Amazon Facing Class Action Lawsuit Over Alleged ‘Return Fees’ Taken from Customer Refunds

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A proposed class action lawsuit alleges that Amazon has failed to live up to its promise of “free returns” on the vast majority of products by adding junk fees to return transactions and taking those fees out of a customer’s refund, even when a return is made within the applicable window.

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The 34-page lawsuit contends that although Amazon assures that customers can return virtually any product for free at thousands of locations within a certain time frame, the online retail giant has deceived consumers by tacking several “return fees”—including late fees, damage fees, and restocking fees—onto return transactions and then taking those fees out of the refund a customer is due.

According to the complaint, Amazon has been able to get away with this deception by issuing refunds only after it has processed and received returned items, regardless of when a consumer initiated the return. The case calls Amazon’s promise of free returns a “bait and switch.”

Throughout the entirety of the checkout process, Amazon promotes that consumers can return most items for free, within the applicable return window, which is typically 30 days, at thousands of convenient locations across the United States, the case says. Should a consumer initiate a return after this window has passed, the money they are refunded may be subject to certain fees that cover shipping, damage, and restocking costs, the suit states.

Per the class action lawsuit, these fees can range from 25 percent to 100 percent of an item’s original price, and Amazon tends to use the fee terms interchangeably under the umbrella term of “return fees,” the case claims.

Related Reading: Amazon to Pay $309.5M to End Class Action Lawsuit Over Return Policies

However, even when a customer returns a product within the applicable free-return window, they still may incur junk fees because of the way Amazon determines when a return actually occurs, the complaint says.

“Amazon cheats consumers by apparently using the date it clocks the item returned to its warehouse, and not the date a customer actually returned it to Amazon, to determine if the return was timely and, accordingly, whether a Restocking Fee/Return Fee/Late Fee should be charged,” the case states.

These fees, according to the complaint, are not properly disclosed to consumers prior to purchase as the retail giant only mentions them in a one-sentence clause that is “buried” underneath the entirety of its Conditions of Use.

Related Reading: Historic $2.5B Amazon Prime FTC Settlement Offers Major Refunds for Consumers Nationwide

“[T]hrough imposing undisclosed Restocking/Late Fees and other junk Return Fees in breach of its own public terms of service and contracts with its consumers, Amazon seeks to recoup the high costs associated with the return process onto consumers themselves, even after promising that the returns would be free,” the lawsuit contends.

The Amazon return fees class action lawsuit seeks to represent all consumers in the United States who returned a product and were charged a return fee when the returned merchandise did not qualify for one under Amazon’s terms and conditions, as well as all U.S. consumers who initiated a return and were charged a restocking/late fee when the merchandise was returned in original condition and within the applicable window. 

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