I’ve recently gone through all my paper books and realized that, ever since I have my Kindle, I’ve no longer touched them. I even bought books on the Kindle (like the Jane Austen collection), which I already had in the paper format.
So instead of keeping books that take up so much space on the shelve and I no longer use, I decided to sell them. I didn’t want to use eBay, it’s just too much hassle and time. So I was happy when I’ve discovered the Amazon Trade-In system. It’s pretty easy to use: search online for the IBAN/title/author of the book in the system, click on Sell, select the state acceptable/good/as new, print the package slip and ship it to them for free. If everything goes well, you get the value on your Trade-In account within a couple of days.
So after my first successful trade-in, I started to look around in the house for other things we no longer need and use. It’s not really about the money but we started piling up things in one of our rooms to such extent that we can’t go into that room without tripping over them.
As I was searching for the next things to trade in, the Band Hero and Guitar Hero for Wii caught my eyes in the corner of that room. We sold our Wii console and all our Wii games a few months ago to Game Stop store. Unfortunately they don’t buy accessories so we were stuck with the Band Hero and Guitar Hero.
I checked both items for any scratches or problems and it looked good. Unfortunately I no longer have the boxes, we usually throw them away, which will turn out to be a big mistake, if you read further.
Anyhow, I contacted an employee on Amazon chat to make sure that it’s not a problem that we don’t have the boxes anymore. She re-assured me that it’s not and I can send it in and even tag it as new. So I did.
I happily opened the email 2 days after sending it, expecting a positive reply, and I was completely disappointed to read that they refused both the Band Hero and the Guitar Hero because the boxes were missing!
I contacted an employee on the chat and also called them several times afterwards to insist that one of their colleagues assured me that the missing box was not a problem. I fought with them over the phone for days and all for nothing. Even though their colleague said that I can send in the items without the boxes, the third-party company which actually buys these trade-in items refused them and Amazon can do nothing about it.
The Amazon people I’ve talked to over the phone were all very nice and friendly, they tried to help me, they contacted the warehouse where the evaluation of the items was done so I’m very grateful for everything but it’s safe to say that my trust in Amazon has diminished and I will no longer use their trade-in system (at least for anything other than books). Even though the process is quick and simple and the shipping is for free, the clarification takes too much time and it’s too stressful when something goes wrong. You can obviously never be sure if the trade-in will be successful, even if you clarify it upfront with one of the Amazon employees. So how can we rely on them?
FitGeekGirl 