or “defective” if your item actually is being returned in that condition.

I don't think it's possible to return small electronic products such as earbuds or mouse because amazon has changed its return policy from 7 days replacement to 7 days service center replacement.

Jimlad73@reddit (OP)

Yes it is! Some areas have them in the UK

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boxofrabbits@reddit

Yeah Reading has one. It's brilliant. $ £20 a year.

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Jegan237@reddit

My city has one! Paid something like £6 to hire an orbit sander for a week to some DIY work at home. Saved me coughing up £50-70 for something I'd barely use again.

Amazon is so prolific, it is effectively public infrastructure at this point. Quit messing with it, it's going to make everything worse for the rest of us.

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Switchbladesaint@reddit

Do this too much and your account WILL get banned

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Fat_Head_Carl@reddit

People do this with home Depot... A very specific tool you only need once.

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seitz38@reddit

Generally items below $500 don’t incur heavier speculation.

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thaneliness@reddit

I love doing this. I will buy something, use it for a trip than return it.

Just did it with some $200 snowboard Goggles lol.

Do you also buy a TV from costco to watch the superbowl then return it the next day?

Buy a dress at a store for an event and keep the tag on and return it?

TLDW?

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