Amazon selling used/returned/opened merchandise as new? What has happened to their quality control?

In the past month, I have bought three items from Amazon that were previously out of stock but came back in stock. They were sold and fulfilled by amazon.

The items were Call of Duty 1TB PlayStation 4 Console, Star Wars Battlefront LE PlayStation 4 Console, Black Ops 3 DualShock 4 controller.

The Black Ops Console had a ing Best Buy in-store pick-up slip sticker still attached to it. Yes, BEST BUY! It even had the customer's name "Kevin Yang" and order number on the sticker. Their was a sticker covering the bottom of the packaging where the perforations are, so it's very possible that someone had removed the white box from the cardboard sleeve without having to remove the seal on the top of the box.

The Star Wars console had several barcodes/stickers all over the box, including over the serial number, as well as packing tape over a clearly cut seal.

The controllers had stickers on the bottom over the UPC as if they were being sold by 3rd party sellers.

Again, all of these were sold/fullfilled by Amazon. Is this normal? It almost makes me want to stop buying products from them that have come back in stock. I have to guess best case scenarios these were "refused" packages that Amazon though they could just resell as new, and at worse they were returns, for any one of many reasons, that Amazon still thought it was okay to sell as new.

I will post pictures soon (I'm guess we still have to upload and link from a third party hosting site?)

Pictures:

Black Ops 1TB Console:

Console:



Best Buy in-store pick up receipt sticker (on amazon.com shipment):



Seal on bottom Corner (BO3 1TB)



Other corner:



Star Wars LE Console:

Top Seal:



Sticker over S/N:



Random Stickers on Product Box:



Black Ops 3 DS4 Controller:

Sticker over UPC:

And what did Amazon CS say when you pointed out these obvious elements?

eulogywerd21 said:

And what did Amazon CS say when you pointed out these obvious elements?

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I haven't contacted them yet, this is something I want to do over the phone as I'd like to speak with someone who isn't a first line customer service rep.

I was also hoping we had people here with a better knowledge of how Amazon processes returns. Do they inspect them? Is their a SOP on what can be resold as new and what can't?

You'll have a better understanding once I upload my pictures

Pictures are up...

So what's going on? Is Amazon just haphazardly reselling returned merchandise as new without inspecting it? I just know how shitty some customers can be and I can see people opening boxes to take out LE controllers, or games, and then sending it back as "buyer's remorse" or more likely, an excuse where they don't have to pay return shipping, and then keeping the items they stole.

I always though returns were thrown up on Amazon Warehouse Deals (AWD) and not sold as new.

Keep in mind that these were all items that had been out of stock the past month when I ordered them and I was able to get them sold by Amazon.com after waiting for them to come back in stock.

I haven't contacted customer support yet, as want to settle down and know the approach I'm taking. I don't want any compensation, but I don't want to get secret strikes against my account for buying and then returning nearly a $1,000 worth of merchandise. The boxes have lots of wear and tear, and that doesn't even bother me, but the obvious signs that these have been returned does.

I don't have a direct answer but I can tell you some retailers actually take back returns and have them repackaged for the purpose of re-selling them as new again. I know that at least Target engages in this sort of practice. I had an online order that I wanted to return and rebuy due to my console's retail box incurring unusual transit damage and tearing a hole in the corner of the box. I explained the situation to the team member at CS and she understood that I was basically exchanging a sealed/damaged console for another new sealed console. When I had to select the return reason on the PDA, she insisted on me selecting a certain reason that I can't recall. I asked her why it mattered to her and she said that a Microsoft representative comes by periodically on-site to repackage items like my console so that they can put it back on the sales floor quickly. If I had selected "item damaged" they would have had to send it back to Microsoft for a different and longer repackaging process. So basically, certain returns are repackaged to be resold as new.

It's possible Amazon accidentally put those consoles in the wrong pile and mixed them up from the AWD pile. The Star Wars bundle was most likely meant to be AWD stock. I've bought PS4's from AWD before and it's not unusual for them to put three inventory stickers all over the box in addition to a tape reseal. They also could have just done it similar to Target and taken the COD bundle back and forgotten to put it through it's repackaging process assuming it was ready for shipment. Hard to say. I do find it interesting that a Best Buy order was somehow sent back to them and accepted. It was either a trade in or even a return. If it was a return, then apparently Amazon does not check serial numbers which I find hard to believe but still possible.

You need to make a distinction between amazon.com and fulfilled by amazon. The controller is definitely fba. Are you sure the consoles were amazon.com not fba?

killercane said:

You need to make a distinction between amazon.com and fulfilled by amazon. The controller is definitely fba. Are you sure the consoles were amazon.com not fba?

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I know the difference. I am telling you, these were all SOLD BY and FULFILLED by Amazon.com. I will post my order histories to confirm. They each say: Sold by: Amazon.com LLC

Star Wars LE Console (Sold by Amazon LLC):



Black Ops 1 TB LE Console (Sold by Amazon LLC)



Black Ops 3 Dual Shock 4 (Sold by Amazon LLC)



Edit: This isn't the first time I've bought something SOLD by Amazon that has a third party seller's barcode over the UPC either.

I think there are two ways it could have happened, both warehouse screwups: wrong item pick and pack out of an fba sellers stuff or amz lost an fba sellers stuff, paid them out for losing it, and then found the items after the fact and added them to amz inventory.

Their warehouses do mess a lot of stuff up, so theres really no telling. Amz will take care of you though.

killercane said:

I think there are two ways it could have happened, both warehouse screwups: wrong item pick and pack out of an fba sellers stuff or amz lost an fba sellers stuff, paid them out for losing it, and then found the items after the fact and added them to amz inventory.

Their warehouses do mess a lot of stuff up, so theres really no telling. Amz will take care of you though.

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I guess. I'm still more willing to believe that the Black Ops 3 console was a return from someone who bought it cheaper at Best Buy, since the date on the pick-up slip is from that week when they were $379.99 at Best Buy and subsequently sold out.

I suppose that person could have sent it in to be FBA for their store but sellers are typically more careful then that.

It's not common but every once in awhile I do get items with 3rd party inventory stickers on orders I place that are SOLD by Amazon. It makes me wonder if maybe Amazon will buy or take over a 3rd party's inventory if they don't pay invoices?

It really don't inspire confidence in me. Years ago, I used to always prefer to buy things online since 99% of the time they were coming from a ware house and I wouldn't have to worry about some of the shady stuff that was happening in retail stores (like swap-outs and such). Then stores started fulfilling online orders with local B&M inventory so it's just a game of roulette.

Yeah when I bought MGSV for the ps3 when it was on sale for $18 two weeks ago on Amazon I noticed it had a 3rd party inventory sticker over it. This is starting to pop up everywhere so Amazon must be acquiring stock from 3rd party places now instead of directly from the publisher. That's displeasing to know.

Donut2922 said:

Yeah when I bought MGSV for the ps3 when it was on sale for $18 two weeks ago on Amazon I noticed it had a 3rd party inventory sticker over it. This is starting to pop up everywhere so Amazon must be acquiring stock from 3rd party places now instead of directly from the publisher. That's displeasing to know.

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I don't know. I fired off an e-mail; I figured if I started a live chat I'd get an outsourced rep who wouldn't understand my issue and I don't feel like talking on the phone right now. I feel like if I just return these that it could negatively effect my account as a "non-profitable PITA customer" since we know Amazon tracks returns and concessions. Worse, the merchandise could just be sold to someone else.

Ironically, today I received a 20th anniversary DualShock 4 controller, again sold by Amazon.com LLC with another 3rd party barcode over the UPC on the packaging.

I asked amazon for clarification regarding this in my e-mail, stating it is making me think twice about purchasing from them and asking for details on if thy resell returned merchandise as new and if they fulfill their orders with third party merchandise.

For the controllers it doesn't bother me as much, but I always get worried with consoles since I know how shitty some people are. At least twice I've bought hardware from Kmart that was previously used, and once I bought a vita that had a broken PSP inside the packaging instead of the Vita.

When Wolfenstein the old blood came out with a physical release, I ordered it for ps4.  They sent me the xbox one edition, with a new amazon sticker on the back saying ps4 version.  I contacted them, sent back the old one, requested a new one through chat, and guess what?  Got another xbox one with ps4 sticker on the back.  Contacted them again, they did a refund and let me keep the xbox one one.  So they do have some warehouse issues for sure.

When selling FBA on amazon they give you 2 options for sending product in... Co-mingled and non co-mingled.. Co-mingled they basically take the item a seller sends in and adds it to their pallet of inventory and it gets pulled if that seller or Amazon sells it. Non co-mingled is when the seller has to sticker their own product and it doesn't get thrown in with amazon's stock because it has its own unique X00 number on it. You obviously got co-mingled merchandise which doesn't necessarily mean it isn't new or its returns or whatnot. The tape was probably ly put over the seal by seller so it doesn't accidentally open at warehouse causing it to be damaged out, also when sending in you have to cover all the extra Barcodes so that's why that one happened.. the yellow sticker is a transfer tag amazon uses for shipping product from one warehouse to another but that LPN label is a return to seller label so someone ordered it before and returned it and it got sent back to seller and the seller sent it right back in. The sticker on the BLOPS3 controller is a B00 which means amazon put that their, not 100% sure why unless the UPC was hard to scan or damaged in warehouse..
This is my knowledge from being a former employee and current seller and also my wife is management there. Hope I helped more than confused

gatordeve86 said:

When selling FBA on amazon they give you 2 options for sending product in... Co-mingled and non co-mingled.. Co-mingled they basically take the item a seller sends in and adds it to their pallet of inventory and it gets pulled if that seller or Amazon sells it. Non co-mingled is when the seller has to sticker their own product and it doesn't get thrown in with amazon's stock because it has its own unique X00 number on it. You obviously got co-mingled merchandise which doesn't necessarily mean it isn't new or its returns or whatnot. The tape was probably ly put over the seal by seller so it doesn't accidentally open at warehouse causing it to be damaged out, also when sending in you have to cover all the extra Barcodes so that's why that one happened.. the yellow sticker is a transfer tag amazon uses for shipping product from one warehouse to another but that LPN label is a return to seller label so someone ordered it before and returned it and it got sent back to seller and the seller sent it right back in. The sticker on the BLOPS3 controller is a B00 which means amazon put that their, not 100% sure why unless the UPC was hard to scan or damaged in warehouse..
This is my knowledge from being a former employee and current seller and also my wife is management there. Hope I helped more than confused

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Thanks for the response.

I just got around to following-up with Amazon and I'm waiting for a response.

I have a couple problems though.

First, with the black ops Controller, I just noticed those aren't even the U.S. Retail Versions. They are the Canadian retail version (i.e. it has English AND French on the packaging. This is not how the original controllers marketed in the U.S. came. Something similar happened when I noticed a copy of TLOZ: Ocarina of Time popped back up on Amazon (sold and fulfilled by Amazon.com) about a year ago (before the restocks that happened at Best Buy). I bought it and when it arrived it was the PAL version, with a 3rd party sticker, and promptly returned it.

Why is Amazon fulfilling their orders with third party inventory? I don't want inventory supplied to Amazon by a third party to be pulled to fulfill my order. I have a problem when Sears or Best Buy fulfills my .com orders with inventory pulled from a B&M store.

Second, the sticker over the seal on that SW BF LE PS4 Console was put there because the original seal was cut. And there is no excuse for putting a PS4 console with a Best Buy in-store pickup label on the floor to be picked to fill an order.

It makes me feel that Amazon is trying to push returned, opened/resealed merchandise to consumers as new. I should absolutely have the option of opting out of having amazon fulfill orders as their own and do so with inventory from other sellers.