For Christmas, my dad got my mom a footstool through Amazon.com (pictured at right). It came in a box with some assembly required — basically, you have to screw the legs on and secure each of them with a screw. Once it was assembled, however, it was only a matter of hours before the legs were wobbly and one leg actually fell off. These legs aren’t coming unscrewed, mind you. The whole assembly is coming out of the frame. Basically, it’s a piece of junk.
So my mom writes to Amazon.com and asks about how to return it for a refund, and she gets this e-mail back from “Amy” in customer service:
Thank you for the reply. What I would like for you to do is donate the item to a charity of your choice in our name which is On The Web Marketing Group and fax over the receipt to me @ [phone number]. Once this is received, we will refund the full amount you paid back to Amazon and they in turn will credit your card back in full. Once again, I do apologize for the inconvenience.
Well, the first mystery was figuring out who “On The Web Marketing Group” was, so I Googled it. According to the “Company Info” tab at http://www.otwmg.com/, “On The Web Marketing Group represents a variety of online companies and handles the customer service, order processing and order fulfillment for these fine companies. The company was started in 1997 and is currently a privately owned corporation founded in the state of Nevada.”
Okay, so they’re evidently a third-party company that takes care of shipping products and servicing customers for a number of on-line retailers including Amazon.com.
The second mystery is, why would any charity want a broken, piece-of-junk footstool? Clearly, they wouldn’t — they’re just going to throw it away. So why donate it to charity? I think we all know the only plausible reason:
It sounds to me like their process is to have their dissatisfied customers pawn off their defective merchandise on unsuspecting charities. That way, instead of throwing away the defective junk and taking a loss (the honest thing to do) they can write it off on their taxes as a donation to charity. The junk still gets thrown away, but no return shipping charges are incurred and they get the tax benefits as if it were a legitimate charitable donation.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark — or, in this case, Nevada. Frankly, I’m shocked and disappointed. And I can’t help but wonder (a) does Amazon.com know of this practice, and (b) is this legal? Anyone else had a similar experience with Amazon.com’s customer service?
That is just outrageous. I wonder how long they’ve had this policy in place?
Just for clarification, the item is not sold by Amazon but by AtHomeMart through Amazon. The reply was from their representative, not Amazon, as it states they will refund the money to Amazon and then on to your mother. I have bought many items directly from Amazon and never had any problems at all. I have seen other complaints, however, from people who have bought merchandise from someone through Amazon and they have not been happy with the quality or customer services. Many people think Amazon expanded too fast outside its core competency of books, etc.
Some people are never happy!!
This company is willing to refund your money without even verifying your complaint. They only ask that you make the effort to donate the item to charity, which is apparantly too much to ask.
Some charities do make repairs rather than just throw everything away. They can fix the item and resell it or use in low income housing.
You would rather the company suffer additional damages by paying for shipping to return the item (which is probably more than your dad paid for the stool).
It wouldn’t kill you to support a local charity and stop bashing a company which trying to please their customer and reduce their losses.
I have to admit, the idea of donating one’s garbage to charity is a new concept for me. But thanks for setting me straight, “tim h.” I’ll start hauling my refuse to the South Side Mission. Maybe they can make some soup out of my children’s half-eaten food and feed it to those in low income housing. With all the tax benefits I’ll get, it will really help reduce my losses from the $6 garbage fee.