A pet owner claimed Amazon told him to file a false police report if he wanted to get a refund on a lost box of cat food.
Kyle Anderson said he ordered three large bags of cat food for his seven pets, totaling $126.82, to his home in northeast Ohio, but it never arrived.
Instead, he was sent a photo by the courier of the box after it was delivered to a different house, and had received someone elses order 45 minutes earlier.
Photos of the two boxes showed they were delivered to different houses, and he and his fiancée couldnt find the package when they looked outside.
Kyle Anderson and his fiancée Vidhi said they ordered three large bags of cat food for their seven pets, totaling $126.82, to their home in northeast Ohio, but it never arrived
Photos of the two boxes showed they were delivered to different houses, and he and his fiancée couldnt find the package when they looked outside. On the left is another customers package wrongly delivered to Anderson and the right is his actual package somewhere else
After sending the package he received in error to its intended address, Anderson contacted Amazon to ask for a refund.
Three separate representatives all told me that, despite it being their error, I would have to file a police report and provide it to them if I were to receive a refund, he said.
Heres the problem, though: No crime was committed. My package wasnt stolen or tampered with, It was simply delivered to the wrong address.
Anderson was concerned that not only would this be a waste of time for both him and the police, it was arguably a crime as filing a false police report is illegal.
So youre asking me to commit a crime, then. Just to be clear? he said he told the third Amazon rep, whom he believed was a manager.
He claimed they replied: I am not asking you to commit a crime, no, but we will need you to file a police report to refund your item.
Delivering a package to the wrong address isnt a crime, so theyre fundamentally asking me to report a crime that did not happen - committing a crime in the process, he said.
Andersons fiancée, Vidhi, with one of their seven cats, named Beelzebub
Another of the seven cats, this one a ginger feline
Anderson said his fiancée, Vidhi, tried calling Amazon and was told the same thing, and decided she would file the police report to recover their money.
They came to the house, she explained the situation and apologized for wasting his time. He made a report and gave us a reference number, he said.
However, Amazon refused to accept the reference number and demanded they submit a copy of the police report in PDF format.
They could easily have just geolocated that delivery and told me where the package was dropped. They could also have just bit the bullet and given me a refund, Anderson said.
Instead, they insist that I waste my time and commit a crime in an effort to make me give up.
Beelzebub with Anderson and Vidhi. The rest of their cats are named Mr M, Coco, Mint, Nimbus, Chai, and Hazel
Vidhi with two more of the couples cats
Anderson argued Amazons insistence on a police report for a wrongly delivered package was a huge waste of public resources, especially as police had to take their statement in person.
A police officer taking the time to come to our house, sit with my fiancée, take the report, go all the way back to the station, and file it, he said.
An investment of over an hour of time during which this officer could have, and should have, been using to investigate actual crimes.
Amazon is partaking in a practice designed to predate on the uninformed in order to protect their bottom line, all while wasting public resources, peoples time.
Anderson said Amazon eventually relented and started a new support ticket out of the blue, but only offered credit instead of a refund.
Patrick McCall, president of McCall Risk Group private investigators, said Amazon was frequently demanding police reports, and agreed filing a reporting for a missing but not stolen item would be a crime.
We have seen a lot of online merchants requiring a buyer to file a report and send that report to them in order to receive a refund lately, he said.
Anderson said Amazon eventually relented and started a new support ticket out of the blue, but only offered credit instead of a refund
Amazon and other online retailers have been seeing a lot of fraud related to people claiming they did not receive when in fact they did receive the package or have purposely had it sent to a neighbor or a family members house.
McCall said Amazon in particular was going so far as to require customers to submit a copy of their drivers licenses and other documents to get a refund.
If the customer refused, he said the company would deny credit card disputes stating the customer did not comply with its return policies when clearly the customer had no control over the packages being delivered to the wrong address.
McCall claimed the demands were so out of control that the New York City and Suffolk County, Long Island, police departments were refusing to issue reports in such circumstances.
Police know the filing of such reports are fraudulent and that Amazon is directing people to complete in order to receive a refund, he said.
The Suffolk County Police Department denied it was refusing to issue them.
If someone isnt sure if an item is lost or stolen, an officer would take a report indicating the item could be lost or stolen, it said.
The NYPD and the Cleveland Division of Police did not respond to requests for comment.
Amazon said: Weve confirmed the customer received a credit to their form of payment and apologized for this misunderstanding and delivery experience.
We manage each customer concern on a case-by-case basis and in limited instances may ask for additional information.
TikToker Diane Smith claimed in February that Amazon made the same demand of her over four folding chairs that didnt show up.
TikToker Diane Smith claimed in February that Amazon made the same demand of her over four folding chairs that didnt show up
Smith said she ordered 12 chairs for an event, but only eight arrived despite the company claiming all three boxes were delivered.
She said the chairs couldnt have been stolen because the building was secure, but Amazon told her she needed to file a police report.
First of all, no ones stealing my four wooden chairs that are literally super cheap, she said.
I mean, $200 Id be losing if these go, but like, I dont think anyone who looked at that box was like, Yep, theres chairs in there. Im gonna steal them.
So I just made a police report. And Im like, theyre gonna laugh at me and be like, Is this girl serious?
But at the moment I have to make a police report to find these chairs and why theyre missing, and Amazon will not help me until the police helped me like somethings up. This is super weird.
Another Amazon customer in the UK last year reported the same issue to The Guardian over a £71.97 ($93.44) package Amazons tracker said was handed to reception, when their building didnt have a reception.
The order was suddenly refunded after the newspaper inquired about it.