I recently bought an Olympus digital voice recorder on Amazon. The model i wanted was only available through an independent Market seller, a company called Photo Kingdom which sells small electronic goods such as cameras, voice recorders and their accessories on Amazon. The recorder was advertised as brand new, and being sold at about 75% of the normal retail price- an excellent deal one would think.
When it arrived it was in a plain cardboard box (not a blister pack like the retail units in the shops), home-printed Olympus sticker on the box, no warranty card, and the voice recorder itself was covered in little scratches, paint chips here and there and looking very well used!
One negative feedback seller later, Photo Kingdom (specifically a person called Sherry) emailed me denying that they had sold me a used item. After sending them several photographs of the recorder, they sill denied they knowingly sold used goods but offered a 20% partial refund anyway if i could remove the bad feedback!
Seeing that the recorder seemed to be able to do it's job and that the store's returns policy was frought with conditions (items must be unopened or else there is a 50% charge, a 15% restocking fee, p&p not refundable, etc), i decided to keep it and take the partial refund. I admit I did remove the negative feedback.
It's not clear if Amazon has a centre that takes complaints /reports on dishonest or rogue sellers. I haven't found any useful links on the site. But I don't imagine that Amazon will do very much, so buyers just have to be wary of independent sellers.
When it arrived it was in a plain cardboard box (not a blister pack like the retail units in the shops), home-printed Olympus sticker on the box, no warranty card, and the voice recorder itself was covered in little scratches, paint chips here and there and looking very well used!
One negative feedback seller later, Photo Kingdom (specifically a person called Sherry) emailed me denying that they had sold me a used item. After sending them several photographs of the recorder, they sill denied they knowingly sold used goods but offered a 20% partial refund anyway if i could remove the bad feedback!
Seeing that the recorder seemed to be able to do it's job and that the store's returns policy was frought with conditions (items must be unopened or else there is a 50% charge, a 15% restocking fee, p&p not refundable, etc), i decided to keep it and take the partial refund. I admit I did remove the negative feedback.
It's not clear if Amazon has a centre that takes complaints /reports on dishonest or rogue sellers. I haven't found any useful links on the site. But I don't imagine that Amazon will do very much, so buyers just have to be wary of independent sellers.
