<story><title>Apple asked Amazon to block rival ads</title><url>https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-gives-apple-special-treatment-while-others-suffer-junk-ads-2023-11</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>addicted</author><text>I returned my unopened Apple Watch to Amazon.&lt;p&gt;Getting my money back has been a massive pain. Usually Amazon literally returns the money when the delivery person picks up the item from my doorstep.&lt;p&gt;But with this Amazon required a scheduled pickup with UPS, did not acknowledge receiving the item even though UPS showed it as received and a few weeks later they are still asking me to wait for 1 month before contacting them for any information.&lt;p&gt;Well, I filed a chargeback with my credit card and automagically the errors in their system got resolved, and the item shows as received (on the correct date 2+ weeks ago), and they are promising a refund in a week (as opposed to 2.5 more weeks).&lt;p&gt;Looks like they’re not just giving Apple preferential treatment but going out of their way to protect Apple.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>stouset</author><text>No, they’re protecting themselves against a significant volume of fraudsters who order genuine high-value goods and return counterfeits. These people are more than capable of re-shrinkwrapping boxes after opening them.&lt;p&gt;It’s likely there’s a significant queue of potential counterfeits that Amazon needs to go through. If you bought&amp;#x2F;returned this during a period of otherwise-high volume (e.g., right after a release), there’s a particularly high chance that the volume of “real” returns temporarily swamped their normal capacity. Or maybe their capacity just lags behind what it ought to be.&lt;p&gt;Either way, they’re protecting themselves and this almost certainly has nothing to do with Apple specifically.</text></comment>
<story><title>Apple asked Amazon to block rival ads</title><url>https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-gives-apple-special-treatment-while-others-suffer-junk-ads-2023-11</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>addicted</author><text>I returned my unopened Apple Watch to Amazon.&lt;p&gt;Getting my money back has been a massive pain. Usually Amazon literally returns the money when the delivery person picks up the item from my doorstep.&lt;p&gt;But with this Amazon required a scheduled pickup with UPS, did not acknowledge receiving the item even though UPS showed it as received and a few weeks later they are still asking me to wait for 1 month before contacting them for any information.&lt;p&gt;Well, I filed a chargeback with my credit card and automagically the errors in their system got resolved, and the item shows as received (on the correct date 2+ weeks ago), and they are promising a refund in a week (as opposed to 2.5 more weeks).&lt;p&gt;Looks like they’re not just giving Apple preferential treatment but going out of their way to protect Apple.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>spott</author><text>I think it is likely that they are trying to see if the watch you returned was counterfeit before they refunded you.  This is probably a difficult process as the counterfeits of Apple products have gotten &lt;i&gt;really&lt;/i&gt; good.&lt;p&gt;When you pushed them, they bumped yours to the front of the line.</text></comment>