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[Patrick S.]

Surely the most logical thing would have been to transfer the funds over if there were insufficient funds in the first place?

Does sound like he can't really afford it but hey, most of this story makes no sense at all

I'm not swimming in money, but I had saved the money for the card plus an extra €100 just in case day one prices were higher than anounced.

 

[Alter_Fridge]

I had €800 in my PayPal account. As the card went up on Amazon, I wanted to buy it, and didn't realize Amazon doesn't accept PayPal. So I went to my PayPal account and transferred the funds to my bank account, and placed the order at Amazon. I knew that the PayPal money would take a day to arrive in my bank account, but didn't think Amazon would actually check the bank account for funds at the moment of purchase, because AFAIK they only charge you when the product ships. I dunno, but I don't have a lot of experience with that, because I always have enough funds in my bank account to pay for the purchases I make.

So now that bank payment was rejected I got an E-Mail from Amazon, saying that I'd have to add a credit card to my account, or top up with gift cards. I have no cc, so I decided to buy gift cards. A work colleague of mine said, "hey I'll lend you the €700, just pay me back when the bank transfer from PayPal arrives, that way they won't cancel your order."

I went to a local store, got the cards, added them to the account through the android app, and I could see the €700 in my Amazon account. I changed the payment method for my €699 purchase to use the funds in the Amazon account, and could see €1 remaining in funds. I got no E-Mail at this point, though.

When Amazon cancelled my order, the €700 were available in my account again.

It wasn't until after I hit up the Amazon support chat and asked if they could refund thoese funds to my bank account, the first support rep left and the second rep came on, did the second guy say "funds? What funds? You must have charged the funds to another account, there is no record of you ever redeeming those gift cards in you account. Can't help you!" that the funds had vanished.

Obviously I was speechless and checked in the account history, and indeed there was no record of me redeeming the cards, which is completely uncomprehensable for me. I had thrown the cards and receipt into the trash, because I didn't think I'd ever need the receipts or the used gift cards. I mean, the €700 were in my account, how on Earth would I ever think of a possibility of that money just vanishing without a trace?

Two positives: the guy at the store where I bought the cards is helpful, and he said he'd try and get copies of the receipts and/or card activations through his IT or financial department, I guess, and get back to me tomorrow. Also, I did mail Mr. Bezos at Amazon, and he DID escalate the matter, because I got an E-Mail from a senior support executive who is on the case now.

I'm really speechless, I'd never have thought something like this could ever happen, and at the very least, it'll be a lesson.

Don't Amazon do BNPL?

 

[Patrick S.]

Can you contact me via PN? I have a friend working at the customer service at Amazon.de.

She can take a look at it again this evening. She needs your email and the billing adress to check on it.

But how can you pay for 700 Euro Giftcards when you dont have money on your bank account? Did you have the moeny in cash?

Rule 1: Keep your giftcards until you got the product or at least keep the receipt that shows that you bought 7 giftcards for 700 Euro.

Thank you very much. Now that this issue is at the escalation level it's at, I hope it'll get resolved. Yesterday, I had tweeted @ the Amazon support, and they responded with a link where I could elaborate, but they later contacted me with another "there is no record of you redeeming any gift cards"... I mean, this is actually criminal in my eyes, and I think I should probably go to the police. Problem is, as of now, I only have witnesses, but nothing on paper. I hope the person at the store where I got the cards, a big national supermarket chain, will be able to get me any receipts or activation confirmations.

 

[God Enel]

I don’t understand how there is no history on your account which shows that you added funds to your wallet with a gift card.

 

[Nikana]

I had €800 in my PayPal account. As the card went up on Amazon, I wanted to buy it, and didn't realize Amazon doesn't accept PayPal. So I went to my PayPal account and transferred the funds to my bank account, and placed the order at Amazon. I knew that the PayPal money would take a day to arrive in my bank account, but didn't think Amazon would actually check the bank account for funds at the moment of purchase, because AFAIK they only charge you when the product ships. I dunno, but I don't have a lot of experience with that, because I always have enough funds in my bank account to pay for the purchases I make.

So now that bank payment was rejected I got an E-Mail from Amazon, saying that I'd have to add a credit card to my account, or top up with gift cards. I have no cc, so I decided to buy gift cards. A work colleague of mine said, "hey I'll lend you the €700, just pay me back when the bank transfer from PayPal arrives, that way they won't cancel your order."

I went to a local store, got the cards, added them to the account through the android app, and I could see the €700 in my Amazon account. I changed the payment method for my €699 purchase to use the funds in the Amazon account, and could see €1 remaining in funds. I got no E-Mail at this point, though.

When Amazon cancelled my order, the €700 were available in my account again.

It wasn't until after I hit up the Amazon support chat and asked if they could refund thoese funds to my bank account, the first support rep left and the second rep came on, did the second guy say "funds? What funds? You must have charged the funds to another account, there is no record of you ever redeeming those gift cards in you account. Can't help you!" that the funds had vanished.

Obviously I was speechless and checked in the account history, and indeed there was no record of me redeeming the cards, which is completely uncomprehensable for me. I had thrown the cards and receipt into the trash, because I didn't think I'd ever need the receipts or the used gift cards. I mean, the €700 were in my account, how on Earth would I ever think of a possibility of that money just vanishing without a trace?

Two positives: the guy at the store where I bought the cards is helpful, and he said he'd try and get copies of the receipts and/or card activations through his IT or financial department, I guess, and get back to me tomorrow. Also, I did mail Mr. Bezos at Amazon, and he DID escalate the matter, because I got an E-Mail from a senior support executive who is on the case now.

I'm really speechless, I'd never have thought something like this could ever happen, and at the very least, it'll be a lesson.

If you have confirmation of the cancel that should have the info on it. They should have record of it being paid for with you Amazon account balance.

 

[Bitmap Frogs]

I wish you good luck getting your money back

Consider in the future to arrange things so you can channel your money through a card, they leave a nice paper trail to back you up when things like this happen.

 

[Patrick S.]

So, I have some news.

On Friday, the senior customer relations exec called me (from London), and told me that they don't know what happened, and that digging into it was very hard, but they did manage to find my gift card activations, and they'd manually add the funds to my account again, but it would take a few days.

Today, he sent me another E-Mail, confirming that he had manually added the funds to my account again. I immediately checked, and there were indeed seven activations of €100 each in my account. Dated September 18th...

He wrote that they were also investigating what exactly happened to my funds, but they could not share their findings with me. I guess somebody is gonna get fired.

Now I'll just have to wait till Amazon.de has RTX 3080 cards again. I did get an availability alert for the Gigabyte Eagle today, but in the time it took me to open the Amazon app, the cards were already gone again. But hey, at least I have my money back. But I'm still pissed because of what happened, and I'm 100% sure that if I hadn't escalated to Jeff@amazon.com, and if my mail wouldn't have cought his eye, I'd have been screwed out of my €700. If I ever add a gift card to my Amazon accout, I'll be sure to put the cards and receipt in a safe place lol.

So, all in all, happy end for me