I am not the original poster. This is a repost.

Originally posted in 2018 by a deleted account in r/Huawei and r/LegalAdviceUK.

​

[disc] Bought a Matebook X Pro in the Black Friday Deals directly from Amazon UK (not reseller) with Prime. Got sent a box of Special K cereal. They won't refund until 5-7 days after I send the cereal back to them [xpost r/MatebookXPro] 27 November 2018

https://i.redd.it/b3hd0xbclx021.jpg - Photo of the box of cereal next to the Amazon box.

​

​

Amazon sent me a £2 box of cereal instead of a £1,100 laptop. After several days they claim they have "fully investigated" and won't refund without a police report. Went to the police station who said it's a "civil issue" and won't issue a police report. 29 November 2018

I pasted about it here originally:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Huawei/comments/a0ymgq/disc_bought_a_matebook_x_pro_in_the_black_friday/

At first I was shocked by how badly amazon were treating me, first saying I needed to return the box of cereal to get refunded. They told me to wait home the next day on Wednesday and then didn't show up to pick up the box of cereal.

Later in the day they told me they conducted a full investigation and said that they delivered the correct item. They wouldn't give me any information but mentioned "tools" and having the correct weight and dimensions recorded on their system.

Next they said I had to fill out a police report to get a refund or replacement. I went to the local police station and reported the matter and they said "This is a civil matter, we cannot investigate this and we cannot give you a police report, you must follow this up with Amazon." So I'm in a catch 22 here.

The laptop is 14 inches diagonally across and the amazon cardboard box has 14.5 inches of space. That would mean the laptop box itself was only 0.25 inches bigger than the laptop and that they didn't pad it. You would also expect a "hazardous materials" sticker on any box containing lithium ion batteries (which all modern laptops contain) , but this was not present on the box. Maybe they did squeeze the laptop inside this barely-big-enough box without padding and somehow the item was replaced in the box at some point during transit, I don't know. There was no tape on the box at all and you can easily pull out one of the cardboard flaps from the inside, take the item out, and put the flap back in.

You hear a lot about Amazon having legendary customer service and I was so shocked by how they treated me about this. It is very upsetting to be told "We delivered the correct item" again and again when you know you got scammed, it feels like Amazon are accusing you of being a liar, of being a criminal.

After a small amount of research I can find reports of similar issues happening to quite a lot of other customers. One person was sent a mop instead of a laptop. The same thing happened to these people too, where Amazon claimed the correct item was sent. I suppose Amazon relented on these due to the media storm that eventually surrounded them, but I don't think my 100 hits on Reddit are enough to make them own up to their mistake here.

The laptop was supposed to arrive on Sunday and the cereal box arrived on Tuesday. Then they made me wait in for a pickup of the cereal box that never happened. They have failed so many times on so many levels and now it also seems like there is a strong possibility that they are also going to keep my money.

EDIT: Got through to met police on twitter who were more helpful than the officer I spoke to this morning in the station. The relevant part of what they said:

"It should be amazon who [reports the crime] as they are technically the victim as you have not received the parcel you can't have something stolen from you that you do not yet own."

​

[Update] Amazon sent me a £2 box of cereal instead of a £1,100 laptop. After several days they claim they have "fully investigated" and won't refund without a police report. Went to the police station who said it's a "civil issue" and won't issue a police report.22 December 2018

I eventually got my money back, about 14 days after they sent me the cereal. I still have the stupid box of cereal.

It was emailing [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) and [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) that finally got me a response saying they didn't need the police report.

They were rude to the very end though, even after refunding me they told me that they delivered the correct item and that they were only refunding me to "improve your [my] customer service experience" followed by a very rude "we won't be responding to any more of your messages on this matter". They also let me know that they will still be making other people get police reports to get their refund and they were just making a special exception for me. I sent them the screenshot of the tweet from the London Met Police saying it was Amazon's responsibility to make the police report but they simply don't care. Nor do they care about my solicitor advice or the advice of the two other police officers I spoke to.

Even if the box had contained the laptop, it's appalling that they would send a laptop in such a small unpadded box with no tape on, that can simply be opened and closed with a flap. Of course they didn't care about this at all when I pointed it out either. Like everything else, they don't engage with any specific thing you actually raise and just repeat themselves like box-ticking parrots.

Since this blew up three other Redditors have contacted me, all in the same position. They are also being asked for police reports and obviously can't get them because it just isn't the damned law of the UK. What's scary is that two of them ordered the exact same laptop as me (although they returned the laptop and were scammed on the return with Amazon claiming to have received an empty box). Here's links to the Reddit posts of people who got scammed with the same laptop:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MatebookXPro/comments/a3dqfx/very_worrying_trend_another_case_of_missing/ebs9wad/?context=3

https://www.reddit.com/r/MatebookXPro/comments/a1v5nk/email_from_amazon_uk_regarding_the_return_of_the/

IMO Amazon UK are absolute creeps. It seems like they don't give a damn about the law, all they care about is their own bottom line. They are ass faces and I'll never do business with them again. Their customer service may be great if you have an issue with a small or medium sized item, but it looks like as soon as it's something a bit bigger they become rude, aggressive, inconsiderate and self important.

Reminder: I am not the original poster. This is a repost.

Originally posted in 2018 by a deleted account in r/Huawei and r/LegalAdviceUK.