A word of warning about Amazon Trade-ins

ssjmichael

ssjmichael

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I've traded in quite a few games and movies to Amazon snce they started doing trade-ins, but lately I haven't been so pleased with their service, at least when it comes to movies. They recently changed their trading tiers for movies (not sure about other categories), adding a "New" level and it seems like they've become stricter about what they consider like new.

I sent in 4 sets (mostly tv shows). Two sealed, so they accepted those. The other two were in perfect like new condition. I take great care of my DVD's and I watched these once and put everything back in the case. The two were rejected because of "small marks on the case".

I opted from the start to have them sent back to me if they were graded lower because I didn't want to be sent the significantly lower trade in value for the lowest tier (and I mean much lower). So I just got my sets back to me, and they appear to not only be in worse condition than I sent them, but each of them came with stickers on them. A sticker on the front that said "Previously used" and a huge sticker on the back covering the original UPC. The stickers on the back were a pain to remove and left sticky residue and some remnants of the paper, thus making it more difficult to resell on ebay or wherever else I choose. I don't see why they have to put stickers on them before doing their inspection considering they could be rejected and sent back to the user. If they did so after an inspection then that's even more inexcusable.

I'm certainly not the only one finding faults with whoever Amazon is using for these trades. If you go to the discussion section on Amazon you'll find plenty of people saying they were offered lower values, even when they sent items that they literally removed the shrinkwrap and sent it in (this was before they accepted new as a higher value).

So I'm merely trying to give a heads-up to always trade in items with the following in mind:

-Expect the chance of getting a lower value. If that value is too low for you then make sure to select the option of having the items returned back to you.

I'll be sending a complaint to Amazon of course; hopefully they take note. If this is better suited for another section then by all means please move it. Also note, that I'm not trying to stop anyone from trading in to Amazon, I just want people to know what you think might be like new, may not be considered so by the merchant, and to watch out for getting a lower than expected value.
 
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Got my credit:

I sent in a blu-ray tv box set and chose to have my items returned to me because 1) I refuse to have them think they can automatically drop my price down for any reason, and 2) there might be a little incentive to just keep it when they think they might actually have to pay to send the item back.

My box set had only a dollar difference from "Like New" to "Good". I have to admit that even though my all the discs were perfect the case itself was slightly scuffed and showed the slightest bit of age. But being a deal hunter, I nearly always roll the dice when there is nothing to lose.

Amazon received the box set on Friday and was verifying it until about 2 hours ago when I got my credit for "Like New" box set.



M
 
I had several items upgraded to like new and got more $ than I expected.

I have a bunch of stuff to send in and noticed they changed shipping locations. Now I'm worried that I might not get the $ I'm expecting.
 
I hate their trade in system. I mailed books still in the plastic wrapping, ie entirely new, and they denied them. When I received them back, they were opened and had stamps and sticks all over, as well appearing to have been bent in half to be stored. Everything had ridiculous creases. I sent them the before and after pictures and they gave me the $60 in credit.

I'll never mail books to them again.

Edit: I didn't, however, have any problems trading in DVDs or games. I sent in MW2 a little while ago and got like $30 and I sent Curb Your Enthusiasm season 4 and got like $9. No problems with those.
 
I've had several pristine condition (used once or never) dvd sets sent back for "missing materials"
They were nice enough to put those extra hard to remove stickers on them though.

In the same order they took a game where the case was heavily broken and the booklet had water damage (it was actually the second time they had accepted it like that, because they sold it to me as "like new" through warehouse deals a week earlier)
 
Due to all of these issues I haven't dealt with the Amazon trade-in devilry... I just sent my DVDs to DVDPawn. I got exactly the amount they quoted on the website.
 
Had two packages received by NorAm on Monday. Package A (3 games) was "Pending verification" that same morning while Package B (2 games and 4 dvds) didn't get to "Pending verification" till Tuesday morning. I expected to get Package A credited first but for some reason Package B got verified/credited Wed. afternoon and Package A got credited Thurs. morning. Maybe it's easier to verify dvds first for them?

I also tried a little experiment on Package B. I usually choose the option to return downgraded items but this time I changed it to not return them. There were two brand new unsealed dvds in it. One was submitted as "Like new" and got upgraded up to "New" while the other one was downgraded to "Like new." The fact that the other new dvd was upgraded whlie another one was downgraded leads me to believe that the packaging used was sufficient to survive the trip to NorAm. So unless the person opening the packages was a bit rough, I really can't explain the discrepancy.

It seems like these "problems" don't occur enough in the long run for Amazon to care enough to attempt to fix. Crediting people who have issues is just putting a band aid on a small cut. I feel a bit put off but as long as the TIVs and process are the best for me, I'll use the service.
 
Here's some definitive proof of Amazon Trade-in Service's incompetence

So for those that read my initial post. I sent some DVD's in to Amazon's trade-in which I perceived to be Like New. Two were rejected for being in worse condition and sent back. One of these was Tales from the Crypt Season 5. It was sent back in worse condition, had a sticker on the back, the discs reversed and some scratches that weren't there before. I contacted Amazon about this damage and they were gracious enough to give me credit for the set.

So I still have no use for the set as I watched it and decided okay I'll just trade it back to them as "Good" condition, which is the lowest possible trade-in tier for movies.

I just got my confirmation of the processing and guess what? They upgraded me from Good to Like New LOL. That's some serious incompetence there. As you'll see below the trade-in value fr Like New has dropped considerably in the last 2 months.

So they had to pay:

-Return Postage for sending me back my downgraded set
-Full value credit from the initial poor return packaging (which I never asked for)
-Postage for me to send it back a second time

Just to approve of the condition I sent it in to them to begin with :rofl:

January 10th Trade-in:

crypt1.jpg


March 2nd Trade-in

crypt2.jpg


tl;dr: Initial trade-in got rejected as Like New. Re-sent it as good, gets upgraded to Like-New.
 
I must have insanely good luck, because I've traded in over 50 games, and about 10 movies to them without issue. When you're getting these rejections, are they coming from a specific location?
 
I've also noticed that more and more titles are not giving anything usable for TIVs unless you have it new and sealed.

An example is S1 of Reaper that I accidentally ordered a duplicate copy of and traded it in for $3.50, which is about what I paid for it from BB. I checked on it a few days after I traded it in and any TIV that wasn't for new and sealed was $0.25.
 
I imagine it depends entirely on who processes the trade in, just like it works at any trade in store ever. Different people are going to grade things differently. Some are picky, some aren't.

Amazon managed to destroy a couple books I sent to them, as well as a TV season. The DVD was sent back as an incorrect item despite the fact it wasn't and the two books were denied due to condition, despite one being sealed and the other purchased new without being used. I got fully funded for all of them and then ended up giving the books away to someone taking the class. The DVD is still cracked and sitting on my shelf. I just avoid their trade in.
 
Similar thing happened to me. I sent in the Citizen Kane (Amazon Exclusive 70th Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Edition + The Magnificent Ambersons on DVD) [Blu-ray] because I already had the digibook edition. I opened and inspected the set and each disc as I usually do with every piece of media that I buy. Everything was brand new, no damage whatsoever.

After being in "pending verification" for two weeks, I decided to chat with CS and they told me that they would look into why it was taking so long. The next day I get an email saying that my set was being retuned. Reason? "Unacceptable". I was like WTF? So I went online and looked and it said that one of the discs had major damage. I was furious because I made sure that it was properly packaged with a lot of bubble wrap so I knew that it wasn't my fault. Not to mention the fact that the discs were brand new. After chatting with CS, they gave me the amount I was supposed to get and shipped my set back to me as well.

When I finally got the set back, I inspected the discs and the special features discs had a sticker that indicated a small crack towards the outer portion of the disc. Everything else was just as I had sent it in. It leads me to think that somebody damaged it on accident or on purpose, who knows. But after this, I rather just go to my local trade/exchange store and do trades there instead.
 
[quote name='Grammar Police']I hate their trade in system. I mailed books still in the plastic wrapping, ie entirely new, and they denied them. When I received them back, they were opened and had stamps and sticks all over, as well appearing to have been bent in half to be stored. Everything had ridiculous creases. I sent them the before and after pictures and they gave me the $60 in credit.

I'll never mail books to them again.

Edit: I didn't, however, have any problems trading in DVDs or games. I sent in MW2 a little while ago and got like $30 and I sent Curb Your Enthusiasm season 4 and got like $9. No problems with those.[/QUOTE]

This is actually a good idea to take pictures of your items before you send them in.

I have only traded in about 20 total items including games, books, and PS3.
I guess so far I have gotten lucky with never being rejected or returned.
 
Wish I'd seen this thread sooner -- I just sent in my entire collection of Married With Children DVDs. My plan is to use the credit to buy the box set and save myself some shelf space (and have a little left over), but now I'm a bit worried. 9 out of the 11 I sent in were still sealed, so if they're not accepted for some reason, they'd damn well better come back in the same condition.

Update: not a problem with any of the stuff I traded in. Great first impression with the trade in program.
 
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Never traded a thing so cant speak for that but I actually met the couple that own NorAm 4 years ago. Nice couple, but I think their company is growing too fast for them. They made over $50 million a year ago with around 200 employees. Their big focus is business asset recovery, ie they'll buy unsold games, movies, books in bulk from other stores then mark them back up and sell them.
 
I sent in a few Textbooks after I used them, they all were accepted and I got a good amount back for them ($70-90ea). It's all the luck of the draw.
 
[quote name='meatball2112']They just downgraded a brand new sealed item of mine to "like new". Contacted amazon..still waiting for reply. This is bs.[/QUOTE]

ugh that's terrible. never had a sealed item downgraded yet, I'd be livid if it was. Amazon's CS will likely credit you the difference
 
[quote name='Mikerocosms']I guess the lesson here is:

"Take pictures prior to sending."


M[/QUOTE]

This is what I'll be doing from now on, including taking a picture of the shipping paperwork, just in case.
 
I don't know if taking pictures really matters. We can't exactly argue directly with the company doing the trading, and if we complain to Amazon about any unfair treatment or damage they'll more than likely credit us the difference regardless of photographic evidence. I don't think there's even a real avenue for sending pictures to Amazon's CS if they happened to not take your side.

The only thing photos will do will prove to people on forums like this that we're being honest. A lot of people don't like to hear negatives about Amazon however, which is probably why this thread has a 2-star rating currently.
 
[quote name='Stele']I think you people brought that on yourselves. People are probably getting paid minimum wage at Noram and if it looks like at first glance a disc was missing, seriously, what did you think was going to happen? Oh, you could say they should just check how many discs the titles should be, but honestly, the main difference between min. wage jobs like those provided at Noram and say, Goldman Sachs investment banking department, is a requirement for attention to detail.[/QUOTE]

That's what their job is. You need more to be an investment banker than the ability to recognize numbers.
 
[quote name='ssjmichael']I don't think there's even a real avenue for sending pictures to Amazon's CS if they happened to not take your side.[/QUOTE]

You can always tinypic the images and have the CS check on their browser.



M
 
Bumped into a problem. I sent an unopened sealed copy of Joan Crawford collection but they deposited and gave me "like new" payment instead of "brand new". Since it was unopened, I don't know how it looked inside but I think I remember noticing noises like the dvd was loose in the case or what not when I shook it around, but I don't know.
 
[quote name='D0RC']Bumped into a problem. I sent an unopened sealed copy of Joan Crawford collection but they deposited and gave me "like new" payment instead of "brand new". Since it was unopened, I don't know how it looked inside but I think I remember noticing noises like the dvd was loose in the case or what not when I shook it around, but I don't know.[/QUOTE]
That sucks
 
[quote name='Survivalism']That's what their job is. You need more to be an investment banker than the ability to recognize numbers.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, you also need to have salesmanship, but that's about it in terms of general skillsets. The rest is pedigree. But back to the original point, if you're switching out cases when trading in stuff, you're setting up yourself for an unfavorable outcome, since Noram isn't exactly just reselling the discs by themselves.
 
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