Several Amazon users and customers have received emails notifying of their accounts being closed because a large amount of returned products, the Wall Street Journal reports.
This has been considered quite a sudden procedure coming from a company known for its effective customer service and that has a substantial role on modern online shopping. Also, the website’s approach to their returning policy has been quite appealing to the public, since it is free and simple to make a return. However, most of the customers have reported that they were able to restore their accounts. Some users have not even been told the reason behind their ban from the website, and nowhere in their Terms and Conditions does it say that too many returns could result in an account being shut down.
According to WSJ, several customers went on Twitter and Facebook and narrated their experience with being “exiled” from Amazon. The company reached out to the journal and said that “We never take these decisions lightly, but with over 300 million customers around the world, we take action when appropriate to protect the experience for all our customers”. What has raised more concern among the users is the sudden application of Amazon’s new regulation, rather than the regulation itself. While the company occasionally sends a notification regarding the overuse of their returning policy, they have never applied a limitation like this one is such a massive scale.
A former Amazon manager has determined that some actions that could terminate someone’s account would be requesting too many refunds, returning wrong or damaged items, or receiving compensation of any kind for writing reviews on the website. After these patterns have been identified, an algorithm singles out the account and an Amazon employee must decide whether to leave the account or closing it.
Some customers have mentioned that this new ban can affect former customers in ways that go beyond the marketplace, since the website has become such an integral part of some people’s daily life. What was seen as a somewhat impulsive procedure to make after buying a product has now become something to be self-conscious about and that can define one’s experience with online shopping.
