You must be aware about one of the biggest e-commerce platforms in the world which is Amazon that started from the US way back in 1994 (its 29th anniversary is just next month) and is still going strong even today. It is worth noting that Amazon started as a bookstore back in the day but has since become a full blown e-commerce store that sells anything and everything under the sun.
One of the main reasons why Amazon is so popular everywhere around the world is because of its product catalog but also because of the unparalleled customer service that it provides. However, the customer-centric approach from Amazon goes both ways when it comes to a buyer and seller.
If you are a customer buying from Amazon, you will be very happy about their no-questions-asked return policy as well as customer support. However, if you are a seller, it is a headache to deal with returns from customers who are just there to scam you in every possible manner.
It is worth noting that scams have been taking place on Amazon, and many other marketplaces around the world, ever since the e-commerce shopping started. But it should be noted that since Amazon always takes the side of their customers, the sellers have a hard time and lose their peace of mind as well as money in this process.
7 Types Of Buyer Scams on Amazon in 2024
Talking about buyer scams on Amazon, it is definitely possible to be scammed on Amazon and there are different ways in which buyers try to scam you as a seller on Amazon. There are not one or two but seven different known ways in which a buyer will try to scam you on Amazon in 2024 and this list keeps growing and the methods keep changing. So if you are selling on Amazon, do have a look at all the buyer scams and make sure to avoid being scammed.
1. Failed Delivery Scam on Amazon
You must have noted that there are times when Amazon fails to deliver your order on time or even deliver it at all. While this is a genuine problem, buyers out there use this to scam sellers on Amazon. Even if their order gets delivered on time, the buyer claims that no order has been delivered and asks for a refund to Amazon Customer Service.
Obviously, you must confirm that the order you shipped has been delivered to the customer. If you don’t have that evidence, then you can lose your order as well as Amazon will ask you to refund the customer as well. In this case, make sure to use track and trace shipping as well as ensure that a signature from the customer is required at the time of delivery to avoid this issue.
2. Return and Refund Scams on Amazon
As we mentioned earlier, Amazon lets you return the products if you are not satisfied with them in the given time period and this is great for the customers. However, some buyers use this to their advantage and you as a seller will have to suffer.
Basically, what the buyer does is they order a product and you ship it to them. Then, they raise a return request and send you a duplicate item or an older model of the same item or a used one instead of your unused one. Once you receive the item, Amazon asks you to refund the customer but if you have proof that the returned item is not same as the one you sent then you can deny the refund.
3. Credit Card Fraud
This is also one of the common Amazon buyer scams taking place from a long time. In this type of scam, buyers use a credit card that does not belong to them to order items from Amazon and they order it from a location which is not traceable as well as order it to a location which is different from their original one.
Once the owner of the credit card realizes that someone ordered from their card, they raise a chargeback request with the credit card company and the company will then refund the money to the customer. In between all this, the Amazon Seller has shipped the item and maybe the item has been delivered as well. This is how you as a Amazon Seller will lose your product as well as your money.
4. Phishing Scams on Amazon
While this one is not related to a buyer scam on Amazon, it is definitely a scam in which way too many Amazon Sellers fall and lose their hard earned money as well as reputation. Basically, the phishing scam on amazon works in such a way that someone contacts you over e-mail pretending to be from Amazon with all the official documents.
Once they build the trust, they start asking for your personal information in the pretext that there is a problem with your account that needs to be fixed. Once you give them your personal information, they will either extract all the information from your Amazon account or steal financial information.
5. Email Scam on Amazon
As we mentioned earlier, the email scam is very similar to phishing scam on Amazon because of the fact that in both the methods the scammers pretend to be from Amazon and want to get your personal, financial and even login details so that they can get into your account and do as much damage as possible which can get your Amazon account blacklisted. It is worth noting that Amazon will never contact anyone ever email with regards to getting their contact details as they never ask for your login credentials.
6. Partial Return Scam on Amazon
The partial return scam is far too common on Amazon and is very easy to be done by the buyer as well. Basically, if you order a few items from Amazon and then raise a return request and return only a few items to the seller, the seller will immediately notice that you have returned items lesser than you ordered. However, the buyer will claim that they have sent back all the items and they want a full refund for their order. In this case, if the seller does not have proof of how many items were sent in the original order and how many items were returned back then the refund can be declined and Amazon will understand your position otherwise, you will have to refund full money to the buyer.
7. Amazon FBA Return Scam
One of the recent Amazon scams which has been started by Amazon buyers is the Amazon FBA Return Scam. Basically, there is a program offered by Amazon known as Fulfilled by Amazon in which your orders will get delivered by Amazon. Since Amazon FBA are returned to Amazon warehouses, it is the duty of Amazon workers to check if the product returned should be returned to the seller and marked as unsellable or returned to warehouse as available inventory.
If the buyer who has returned your order has packed it in a very good manner and sent something totally different inside it, the Amazon warehouse worker might mark it as available inventory so the next time someone orders the product and it is shipped by Amazon to the buyer, they will raise a complaint that the order they received is wrong and this will put you in Amazon’s list of troublesome sellers.
How to Prevent being scammed as an Amazon Seller?
As we mentioned earlier, the customer-centric approach from Amazon is great but only for the buyers are sometimes the sellers have to suffer due to that. However, there are some precautions you can take as an Amazon Seller to prevent being scammed by a buyer on Amazon.
- Use tamper-proof seals, stickers or labels to seal your products and add something unique inside all your products to make sure that the returns are same or not.
- Use shipping methods that allow tracking so that you can give Amazon the proof that your order was indeed delivered.
- Mention that you have a zero tolerance policy for fraud and tampering with products will not be tolerated.
- Make sure to ask the delivery personnel to get signature from person receiving the package as well as ask them to click a photo which can be presented as proof of order delivery.
Conclusion
It is worth noting that fraudulent practices by buyers on e-commerce marketplaces have been taking place everywhere around the world and some places around the world have already started taking a unique approach to make sure that sellers are not scammed.
For example, India’s Flipkart.com gives buyers the option to get the package opened by their delivery personnel to make sure that the items received by them are the same ones that were ordered. Once the buyer confirms that they got the correct order, the order is marked as delivered and this prevent buyer scams as well since they can’t claim the order was incorrect later on.
This is just one of the examples of how buyer scams can be prevented. Talking about Amazon, we have already mentioned how you can prevent buyer scams as a seller on Amazon by using tamper-proof packaging, asking for signatures as well as mentioning that frauds will not be tolerated.