Deadlock with Amazon, 3 complaints closed as claims- Now being Stonewalled

[Placidbob]

See Below for Details

 

Can anyone tell me who is the regulatory body for amazon? Or who to contact that can handle a complaint on my behalf?

 

Cheers!

[citizenB]

I guess it all depends what the complaint is about ?

 

Trading Standards, perhaps ?

[Placidbob]

Hi citizenB,

 

(sorry for the wall of text)

 

Essentially I was sold a graphics card advertised as a "BF4 Edition"* yet it did not include BF4 (well rather it came with an expired promotion) and I raised this up as an issue as the expiry was March 2014 when the card was ordered on June 2015, I initially had an "A-Z" claim requested by an agent spoken to via chat which was rejected due to it being outwith the 14 days (fair enough).

 

Now included in this claim was the fact that this was false advertisement and as it was automatically rejected no one had been made aware that this was being falsely advertised, so I raised a complaint to ask amazon to remove this from the title of the product.

 

This complaint was immediately closed due to Amazon stating "we thought it was an empty email" even though it included text and an attachment. Okay, mistakes are made and while this is unacceptable, I was happy to raise the complaint again after speaking to the chat team, it should be noted that they provided me with the name of the agent who closed the original complaint( I raised a complaint against the agent for closing the complaint). So today I open my email and what do i see?

 

Two "claims" have been rejected, so they have treated a complaint re false advertisement as a claim, and a complaint regarding agent behavior as a claim for a refund. So I go onto chat again, and effectively the first agent states that after reviewing my account she cannot help me further and cannot provide me with the agents name who had closed my two complaints as claims for refund because.... her "lead" says so, I told her I had this provided to me in the last chat, why can't they do it now, and surely they have some obligation to inform me of who has been dealing with my case, I also asked why she couldn't help me further and why my complaint has been closed as a claim. "Agent has ended the chat", Lovely!, straight back to the chat page then.

 

Next agent essentially re-iterates the same as the last agent, refuses to give me any ID for the Manager or complaints agents unless i pay £10 for a SARS, I went onto ask why they can't help me again, then decided against it. I asked the agent to confirm if we had reached a deadlock. The agent ignored this. So i asked again, is this Amazons final response to this, they are happy to reject a complaint as a claim regarding false advertising on their site and agent behavior? The agent told me with enthusiasm!! that this was the case and we are now deadlocked!

 

All I wanted was an apology, and for them to fix the issue, I actually stated on the complaint that this was not about re-reimbursement or anything, I just didn't want it to happen to someone else

 

Okay, so you understand the basis of my complaint and why this was false advertising:

 

"Dear Sir/Madam,

 

I am writing to inform you that as per my conversation on the 02/09/15 amazon has allowed a supplier and also been personally advertising the Sapphire Dual-X R9 280X card as a “BF4 Edition”, this is false advertising due to the reasons already stated, (copy and paste):

 

"The item is falsely advertised. The customer advised the Seller You are advertising the R9 280x as a battlefield4 edition yet the offer is only valid until march 2014, it was sold to me in 2015. An R9 280x card is built with a Tahiti graphics processor, the difference between the variants of R9 280x stem from differences in cooling systems and also in terms of clock speed etc.

 

There is no such thing as a card optimized for a game, the drivers that are supplied across all Radeon cards using the catalyst control center provide driver updates to optimize games but this is not exclusive or has ever been exclusive to the card you have sold. It is infact advertised as a BF4 edition because it includes BF4, if it does not include BF4 then it is a standard Sapphire R9 280x card” I would also highlight: http://www.sapphiretech.com/productdetial.asp?pid=169596D2-D495-4094-BD75-DEA745D05911&lang=eng

This is the manufacturer’s website, as you can see there is no mention of it being a BF4 edition by default, and it makes no mention of enhancing BF4. It is the exact same packaging and product and is a standard Dual-X R9 280X 3GB.

 

As above, the reason it was advertised as the BF4 edition was because it included a free copy of BF4, this was a promotional offer and this expired on March 2014. Now I appreciate this may have been an oversight and I understand this is the info provided by the manufacturer (at the time) but it has been falsely advertised for over a year now, and as a result of that I have ordered an item(s) yet not received the full advertised Item(s).

 

I appreciate that I should have checked this within the 14 days, but to be honest, I bought the Card for the Card, not the game, I have been enjoying the card playing other games and for AutoCAD work, I assumed the offer for BF4 would be valid for a few months at least, if it had expired since I bought it, then it would not be an issue, but this was not valid at point of sale.

 

I look forward to hearing your response in this matter.

 

Regards"

Edited September 16, 2015 by citizenB

[citizenB]

Where have you sent your complaint ? I think you need to send it to their UK Head/Registered office.

 

I would say that Trading Standards would be the people to deal with the complaint as it stands, if you get no further with Amazon.

 

How did you pay for the item?

[Placidbob]

Where have you sent your complaint ? I think you need to send it to their UK Head/Registered office.

 

I would say that Trading Standards would be the people to deal with the complaint as it stands, if you get no further with Amazon.

 

How did you pay for the item?

 

 

complaints@amazon.co.uk was the email address used for the complaints and I chased it up through chat when it was closed down as a claim, so basically when i send a complaint they just close it down, and when I go on chat they stonewall me.

 

Do you think sending a letter to HQ will get a better response?

[BazzaS]

I appreciate that I should have checked this within the 14 days, but to be honest, I bought the Card for the Card, not the game, I have been enjoying the card playing other games and for AutoCAD work,

 

Having stated this, you can't claim the offer of BF4 materially influenced your decision to purchase the card, nor that it was an intrinsic term for your purchase.

 

You can't then reject the card as not fit for purpose, and you should expect (at best) a small refund.

 

http://www.cdkeys.com/pc/games/battlefield-4-pc-cd-key-origin

 

Perhaps £7.99 ....... (Damages payable under contract law to put you back in the position you should have been had the contract for the video card & BF4 had been fully completed)

[Placidbob]

So got this email from the relations team:

 

"I am sorry to hear about the issues you have had with this Graphics card.

 

Although the product title states it is the BF4 edition, there is nowhere on the product page that indicates this item will come with a product key for Battlefield 4. I'd imagine the references to such were removed after the promotion expired, but the product title was left as is as it is still the same card.

 

I am afraid that, as such, we are unable to offer any further insight into this matter."

 

Is this classed as Amazon admitting liability for false advertising? Surely it does not have to be included in the product page if it's already in the title?

 

Interesting to note that all cards that had the "BF4 Edition" in the title have since been rectified although they have not offered me any insight into this.

[Placidbob]

Like I said Barry, not looking for a refund or credit at this point, it's now a matter of principle due to the fact they have refused to acknowledge my complaint, It's just a case of "oops we were wrong, nothing we will do about it, unlucky for you" or at least that's the impression I'm getting. Initially I wanted the issue to be fixed on the site, and an apology at the least. It's now a complaint regarding them mishandling my complaint on 2 counts by closing them as a claim for refund then refusing to provide any information on why they have closed the complaints as such.

 

i'd also like to note that the link you provided for the BF4 game is considered "dodgy" as its concerning how sites like that can offer prices for as low as they do, I know steam doesn't allow you to add games from that site, and Origin has in the past blocked keys from a similar site.

Edited September 17, 2015 by Placidbob
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