A business owner who sells on Amazon has posted a trending TikTok showing off one of the ways customers try to finesse her when it comes to returns.
The owner of Tabor Place (@taborplace), a business that creates products “for families trying to use less plastic,” posted the clip on Sunday. In it, she explains that she’s been selling her products on Amazon for five years and sometimes has “egregious” issues with customer returns.
@taborplace A common return scam that I get sometimes, as a small business owner. #smallbusinessowner #smallbusinesstiktok #returnscam #scammeralert #amazonscam #amazonseller ♬ original sound – Tabor Place
“So, basically, when someone purchases something on Amazon and then returns it, I say that I wanna actually have it shipped back to my house,” she says. “And I do this as a way to, like, look up damages, or defects, and things like that so I can see what’s getting returned. However, I got one that was really bad today, and it’s just ridiculous.”
The TikToker then shows a VTech product box with a shipping label attached to it. “This says that it’s … the mini set of two glass sippy cup for toddlers,” she says, reading the shipping label. “Here’s a picture of what that cup actually looks like.”
The creator uses TikTok’s green screen feature to display an image of the cups she sells.
“And then this is what was sent back to me,” she says, showing off the VTech box, indicating that the customer attempted to return an entirely different product.
“Now, Amazon charges me for these returns. They refund the customer, and they charge me for the shipping back,” she adds.
She continues to say that this isn’t the first time this has happened: “I got a tape measure one time. I will regularly get plastic sippy cups.”
Though she has been tricked before, the business owner decided to give the customer the “benefit of the doubt.”
“What if this was the only box that they had to send back these sippy cups, right?” she asks. “So let’s open it up, see what’s inside.”
She then opens the package and pulls out a toy toolbox wrapped in plastic. Based on the packaging, the toy appears to be the Drill & Learn Toolbox™ by VTech. “Doesn’t look like sippy cups to me,” she says.
Fortunately, the TikToker says she can dispute the return. She also seems to have found a use for the toy, as her video ends with footage of two children playing with it outside.
In the comments section, viewers continued to give the customer the benefit of the doubt.
“Maybe the return was mislabeled by the person processing the return – like rhey scanned the wrong return at Whole Foods etc.” one viewer suggested
Another shared that Amazon may be to blame.
“For me, it’s Amazon that’s the problem. for example, I ordered a deodorant. I received an empty but sealed poly mailer,” they wrote.
However, someone who seems to have some insider knowledge of Amazon’s operations said: “This happens regularly. The warehouse used to make mistakes a lot but now it tends to be customer swaps once the warehouse errors were fixed.”
Still, others didn’t think that someone would send an unopened toy in exchange for glass sippy cups.
“But that seems odd that if someone was trying to scam you they would send you a brand new toy unopened that works. sounds like Amazon doesn’t know,” one person wrote.
The Daily Dot contacted Amazon and Tabor Place via email for further comment.
