"Addicted to freeloading"? A tutorial on how to refund Amazon without returning products appeared online, and some sellers have suffered!

According to eMarketer, total sales in the U.S. retail e-commerce market will reach $933 billion in 2021 , of which Amazon will account for approximately 41.4% and sales will reach $386 billion.

It is learned that although Walmart is the second largest player in the US retail e-commerce market, it only accounts for 7.2% of the market share. Walmart is followed by eBay (4.3%) and Apple (3.8%). Amazon's market share in the United States far exceeds the total market share of the other top 9 e-commerce companies in the US market.

▲ Image from eMarketer

It is reported that during the COVID-19 pandemic, almost all US e-commerce platforms achieved growth, but no company could compete with Amazon.

The data clearly shows that although Amazon's rapid growth has slowed down, it is still the dominant factor driving the development of the US e-commerce market.

However, Amazon's "dominant" position is so stable, which is inseparable from its unremitting exploitation and suppression of sellers over the years. Inversely proportional to the rising costs is the increasingly stringent regulatory policies. The new return policy implemented by Amazon at the beginning of the year made many sellers complain bitterly. While improving the customer after-sales experience, the rights and interests of sellers are not effectively protected.

Since its implementation, the new return policy has been criticized, and some buyers have even taken advantage of loopholes in the policy to maliciously return goods for refunds. Recently, a seller revealed that a large number of tutorials on refunding without returning goods have appeared on the Internet .

According to the whistleblower, a buyer posted a tutorial video on Youtube about returning products without refunds on Amazon. In the video, the buyer used a $900 chair he bought as an example to show in detail how to exploit loopholes in the Prime membership policy to get the product for free.

▲ The picture comes from the seller communication group

So far, the video has been played more than 50,000 times, attracting many buyers. Although the buyer stated in the video description that the purpose was not to promote fraud or cheating, a large number of buyers have followed suit to get free stuff.

We learned that many buyers in the video comment area successfully used this method to keep the product and get a refund. One buyer bought a Logitech mouse, but because it did not meet expectations, the buyer followed the tutorial and contacted the merchant, forcing the merchant to refund him a full amount.

Since Amazon has strict controls, sellers are likely to face risk warnings once they receive complaints about counterfeit or inferior products. Therefore, many buyers take shortcuts and deliberately buy for free based on the sellers’ fear of counterfeit or inferior products.

Typing "amazon return cheat" on Google , I found a lot of tutorials about Amazon refunds without returns. One article described the specific operation process in detail.

The article states that after receiving the product, the buyer can complain to Amazon by calling or sending an email. Specific complaint methods include:

• Open the order.
• Find the order you want to refund and select the issue.
• Click Request Refund.
• Write a bad review in the comment box.