It refunded the cost of the lenses and added a £500 voucher and a basket of sweets as goodwill. “Amazon is hiding behind a request that I am not able to legally fulfil,” said Kowalski.Īmazon only admitted the parcel had been delivered to the wrong address after the Observer intervened. Amazon refused to investigate further without a police report, which the officer was barred from supplying without a freedom of information request. Kowalski persuaded the police to investigate but, when an officer contacted Amazon, he was sent an identical response directing him to the police. It said it would reconsider the case if he supplied a crime reference number and a copy of a police report.
An apparently auto-generated letter from Amazon insisted that a “timed geocode stamp” showed the parcel had been delivered to the correct address, and advised Kowalski to report the matter to the police. Jan Kowalski was left £3,148 out of pocket when two camera lenses ordered from Amazon failed to arrive. That means further errors can be introduced.” “The problem can be aggravated by the fact that not every delivery company has tracking based on Ordnance Survey mapping and data, which is tied to the postcode database. Amazon packages are known to be delivered to wrong addresses, and it can be difficult for the seller to prove it was delivered to another house if those who took delivery remain silent. “This issue highlights the fact postcodes are based on out-of-date technology,” said David Jinks, head of consumer research for online delivery service ParcelHero, who is calling for the system to be overhauled. Couriers on tight schedules can struggle to identify the correct recipient. Many rural homes are still identified by name only and one postcode can be shared by dozens of properties.
But it continues to use tracking information – recommended for goods worth less than £100 – to justify a refund, rather than requiring returns to be signed for. Royal Mail told the Observer it was aware of similar scams and was working to identify the culprits.ĮBay refunded Siampos two days after the Observer got involved, and said it was “working hard with Royal Mail to address the very small number of cases like this one”. A householder receives an empty package and bins it, while Royal Mail’s system shows it delivered, so eBay can process the refund.” It delivers based on the address on the package. “Unlike its signed-for services, Royal Mail does not know the precise address a tracking number is associated with, just the postcode. “They explained unscrupulous eBay buyers set up the tracked service to the seller’s address online, download the label generated by Royal Mail, use Photoshop to change the house number to another within the same postcode, then send an empty package. “The customer service team seemed to be very familiar with the situation and says there’s been a surge of such incidents,” said Siampos.
0 kommentar(er)
