Serious Amazon problem!

[MW469]

Hello all,

First let me say, I'm new to the forum, and I'm not sure if this is in the correct section but if not, feel free to move it or redirect me towards where I should post.

So my issue is, I sold pretty successfully on Amazon for awhile, but I had an incident occur where I sold a 3000 dollar item, with tracking and all, but the customer claimed it never arrived and won a case against me.

This translated into Amazon putting a 3000 dollar balance on my seller account. I tried to appeal the decision, but my attempts were unsuccessful, and they were completely unwilling to help me.

So, without being able to even make money to pay this loss back, I'm now in a situation where I've owed Amazon this money for a number of months, but they've done nothing so far except send me email after email telling me to pay.

Today, I received a letter in the mail that only says "Invoice" and tells me to pay by the 24th.

I'm basically at my wit's end here, I'm just a decent merchant that got screwed over and now I'm afraid I'm going to have to deal with debt collectors or worse.

I suppose my main questions are:

- What is your best advice for this situation?

- Am I actually OBLIGATED to pay Amazon for a debt that only came from them allowing a refund? Wouldn't they have already reported me to a debt collector if I was?

- Is there anything I can do to possibly get myself out of this debt, or at worst, set up a realistic payment plan with them?

I really appreciate any help, thank you.

[ovidiu]

Was any attempt made to recover the item from the buyer? During or after the claim process?

[mad555]

Originally Posted by MW469

Hello all,

First let me say, I'm new to the forum, and I'm not sure if this is in the correct section but if not, feel free to move it or redirect me towards where I should post.

So my issue is, I sold pretty successfully on Amazon for awhile, but I had an incident occur where I sold a 3000 dollar item, with tracking and all, but the customer claimed it never arrived and won a case against me.

This translated into Amazon putting a 3000 dollar balance on my seller account. I tried to appeal the decision, but my attempts were unsuccessful, and they were completely unwilling to help me.

So, without being able to even make money to pay this loss back, I'm now in a situation where I've owed Amazon this money for a number of months, but they've done nothing so far except send me email after email telling me to pay.

Today, I received a letter in the mail that only says "Invoice" and tells me to pay by the 24th.

I'm basically at my wit's end here, I'm just a decent merchant that got screwed over and now I'm afraid I'm going to have to deal with debt collectors or worse.

I suppose my main questions are:

- What is your best advice for this situation?

- Am I actually OBLIGATED to pay Amazon for a debt that only came from them allowing a refund? Wouldn't they have already reported me to a debt collector if I was?

- Is there anything I can do to possibly get myself out of this debt, or at worst, set up a realistic payment plan with them?

I really appreciate any help, thank you.

$3000 item? You bought insurance on it right? I am assuming not since you are here asking for help. I would be calling the post office and police as soon as this happened. This could be considered felony theft by a post office worker or the customer. There is no answer here that will help your situation. I would consider getting a lawyer if I was you.

[ovidiu]

You did have signature required on that package right? I guess not.

[alim]

mad 555 is right

my accounts have gone in negative a few times and ive never seen them sending mails for it.its usually email correspondence with the email balance due on your amazon acc and apart from that nothing.this looks strange

[GreenBean]

You owed money for a number of months? Hmmm.

What contact did you make with any or ALL of the following:

The BUYER
Postal service
Law enforcement

TBF, we need much more info than you have supplied to ensure accurate assistance.

[jeffweico]

Per the agreement you signed with Amazon, you are responsible to them for the $3,000. Whether or not they send the account to collections is up to them. There is nothing that says they have to place an account in collections after xx days, so just because you are not in collections now, does not mean that you will not be put into collections.

Amazon could even decide to sue to recover their $3,000 if they wanted to, although I have not heard of this happening.

All you can do now is to file a police report and see if the carrier (USPS?) can tell you any more than you already know. You could retain an attorney to go after the buyer, but it would probably come down to a situation where you claim the package was delivered and the buyer claims it was not. Unless you have signature confirmation, I don't see a court case going very far. I would still file a police report, as if he has done this to others and a pattern emerges, they may take some action against him.

In the future, anything that is expensive should be shipped with signature confirmation. Delivery confirmation in and of itself does not prove very much, unfortunately.

DISCLAIMER: This is not legal advice, I am not an attorney.