Dear Ina,
AMAZON SCAM ALERT. I've been selling on Amazon for 5 years, and this past week became the victim of a scammer using a twist on Retail Arbitrage. In reading some Amazon forum posts, it seems there has been a recent spike in this type of scam, but it may be an old game at play.
Here's how it works. The scammer lists the item on another platform (I believe my scammer was a Chinese seller on Walmart). When they sell my item, they then use me as a drop shipper to ship to their customer. I have received 5 orders like this (that I know of), but each time a "drop ship" order is placed by the scammer, they've used a different "Contact" name.
Anyone that sells on Amazon knows that Amazon does it's darndest to prevent any interaction between buyer/seller. I'm not able to see who purchased the item other than a "Contact Name", and the address of the recipient. So, if the Contact Name is different from the recipient, there's no way for me "not" to tell if this is a gifted transaction.
So, here's the twist on this scam: Once the item is delivered, I receive a message from the Contact Name with this canned message: "never received my order.Refund pls." (it's the same identical message in each order).
I replied with tracking details showing the package delivered and asked them to verify their shipping address, but I received no response. Then, a few days later, they open an A-Z Claim with Amazon. After the third claim, that's when I noticed a pattern. Amazon denied the scammer the claim (after I entered a lengthy response to the claim stating what this scammer was doing). The scammer then appealed and won. I then appealed, and Amazon funded a refund back to me. This was just on the first claim. I still have 4 more A-Z claims that are in the appeal process.
I have reported this scammer to Amazon, but not sure if anything will come of it. As I mentioned above, there's no way to see what Amazon sees on the back end regarding the scammers account. Are they using different accounts? Different emails? Fake account addresses? I do not know.
The bottom line, not only may I be out the funds, but each A-Z claim I lose hurts my seller metrics - which is the lifeline to remaining an active seller on Amazon.
Amazon does nothing to protect Sellers from this sort of scam activity.
(please omit my name from this letter, thank you).
Twist on an Amazon Scam that Is Hurting Seller's M
by: Marie