Problem Solved:Refund For Wrong Water Heater

Q: I purchased a tankless hot water heater from Amazon a month ago. They sent the wrong hot water heater -- propane instead of natural gas.

Amazon approved my return, and I sent it back the next week. Amazon received the item but I haven't received a refund yet.

I contacted Amazon by chats several times, asking about my refund so I could order a replacement. I've talked to 12 different so-called customer service reps -- some claimed to be supervisors -- without a resolution from any.

When I check my account, there is now no evidence that I have a return sent, received, or being processed. That information was taken off the site. The item was there before.

I can't afford to purchase another heater until they refund my original purchase. To say the least, this situation is now and continues to be intolerable, and their actions indicate they don't care. Please help me get my $496 back. -- Marshall Haney, Lockport, NY

A: Amazon should have sent you the correct heater. But if it couldn't, it should have sent you an immediate refund after you returned the heater -- along with its apologies. Instead, it pretended you were never a customer. Come on.

Amazon's return process usually works well. I've heard from customers who get their refunds in hours instead of days, which is great. For you, the system didn't work as it should have. Amazon approved your return, acknowledged it, but then erased all records of your transaction from the system.

Remember how I like to talk about keeping a paper trail? That also includes screenshots with acknowledgments of product returns. Why? Because this could happen to you. The company could simply delete all of its records, leaving you with no proof that you ever returned a product. Or even ordered a product.

Now, to be sure, you could have cobbled together some forensic evidence from your credit card bill and email correspondence. This shouldn't be necessary with a sophisticated company like Amazon.

Reviewing your correspondence, I see two issues. First, all of your messages were in all uppercase. When you're online, that's considered yelling. I would maybe ease up on that and disengage your caps lock. Also, it had only been a few weeks since your return, and I think Amazon would have eventually resolved this problem. Since chatting wasn't really helping, maybe you could have sent a brief, polite email to one of the Amazon customer service executives whose names I publish on my consumer advocacy site, Elliott.org.

I contacted Amazon on your behalf. It investigated your return problem and sent you an update a few days later

"We've received the item below and have issued your refund," it said. "Thank you for sending the item back. Your return is now complete."

Your $496 has been refunded.

Christopher Elliott is the founder of Elliott Advocacy (https://elliottadvocacy.org), a nonprofit organization that helps consumers solve their problems. Email him at chris@elliott.org or get help by contacting him at https://elliottadvocacy.org/help/