Amazon is reimbursing a “very small subset” of consumers for returns over the past few years. The decision comes even in a class action lawsuit over the issue. The judge refused to dismiss it last month.
Amazon faces lawsuit when customers report a refund that disappeared after returning
Customers allege that Amazon overturned refunds for returned products, leading to a lawsuit challenging our advanced refund policy.
Scripps News
Some Amazon shoppers will receive their long-awaited refunds soon.
Online retailers are issuing refunds to small collections of US customers who have had problems with return in the past. Apparently at least one customer was dating back to 2018.
“Following our recent internal review, we have identified where we were unable to confirm that a refund was not issued if we had not completed payments or because we were unable to confirm that the correct item had been sent back to us,” Amazon spokesman Maxine Tagay said in a statement sent to USA Today.
“There are no necessary steps from customers to receive a refund. We have made changes to the process of fixing payment issues and contacting them more quickly about outstanding returns.”
Amazon does not detail the number of customers receiving a refund or the total amount of refunds.
However, during the first quarter revenue call on May 1, Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky told investment analysts that the company received a one-off bill of about $1.1 billion, Bloomberg reported. Bloomberg said the fees included unresolved “historic customer returns” and the cost of stockpiling inventory in anticipation of customs duties.
“Wild” rebates on Amazon seven years from now
One consumer, Stephen Pope, posted on LinkedIn that he received a refund of about $1,800 on May 20 for a television he purchased in 2018, Verge reported.
“Wild – Amazon finally refunded me for a 2018 return!” he posted on the network site. “$1,798.81 is credited to me today in 2025 in seven years.”
According to a LinkedIn post, Amazon’s note to the Pope said, “We are in touch with you about unresolved product returns that have been launched on Amazon.”
Pope, founder of My Amazon Guy, a company that supports Amazon sellers, was one of the consumers whose returns were not resolved, an Amazon memo said. “Given the time has passed, we made an error on our part and decided to complete a refund for these returns.”
Amazon Class Action Refund Litigation
Amazon returns are also the focus of potential class action litigation. The lawsuit says that several consumers were recharged for the item after returning it. Amazon claimed that if they fail to send back items, they could recharge the customer and reverse the refund.
On April 29, a federal judge in Seattle denied Amazon’s request to dismiss the case currently in the discovery process.
Mike Snyder is a reporter for the trending team at USA Today. You can follow him in the thread, send BlueSky, X with X and send him an email Bliss & @mikegsnider.bsky.social & @mikesnider &msnider@usatoday.com
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