Buyers took advantage of Amazon loophole to defraud $290,000

Amazon's refund system has long been criticized, and sellers often have to endure various reasons for return and refund applications. What's worse, some buyers with bad intentions exploit policy loopholes and maliciously refund without returning the goods, "getting the goods for free", which has caused considerable economic losses to Amazon sellers.

According to foreign media reports, a man from Charlotte, North Carolina, USA, exploited a loophole in Amazon's refund system to defraud more than $290,000 worth of goods on Amazon .

Hudson Hamrick of Charlotte is understood to have orchestrated more than 300 fake transactions on Amazon between October 2016 and sometime last year. He ordered expensive products like coffee machines and laptops from Amazon, submitted returns and obtained full refunds from Amazon by returning similar items that were cheaper than the ordered items.

According to court documents, Hamrick successfully received refunds for more than 270 products using this method, of which about 250 were returned for products worth far less than what he originally ordered. In addition to initiating returns, Hamrick would also ask sellers to replace or resend products on the grounds of "not receiving the product" or "the product was damaged."

Hamrick either kept these fraudulently high-priced goods for his own use or resold them through online platforms for profit. For example, after Hamrick bought a professional coffee machine on Amazon for $3,536, he applied for a return and returned another coffee machine worth $2,000 to the merchant, and then resold the $3,536 high-priced coffee machine through his own Amazon account. He also used this method to defraud an iMac Pro worth $4,200 on Amazon and then resold the laptop on eBay.

On the Amazon official forum, the editor also noticed some Amazon sellers discussing this incident.

Some sellers believe that Amazon is inefficient in handling similar incidents. Seller Johns_Bargains said: "It's interesting that Amazon needs four years or more than 270 fraudulent transactions to mark, block or delete buyers! Guys, is Amazon really tracking and preventing this behavior?"

Some sellers also think that there are problems with Amazon's refund system . Seller A-to-Z said: "Amazon allegedly tracks serial numbers and fraudulent returns, but I don't think they care that much about these situations. It's hard to imagine that they refunded a laptop worth 2k+ without ensuring that the serial number matches the return box."

There are even some radical sellers who say that as long as the funds are not Amazon’s own, Amazon will not hesitate to provide refunds to buyers, which ultimately harms the interests of third-party sellers.

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Similar fraudulent refund incidents happen from time to time on the Amazon platform. In the absence of changes to Amazon's refund policy, Amazon sellers can only seek self-protection. When encountering similar incidents, be sure to keep relevant evidence and safeguard your legal rights!

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