The UK arm of retail giant Amazon has been forced to apologise to a selection of its customers after they were sent seemingly random items instead of the Switch consoles they had purchased during Black Friday week.
Around a dozen customers have complained directly to Amazon via its Twitter account, which has stated that it is launching an investigation into why buyers were sent items unrelated to their original purchase.
However, some of those same customers are now angry that they will have to pay full price for the console as refunds take a while to process and the Black Friday reductions have since passed.
Some of the items sent out included a copy of David Walliams' latest book, a laptop fan cooler, a pack of AA Duracell batteries and a box of washing powder, a ream of paper, a microphone and a tambourine, a shaver and electric toothbrush, a Remington facial hair trimmer, Lego, bedsheets, and bottle of "photopolymer resin".
One customer was sent a box of dog food and washing up liquid, and, upon swiftly returning the item, was then sent a packet of air freshener as a replacement. Last time we checked, Zelda: Breath of the Wild isn't compatible with air freshener.
It would appear that this issue has been present since before Black Friday; in October, another Amazon customer reported that they had been sent a pack of condoms after ordering a Nintendo Switch.
Amazon has issued the following statement:
We're really sorry about that and are investigating exactly what's happened. We're reaching out to every customer who's had a problem and made us aware so we can put it right. Anyone who has had an issue with any order can contact our customer services team for help.
Are you one of the people who has been impacted by this goof? Let us know with a comment.
[source mirror.co.uk]
Comments 68
I was also received a order I never ordered but had my address listed on the unknown name person list.
I wonder if the guy who ordered the condoms (if someone actually did) got the Switch instead? Just imagine that.
Oh wow! What the heck is going on?!
@tobsesta99
Condom Guy's Wife: Sits up in bed, looking annoyed.
Condom Guy: Enthralled with his erroneous Switch, playing Pure Electric Love. 😉 https://www.nintendo.com/en_CA/games/detail/pure-electric-love-everyone-else-ema-sakura-switch/
Sending condoms to video game nerds is just a cruel joke.
@tobsesta99 instantly cancelled his date
Imagine being so embarrassed to buy condoms that you'd order some through Amazon.
Not this week, but I ordered Joycons from Amazon UK and got sent condoms. I got to keep the condoms and then they sent joycons, but they actually sent me two sets of joycons LOL
https://twitter.com/TheRealHughesy/status/1182314324087525383?s=20
Bait and Switch
I had a very similar issue. I ordered a PowerA GC style wireless controller (gold) for 25 bucks but got a wired Xbox controller instead (it had a tracking barcode for the item I ordered.) i guess there was at least a minor relationship between the item I order and the one I got, but it’s still just garbage for me. Plus wired controllers go for way less than 25, very often.
As noted, the most annoying thing is all they will do for me is give me a refund, no replacements allowed. I’m so angry this is likely the last time I will order a sale item from Amazon if I can get a similar deal anywhere else. BestBuy would had allowed me to replace the item.
Amazon is basically a dude near a subway station with stuff spread out on a blanket.
Photopolymer Resin? Like the kind used for SLA 3D printing?
Honestly depending on the brand that could literally cost as much as a Switch.
Finally, I can open an Amazon package of sex products if front of people, and act suprised its not Switch games. "Oh my god! This is crazy! Look.. look what they sent me!? ". On an unrelated,topic, i have to clear out a large closet to make way for a TOTALLY UNRELATED large Amazon order
@Hughesy Maybe they were Joy Con(doms).
Thanks, I'll see my way out...
So that's where those random items i ordered ended up! I just got a bunch of Switches!
Because you recently purchased Nintendo Switch(TM), you might also be interested in:
Condoms.
Because you're about to get screwed.
@Woomy_NNYes Let me guess: a RealDollTM?
Well, this may be hilarious to (some of) us, but I'm pretty sure none of the recipients is laughing, so they'd probably label it as infuriating or something similar.
If something like that happened to me, I'd definitely try to get to the bottom of it, and not only get my money back, or receive the item I'd ACTUALLY ordered, but I'd also get the name of the person screwing my order up, and have them send me a personal apology.
Official Joycon Condoms (Joycondoms?).
Sounds like the Amazon workers are unhappy with their working conditions.
Are they overwhelmingly busy or was it some joker in the shipping area!! 🤔🤔
There's gotta be some swapping scheme here where the fulfillment guy tells his buddy to order batteries and sends him the switch you can't walk out of the warehouse with a switch but the packages are fired out the door asap. Or just a guy screwing with people who doesn't care about his job.
Five years ago I purchased a Wii U from them and instead got a Wii. Seems like even Amazon sellers got confuse to which console they are selling.
@ThanosReXXX now, you're talking. I just pictured the comedic, nervous act of fake-disappointment when one those giant coffin-size crates arrives in front of friends.
@ThanosReXXX Prety sure the guy making $11/hr with a tracking device and potty pass limits would give you a single digit apology quite freely.
"The future of retail" indeed!
We can call it Switched like haha you've been Switched. Hehe
@Woomy_NNYes I can imagine. What I can't imagine is what kind of excuse/reason you'd come up with to not have to send it back...
@NEStalgia You forget the power of the media. I'd expose the crap out of them, and collect as many faulty orders as possible from other people/victims as well. I've still got a few interesting people in my network, and I assure you that they wouldn't want to have that kind of negative attention.
I'd get my apology, in writing AND polite and genuine, trust me...
Just takes one anonymous jokester in the warehouse. :3
@Pod Aren't robots doing it now, tho?
Not sure why they would only have the option for a refund. I had DDR4 3200 sent instead of 3600. And with a quick chat they fixed it for me (in the US not UK).
If they bought from 3rd party sellers you can only get a refund (even if labeled "Prime". I always look for the "Sold and Shipped by Amazon"
@SwitchForce was it anything interesting?
This is clearly what happened - https://youtu.be/Mv30ExfoKcc
Maybe this'll teach Amazon not to have their warehouse employees constantly rushed and overworked.
Technically, this is why I don't shop online...I'd rather do it in stores to where you know what you get and hey, you get it right away. Unfortunately, this is going to happen more and more, as physical stores are disappearing and more online shopping is coming up...not good for people like myself who hate shopping online. Eventually, this kind of thing will spread more and more, as people are constantly out to rip people off, but it's the companies that end up hurting in the end, because those people will give the bad reviews to those companies instead of the actual person that they bought it off of.
@klingki What game is that?
@Hughesy Guess you got off easy, no mess at all. Right?
i had this issue in the past when ordering video games on Amazon. i was ordering some game and i was sent the wrong edition of the game.
apparently, the game had the incorrect barcode on it. it was so nice of them to refund my money. i forgot if they ended up letting me keep the game or not.
after that issue i started getting my games at Best Buy like i did when i was in high school before the days of Amazon and eBay. back in the days before i cared about online shopping.
the internet is spoiling us all. i think the movie "the terminator" was right. the machines are starting to enslave us all. if the terminator movies come to life than we should be at war with the machines by the end of this year or sometime in 2023.
@ThanosReXXX yeah you obviously have not had anything like this happen to you because I guarantee you they won’t able to pinpoint why this happened nor would you get a personal apology.
At best you would have wasted hours of your own time trying to “expose” them and wasting emotional energy on something that won’t have any type of outcome other then a refund and a generic apology from amazon via email.
When things like this happen it’s people in the warehouses or possible drivers who know what some of these packages are and do this for kicks and free merchandise, i and many others have experienced this and nothing ever gets solved.
@JLPick lol, that's no reason not to shop online. People always go into stores aswell and arrive home with missing or damaged goods in boxes and have to return them.
It is yet to happen to me yet online, but considering the high volume of shoppers its still quite small, I would say its down to a few rogue members of staff at one of Amazon's warehouses.
That happened to me in like 2014, but that was because the Marketplace seller was a scammer. Sent me batteries "because I won the raffle prize" instead of a new copy of Disgaea DS.
Someone else reported the same seller for sending them a Spongebob game when they ordered FF7. And a few others.
“Including washing powder and condoms.”
That’s what she said.
this has happened to my with non gaming items, ordered platinum version of album and got standard version instead, was promptly refunded though.
also ordered a frying pan from them but they sent a better version of the same brand so i had no complaints there.
regarding this switch black friday issue, perhaps there wasn't enough to go around or the employees at amazon are drunk or something, sure looks that way lol
@Deathwalka Yeah, no offense, but you obviously don't know me, or the lengths that I would go to, to get what I want or deserve in this regard. And I actually did have this happen to me once. Not so much a completely different item, but a wrong model of an item, and I actually DID get a personal apology from the person responsible for sending it to me, so there...
Having said that, though, maybe the situation is different in different companies and in different regions. In my region, people at mail delivery companies pranking people or whatever, are almost always found out and fired. My specific case actually turned out to be an honest mistake, and not so much a prank, but still, the end result was the same.
On a side note: I'm in sales & marketing myself, so I kinda know my way around companies just that little extra bit more than the average Joe would...
“ However, some of those same customers are now angry that they will have to pay full price for the console as refunds take a while to process and the Black Friday reductions have since passed.”
I don’t know UK law as I’m in the US, but how is that legal? Customers paid for a product during a sale, customers didn’t receive said product, but now they have to repurchase said item while also losing out on the initial price they paid?
That’s a bunch of BS.
Woman I work with has been getting amazon parcels for over a year now. Her address different name. It's a small village so she had asked around. No joy. Contacted Amazon they had no record of the delivery. They told her to keep the items a shower curtain and something else. Nothing that breaks the bank. Shes now up to 8-9 parcels everytime Amazon say just keep them. There was a set of kitchen scales run to 80 quid. Surely somebody is asking where their stuff is?
@ThanosReXXX your example is comparing apples to oranges, getting an apology for a wrong item from the distributor is a given, but this is not something that’s happened because of the distributor in this case Amazon ( or affiliates with amazon) has messed up,
This is happening because it’s purposely being done so in that regards I’m saying you will have a snowballs chance in hell of them finding the perpetrator and them issuing an apology to you, which is why you would end up wasting time and energy on something that will end in your standard refund or generic email. If it was your example then the old let me speak to a manager, or I will be taking this to the complaints regulation or social media would work but when you have buttheads doing this within the organisations, the only thing that will stop it is if they get caught, terminated, or leave the job.
You wouldn’t believe how much of this goes on without the companies knowing it’s going on, just for a generic customer service operator to get it in the ear instead.
@Agramonte
Yep, I bought Mario & Luigi Partners in Time years ago on Amazon. The game arrived and worked on my DS, but I wondered why the cart was such a tight fit in my DS. The game got sidetracked and I finally went back to it about a year later, but I had recently bought a 3DS.
To my surprise, the game wouldn’t work at all in my 3DS. I put it back in my DS and it was fine. It was then that I realized I was sent a counterfeit copy of the game. By that time a year or more had passed so I was SoL. I went back in my history and saw that I actually bought the game from a 3rd party seller and NOT Amazon.
Ever since then, I only buy things if it says ‘Sold and Shipped by Amazon, or the item is backed by Amazon.
Amazon allowing for 3rd party sellers has really ruined the shopping experience with them and I’ve been using them less and less because of it.
I've been pretty lucky with Amazon. Last year I ordered a Kindle Fire and a cover for it. I received two Kindle Fires and no cover. I didn't complain, purchased covers at Best Buy, and Amazon never seemed to catch onto the mistake.
@Deathwalka Well, you got a point there, but it would seem to me, much like is happening now with Amazon, that something similar occurring with web shops such as we have here (bol.com), would immediately be featured in the local/general media, and as such, perpetrators would be found and dealt with.
I honestly can't remember there ever being a similar case here of multiple random items being sent to troll or prank people from our main online web shop, so apparently, it's not a thing over here. Or it's so small and/or incidental, that no one has really taken any notice yet.
@danmarkus It's not unless you already got a wife or girlfriend. We all have that, r-right g-guys??
@Kang81 Yep... same here. It even said "free PRIME shipping" (I mistakenly thought that was only Amazon products) and 3 weeks later it showed up from China.
Guess amazon
puts on sunnies
Pulled the ultimate switch.
@DAHstroy
Nah, they identify of the locations of the items and move the shelves, but as far as I know, they can't yet do a proper job at plucking just one item from a factory crate, or picking out the appropriate box size and packing it.
@Gwynbleidd LMAO.
@NEStalgia Haha, good one. 🙂
On a brighter note...
Someone who ordered washing powder and a pack of condoms might have gotten a Switch instead.
Imagine a kid's parents got a Switch and wrapped it in wrapping paper and hid it from their child.....
CHRISTMAS DAY:
Kid: Oh! I wonder what I got!
<Kid rips wrapping paper and opens the package>
<Kid finds a pack of condoms>
Kid: MOMMY! DADDY! What is this?
<Kid holds pack of condoms>
<Mother and Father are shocked>
Kid: cries
Buy a joystick, get a dildo instead.
@bluesdance that would be preferable as then you'd actually see what your getting before hand & if they try to sham you and run, you have a better chance of catching up to em & getting you money back as well as a few of their teeth.
btw, that's how i got my 3ds xl back in march 2013 for like 20$, though it was on the side of the road rather than a subway.
I feel like this should be labeled in the 'Random' category.
gotta love british sense of humour lol
@DrDaisy If you mean in my profile pic, it’s called Roof Rage. It’s on the eShop, definitely worth checking out if you’re interested.
@Franklin Maybe he ordered because its cheaper on Amazon in bulk ?, they also have more variety in flavors.(not that i know tho)
@Paul1994
"in bulk"
Lucky guy.
The Condom recipient was like: "Now, I'm playing with myself!"
@klingki Thanks.
I’m not sure how that is possible without some deliberate sabotage at the distribution centre. Amazon do free tours of their centres and even let you have a got at putting items into totes to see how it’s all done, and everything is controlled with bar codes and weight checks.
Maybe the labelling machine had a fit and put wrong address labels on? At the warehouse I visited the machine actually attached labels using compressed air!
I also immediately contacted Amazon and asked how can you screw up orders especially when I didn't order this. I was mad as heck and made it known to the CS in chat about it.
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