But from a business POV, it makes sense. Assuming that they have a million returns monthly, and from those only a dozen are scams (I have no idea about the real numbers, just guessing), it would be way more expensive to them to do a deep inspection on every returned item than do a soft/cheap check on the returns. When something falls throught the cracks (and the user find out), customer care will just send a new one (usually it's hassle free) and the company absorb the damage from that one scam, which it's usually cheap.
I know it hurts when amazon relies on real customers to do their deep inspection, but it's all about costs. I don't expect this to change.
I would love to stop using amazon for a million reasons, but this is not one of them.
The HDD swap isn't unique to Amazon either, this is something that has plagued retail since birth. There was always jokes about "rocks in the box" in the 90's when I worked at an electronics store.
You hit the head of the nail though, it's a calculated loss / cost. With retail they dealt with physical theft way more than this and anticipated up to 10% of inventory loss for a plethora of reasons. It's not surprising the thieves have transitioned here. I would expect that between this and mixed inventory, these issues are far more common that people would think.
While amazon is at fault for passing it back on, I imagine they make it right. They have always fixed issues for me with no hesitation. It sucks, but I wouldn't get out a pitchfork unless they denied it. And like I mentioned above, Amazon isn't unique, any company has this happen.
The question is where does the discount from my doing their inspection for them go? It doesn't go to the prices, they're the same everywhere. It doesn't go to the shipping, that's my Prime account.
I'm not sure i'm following. Your inspection is something you would do with any product purchased. If your request is a discount or price because you found something that was wrong, then that would be between you and Amazon. I've never received anything other than a new item when it's happened at other retailers like BestBuy (This exact scenario with wrong HDD in external chassis).
I would argue that just like they bake in issues, you as a consumer have to account for that in your purchase decision.
There's no perfect answer, but i'm not sure you would be entitled to anything beyond them fixing the issue in a responsible manner. If you want something beyond, it's within your right to request that from them and theirs if they accept it. I will say, often if you have issues on individual packages with delays, they extend your prime by X days.
Oh, you mention that Amazon's prices are not low, and they are the same everywhere. I missed that part.
I don't buy on amazon very much, and I'm in Canada. But I don't see prices lower than Amazon frequently. Usually on other huge companies like best-buy or walmart. But they usually offer the same return policy and I'm pretty sure they face the same kind of scams.
But hey, that's my experience. You might have experienced something very different.
TBH nowadays in the USA I'm seeing significantly cheaper prices on ebay vs amazon for many things. Ex: an HDMI capture card was $13 on ebay vs $20-25 on amazon. Shipping is a bit slower, but something has to give.
well, Amazon prices are low. And I'm not ignoring the fact that they also can do that because they run a huge monopoly that crushes the mid-size business and destroys the competition, I'm just pointing that they are low. Usually lower than the competition. That's basically your reward.
Imagine that mister Bezos start spending millions of dollars and employing an army to do deep-check into every item returned. Who's paying that bill? Amazon's stockholders won't. You will. I will.
But, as I said in a previous post, I'm not defending Amazon's behavior. I'm just pointing out that it's all about cost and the vast majority of users benefit from this as well (with lower prices and no-question-asked-return-policy), while a tiny-tiny minority of them might face an inconvenience of returning an used item from time to time.
I know it hurts when amazon relies on real customers to do their deep inspection, but it's all about costs. I don't expect this to change.
I would love to stop using amazon for a million reasons, but this is not one of them.