Amazon won't accept written communication

80 points by ccleve 1 year ago | 69 comments

We had a bad time with Amazon yesterday, and I can't reach them to tell them about it.

Without getting into details, an Amazon delivery driver did a bad thing on our property, which we only discovered this morning when a neighbor brought it to our attention.

I attempted to write to Amazon, but apparently they no longer accept email at cs-reply@amazon.com, there is no way to post a support ticket, they no longer have chat, and they make it very, very difficult to find a customer service phone number. No, none of their automated support options applied to this particular situation.

Through Googling, I found 1-888-280-4331, the customer service number, but for obvious legal reasons I need to send them a written account of what happened, so I have a record that they were notified.

Short of filing a lawsuit and serving them with a complaint, how do I reach these people?

And more generally, when a large FAANG company makes it nearly impossible to communicate with them, is this not evidence of bad-faith dealing, and should consumer protection agencies come down hard on them?

JumpCrisscross 1 year ago |

Send a letter to 410 Terry Avenue North, Seattle, Washington 98109-5210 [1] with your state attorney general [2] copied. (Note the AG's Cc in the letter.)]

(If you had property damage or a crime was committed, get a police report. Now. You lose nothing by documenting. Waiting could damage the perceived quality of any testimony and seriousness of the allegations.)

[1] https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/0001018724/0...

[2] https://www.naag.org/find-my-ag/

dredmorbius 1 year ago | |

Most state AG's also have a consumer complaints division at which you can file a report, which is then forwarded to the company in question.

(There are cases, such as fraud, phone solicitations, and robocalls, in which you might prefer the firm not be contacted, but in the case of an established firm such as Amazon it's generally recommended you do.)

This both creates a record with the agency and typically connects you with a "concierge service" or similar at the company who will generally work to address the issue quickly.

Otherwise, parent is excellent advice.

cess11 1 year ago | |

This is what I'd do. Because this is what lawyers I've known and sometimes sold services to have done when it was at all inconvenient to send a legally sufficient message in some other way.

AlwaysRock 1 year ago |

They have a chat.

From top nav bar -> Account and Lists -> Customer Service -> Digital Services and Device Support -> Click "Contact Us" at the bottom of the page under Start a Chat Now.

It is hard to find but its there. You start with a bot but they pop you to customer service pretty quickly.

ccleve 1 year ago | |

Yup, this works. I did not think to click "Digital Services" because this has nothing to do with digital services. But it does get you to the chat.

arprocter 1 year ago | |

Good to know - That's much more hidden than it used to be

AlwaysRock 1 year ago | | |

For sure. I dont know if that is because they want to hide it so less people use it or if Amazon just has no ability to make anything other than product pages easy to find on their website.

jamieplex 1 year ago |

Pretty simple really, I just asked their "Rufus" AI shopping assistant how to get help and got this:

"To access Amazon's customer support chat, you can visit the Your Orders section or scroll to the bottom of any page and select Customer Service. From there, choose the appropriate option that addresses your question or issue, and follow the prompts to initiate the chat."

To get help, select Customer Service ." (which is a button in the chat window)

Should work fine....

ccleve 1 year ago | |

Not sure why this got downvoted. This actually worked. Sure, I shouldn't have to negotiate with a bot, but it did get me to a human just now. (Or maybe a really convincing bot).

jamieplex 1 year ago | | |

Haha, thanks. I get downvoted just for showing up on this site. I have had to make a dozen different logins over 6-8 years. People just seem to hate my comments for whatever weird reason. (reference phyzome below) ;-P

phyzome 1 year ago | |

"Let Me Google That For You" was rude 20 years ago. "Here's what ChatGPT said" has almost identical vibes.

jamieplex 1 year ago | | |

Sorry for offending you, sir. I had no intentions of that. I am a pretty simple kind of guy and thought that would help. Have a nice day!

tguvot 1 year ago | | |

chatgpt said has much worst vibes imho

gravity2060 1 year ago |

An amazon driver hit and run our car parked on the street in front of our house and did a lot of damage. we figured it from neighbor’s ring camera.

we messaged Amazon chat support. It was all very easy and procedural. Clearly this happens all the time because we were just moved through a process that took a few weeks, and we were fully reimbursed.

I’m not saying not to document everything, but our strategy was just to take extensive notes every day in case it ended up in a lawsuit. But the reality was they didn’t challenge anything and just moved us through a property damage pipeline.

majorchord 1 year ago | |

Please tell me you have your own security cameras now.

hu3 1 year ago | | |

And that they were bought from Amazon!

MR4D 1 year ago |

Amazon accepts subpoenas and other legal summons. You just need to engage an attorney.

Whether it’s egregious enough for that I don’t know, but you will definitely get in contact with them if you use one.

nickpsecurity 1 year ago | |

If you go that route, I’ll remind readers that they can use small claims court to avoid large legal fees or maybe even a lawyer. It’s still a good idea to consult with a lawyer before going into any kind of court. You might be able to do that in your jurisdiction too.

anon373839 1 year ago | | |

It’s worth mentioning that small claims court judgments are often non-binding. Meaning, if either party is dissatisfied with the outcome, they can have an automatic “do-over” in regular civil court.

bigfatkitten 1 year ago | |

You can self rep and do it yourself, but I wouldn't recommend it.

johngossman 1 year ago |

I just went through the Amazon chat experience, quickly got to a real person and had my issue resolved. I had to start by referencing a specific order and say “No” to all the “is this a payment problem?” and “do you want to make a return?” prompts, but it wasn’t hard in the end.

handfuloflight 1 year ago |

If it's sensational enough and you have evidence, you might write to your local news station. PR issues tend to get swift attention.

ccleve 1 year ago | |

In this case, the local police department would be more appropriate, but I'd like to give Amazon the chance to make this right on their own. They sure don't make it easy.

calvin 1 year ago | | |

If it’s something involving property damage or another issue requiring reimbursement, I’d recommend seeking legal advice and the lawyers can send whatever correspondence is needful.

lovegrenoble 1 year ago | | |

Let's make it top 1 ))

hiddencost 1 year ago |

That number is NOT an Amazon number. Do not call it. It is a scam. Search Google for that number and you will find numerous reports.

ssl232 1 year ago |

I had the same issue when a driver let themselves round the back of my property, opening a latched gate by squeezing their fingers through a gap in the gate, then trying to open a door at the back. The door happened to be a bedroom with en-suite so the possibility of seeing someone naked was nonzero. The gate also can’t be closed again from the outside even reaching fingers through, leaving it open to anyone and everyone once they’ve left (I’ve since patched the holes as several delivery drivers have now done this). They dumped the package in our greenhouse, breaking a plant and leaving the door open. I only caught all this as we have a camera pointing at the back to track our cats, feeding into Frigate.

I also had trouble contacting Amazon by email so I spoke to a rep on the live chat. They put me through to someone on the delivery team who asked for video evidence. I had to send the video by email to some random Amazon address, then they credited my account with £10, apologised profusely, and said they would feed this back to the delivery driver.

blitzar 1 year ago | |

I think £10 is the maximum credit agents can offer up the chat.

I had a problematic delivery, it was listed as out every day and 'couldn't be delivered' every day for a few weeks. After a week of this I would get on the chat every day or two to complain (get told that the problem had been resolved and that it would 100% get delivered the next day) and get my £10 account credit. After I got to £50 they promised again that the product would be with me tomorrow and quietly cancelled my order and issued a refunded.

JumpCrisscross 1 year ago | |

> they credited my account with £10, apologised profusely, and said they would feed this back to the delivery driver

Fuck you with a bow on it!

ssl232 1 year ago | | |

I’d normally be inclined to agree except they went to the effort of getting my video evidence, which gives me hope this did actually end up getting fed back.

ChuckMcM 1 year ago |

A lawyer could advise you. My guess is that getting a registered receipt for certified mail addressed to their general counsel would be sufficient evidence for the courts that you had notified them but your lawyer will know better than I do. I have occasionally resorted to sending certified mail with receipts requested and if nothing else it sends a message that I'm serious.

It wasn't my idea though, the last time I got into a dispute with the IRS they did that to me and I thought "hmm, I bet they do that to 'prove' you knew what they were asking of you."

That said, I'm really sorry you have to go through this. More and more I've been working to move off Amazon ordering for this exact reason.

hiddencost 1 year ago |

Try sending a demand letter to their legal department.

Put the words "demand letter" in gold and underlined in large font at the top.

CC your state attorney general (like, print two copies, send to both, and put CC: My AG, MY Age address at the top). You can specifically state that if they do not respond to you that you will file suit in small claims court. Consider sending certified mail. Note that you are reaching out this way because you have no other channel.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...

JumpCrisscross 1 year ago | |

> Put the words "demand letter" in gold and underlined in large font at the top

Does this have legal significance?

dredmorbius 1 year ago | | |

It helps route the mail correctly, and increases likelihood of it getting someone's attention.

Registered mail, return receipt, provides legal proof of delivery.

layer8 1 year ago |

They list a postal address in the Conditions of Use: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...

paulschreiber 1 year ago |

Per https://www.elliott.org/company-contacts/amazon/ you can email cs-escalations@amazon.com or an exec listed there.

JudeFawley 1 year ago |

If you can find some way to message the CEO (email address etc) most large e-commerce sites have an "office of the president" that have experienced customer service reps that deal with such correspondance.

tguvot 1 year ago |

Live chat exists, it just takes few hops to get to human through chat bot. Email works, but it only for cases when they ask you to email them photos or something

ccleve 1 year ago | |

How do I get to live chat? If I search for "customer service", click the link, and keep clicking "Help with something else", I get circular links that go nowhere.

geor9e 1 year ago | | |

Try a different browser. Maybe your ad blocker is breaking their website. I just clicked "Help with something else" > "I need more help" > a chat popup window appeared, I typed "human" > I clicked "Yes" > I clicked "Connect with a Customer Service Associate" . Easy. I think a form of Hanlon's razor applies here "Don't attribute a wildly sensational change in policy from a famously customer centered company, what could more easily be explained by a browser glitch".

AlwaysRock 1 year ago | | |

From top nav bar -> Account and Lists -> Customer Service -> Digital Services and Device Support -> Click "Contact Us" at the bottom of the page under Start a Chat Now.

neofrommatrix 1 year ago |

Can you reach out to their support chat through an order (dispute an order or something) and ask to be rerouted to the right support team?

ccleve 1 year ago | |

So far as I can tell, support chat doesn't exist.

fuomag9 1 year ago | | |

Support chat exists, you need to jump through hoops and always select "other" and "I have a problem" and stuff like this. I've talked to them multiple times

hu3 1 year ago | | |

When I buy products from Amazon, there's some "Get help about this order" button when I see order details. If you pick correct choices you escape the automated chats and they put a human on the chat with you.

You can then explain your issue.

Amazon always fixed my problems, including refunds, replacements. Their chat support is so good I tend to buy with them even when they don't have the best price.

elashri 1 year ago | | |

Can you try from Amazon app, there is an option to click to customer service after the click the second button (from the right) on bottom nav bar.

Then you will have many options, scroll down to something else and you will find chat with customer service and then you want to tell the bot straight that you want to be redirected to an agent. From there you can talk to actual human and ask to be redirected or even ask for a call. Though I am not sure if this will be different if you are not prime member. Also there is a way to do that from website but steps would be slightly different.

DamonHD 1 year ago | | |

I had an item vanish in transit to me (in the UK) and support chat (after fighting through some robotic stupidity) very quickly and without fuss gave me a refund on the spot. So humans do still exist and have agency and are reachable in parts of Amazon at least...

ses1984 1 year ago | | |

I chatted with them recently but it’s like a maze finding how to reach an agent.

gtsop 1 year ago | | |

It surelly used to exist, I have settled returns, refunds and reacheduling of deliveries through their chat in the past. Last time was 5-6 months ago

blackeyeblitzar 1 year ago |

I remember people could email Jeff Bezos to escalate issues. Is there such a thing for Andy Jassy?

oidar 1 year ago | |

This no longer works. The just kick it down to a support person. I don't think the question mark emails exist anymore for customer facing issues.

dredmorbius 1 year ago | | |

Likely always had. It wasn't "Jeff's email", it was "report an issue".

(Bezos likely could and did review some of the mail, but reports were connected to the relevant department.)

blackeyeblitzar 1 year ago | | |

That’s disappointing. So they just don’t care to provide that amount of customer service anymore?

Didn’t Apple have something like this in the Steve Jobs era?

brudgers 1 year ago |

but for obvious legal reasons I need

to use a lawyer...because there are obvious legal reasons.

tpm 1 year ago |

Would sending a physical letter to their hq be ok?

ccleve 1 year ago | |

Sure, but it's a hassle because you've got to go to the post office and fill out a return receipt requested form, otherwise the letter could just go into a black hole. Plus, who knows how many weeks it would take to get a response?

dredmorbius 1 year ago | | |

I'd strongly recommend you accept that level of hassle.

dredmorbius 1 year ago | |

Registered mail, return receipt.

victor22 1 year ago |

You should rent a tractor and eject horse manure at their offices, this might make them slightly more inclined to look into it.

TheChaplain 1 year ago | |

It would likely only result in him being charged for something, and some poor underpaid employee have to clean it up.

Against these kind of companies there are three ways to make them change; legal action, regulation and financial loss.

awinter-py 1 year ago |

I mean technically any company with a legal department accepts written communication, and if they're out of state you can serve them through your state's department of state

they fact that they have invented a byzantine system for complaining to them doesn't mean you have to make more than a token effort to comply with that system

juped 1 year ago |

Talk to the cops and your lawyer, not the internet.