Amazon alters refund policy

Thursday, May 26, 2016 - 09:34 by Mike Price

The days of being able to buy a product from Amazon and then seek a refund if it went on sale shortly afterwards have come to an end this week, according to the International Business Times.

Previously, the e-commerce giant operated a price match policy which protected customers in the event of an item they purchased at full price being discounted in the seven days following the transaction. But a change in the wording of the policy has eliminated this offer for all products, aside from TVs.

While the discovery of this change was made on the firm’s US site, it has also been rolled out internationally, meaning customers in the UK are also impacted.

In the aftermath of this change, it has been suggested by some shoppers who have spoken with Amazon representatives that the policy was only ever enforced in exceptional circumstances, rather than being something that every shopper was entitled to on every purchase.

Industry observers believe that Amazon’s actions to alter its policy on price matching and refunds have been spurred on by a rise in the number of apps which are designed to alert consumers to price drops that occur after they have already bought an item via safe shopping online.

Essentially, while only a small percentage of shoppers were aware of the policy and willing to keep tabs on price fluctuations, maintaining it made sense. But now it has become too expensive for Amazon to sustain and so it has been dropped altogether.

Others argue that the retailer has been concerned about the fact that the aforementioned third party apps are actually able to make use of customers’ login details, to automatically claim a refund when prices fall, which is seen as a security risk in its own right.