Amazon issuing automatic refunds for TouchPads purchased two months ago 35
It there’s a statute of limitations on refund windows, we’re pretty sure Amazon’s pushing the envelope way out on this one. The ecommerce giant (which today unveiled their own Android-derived Kindle Fire tablet) today started sending out email to TouchPad buyers notifying them of a rebate they’re about to receive. This blogger personally (along at least a few on Twitter) received the email below not even an hour ago, with a fire sale-matching refund of $405.52 coming is his way. That's for a 32GB TouchPad purchased on July 21 – more than two months ago. We’re surprised to see this rebate happening, both for the time elapsed and the fact that Amazon simply doesn’t have a price match policy and was under no obligation to issue the refund. Now we can go buy two Kindle Fires!
Hello,
We're writing to let you know that the manufacturer has lowered their price on the HP TouchPad Wi-Fi 32 GB 9.7-Inch Tablet Computer. As a result, we've issued a refund of $405.52 for the difference in price on your Order #XXX-XXXXXXX-XXXXXXX
Refunds are applied to the payment method used for the original purchase and typically complete within 2 to 3 business days. Thanks for buying this from Amazon.com. We're happy we could offer you the additional discount.
Sincerely,
Customer Service Department
Amazon.com
35 Comments
Yet another reason to go out of my way to shop at Amazon. They know how to treat their customers.
Yep, 2 months later..
My amazon refund was posted on 8/23/2011.
Edit: I know not everyone may have been as lucky as I was with how quickly they addressed my refund, but I called in the Monday after the firesale started, and the money was back in my account in about a week.
my question is, if you order an touchpad from amazon now, will they give you a refund down the line?
I think that the "seller" has to be amazon and not one of the various other vendors for amazon to offer any kind of refund.
BASS-TERDS! !!! lol... smart move... lol
Go AMAZON!
Obviously they want you to pre-order the Kindle Fire. I mean, if I got a refund for $400, I would go ahead & order one just for the heck of it.
could you imagine if they made it an amazon credit instead?!
That's pretty cool.
Not cool: I got the wireless keyboard last week when it jumped to $39 (from being $35 the day before) and today it went back to $34. What's up with the $5 for a few days?
I read somewhere that they use an algorithm to determine the prices of some items buy automatically using a price that is lower than the price at certain other competing sites. So, if electronics store 1 raises their prices by 5 bucks, Amazon raises it by 4.
Amazon previously extended complete refund for Touchpad to 2 months to accomodate the firesale. But this is a nice way to avoid the entire return process and ensures you don't have to buy another touchpad on ebay (which I did. no regrets though.) Probably the more tech aware customers already sold or returned the amazon-purchased touchpads before this.
True, but they never did a price match until now for all Touchpad owners who bought before 8/12 (they only offered full returns/refunds for Touchpads purchased before that date). The reason for that policy (which frustrated a good number of Amazon customers) is now clear.
Ah, so now it is clear why they had a cutoff for the price match policy (where they had a cutoff of Touchpads bought on or after 8/12 for price matches). They wanted to hold off on the credit until they announced the Kindle Fire in order to juice their Kindle Fire sales.
Well, thanks, Amazon but you annoyed a lot of early TouchPad buyers with this maneuver. A fair amount of folks bought new firesale price Touchpads for the sole purpose of returning them to Amazon in order to keep a Touchpad and still get a full refund on pre-8/12 ordered Touchpads since Amazon was not honoring the HP recommended price match policy.
http://forums.precentral.net/hp-touchpad/293059-amazon-hp-touchpad-retur...
Me likely. Just received my e-mail from Amazon about my $422.66 refund on my Touchpad 32GB. Love you,too, Amazon. Thank you.
PS: now I really like my Touchpad.
This is bullshit, I hung onto my touchpad for 2 months til I returned it so I didn't get fucked by them. Now I am out my touchpad and for what!
As someone who spent hours on the phone with them trying to get a price match, I am livid that they decided to issue the reimbursements now, a DAY after I sent my TP back.
I preordered my TP & received it July 1st and just got my email--getting $450 refund! FINALLY! With the $50 rebate (yet to come from HP) and $50 software from HP that brings my cost to $50 for a 32 gb! SO glad I waited. Restores my faith in Amazon.
I waited one day too few and returned it yesterday, maybe I can beg amazon to send it back.
I never had any problems with Amazon as they refunded the difference the day my order shipped.
Life gets better and better! First the original Amazon $50 price drop, then the HP $50 refund, then the HP $50 app credit, and now a $400+ credit from Amazon. Did I pay ANYthing for my TouchPad? And an OTA update for my Pre3 to boot!
You got to be freaking kidding me!
I pre-ordered mine from Amazon. Then HP pulls their dumbest decision ever 4 weeks later. After weeks of emails, phone calls, and a written letter, I got no response from Amazon. They kept sticking to the return for full refund, but no fire sale refund policy. They gave me until the 27 of September to return it if I wanted the full refund. I stressed myself out trying to get a fire sale touchpad and then waded through the ebay and craigslist posts until I finally could score a $250 32gig model. Then I waited until this past Friday to finally ship my Amazon TouchPad back. I followed the tracking and see they received it today. TODAY! It's as if they want to rub it in they pick today to issue the fire sale refunds. I mean the stress from finding a replacement model to the hassle of backing up everything and transferring everything from one touchpad to the other was just too much, but I did it and now I find out all of that was for not...
I am so disappointed in how amazon handled this, that I will not shop with them anymore. I've even removed the Kindle App from my Touchpad and my new (sigh) Android phone.
Dude, you know you're going to go back.
No, I won't. There are plenty of other places that sell things. I didn't start shoppnig with Amazon until 2009. I survived without them before, I can survive without them now.
I was just getting ready to return mine to Amazon today. 11 minutes after I got my packing slip email I got the one from Amazon about the refund. At first I thought it was just to make me happy and avoid the return process, but it's good to see it wasn't just me.
Amazing. I places so many calls asking for this, only to be told that I could ONLY get a full refund. So I did get a second unit, and sent my original one back - Monday. So it's now on it's way back to Amazon, and I just got the confirmation of my $450 credit. Great, except I don't have the Touchpad any more...
As much as I like Amazon, this has been sort of a nightmare, and I see I have not yet awakened.
**** Amazon! I purchased mine on July 30th through Amazon. I tried and tried for hours to get this refund, and got denied every time. They had a deadline for me to return it by September 2nd and so I got a firesale TP from HP and returned 1 to Amazon on September 2nd. I hated sending it back, but I thought it would be stupid not to. Now I go to Amazon.com and this is what they have on the home page.
"There are two types of companies: those that work hard to charge customers more, and those that work hard to charge customers less. Both approaches can work. We are firmly in the second camp."
Yeah right! **** THEM!
What I can't say s-crew on here? Anyway, I am glad for those who got the refund. Just p-issed of at Amazon
To the Android phone user calling the Android **** Sorry, but that isn't the case. As a long time Palm/WebOS fan & user.owner I was waiting for the Verizon Pre 3 but that isn't officially going to be it appears. I tried a Pre2 but it was too much the same as my Pre+ to make it worth a 2 year additional use time.
So I broke down & very reluctantly got a Droid Bionic. What can I say - it's great! Not quite as integrated & smooth with it's interface as the WebOS but the speed & features more than compensate for any shortcomings there. And it's supported big time! You don't need apps (much like the Pre/TouchPad if the browser does it why do you need an app?) but those that are out there can be nice & useful.
I never wanted to leave the Palm/WebOS community on my phone (or now, on my tablet) but this first move to the non-WebOS world has , so far, been great.No regrets. Don't be afraid to move IF the WebOS doesn't make it any more for your needs. Real 4G is amazing. Battery life as good as my Pre+. Screen good but overall I'd like a rel keyboard & smaller form factor like the Pre but again the features & speed make it all worth it.
This also applys to Amazon(uk)?
Way to go Amazon! My condolences to the losers who sent theirs back in for refund. What are you mad about - you whiners are not out any money at all.
The Touchpad is worth the original cost and then some. The refund is like found money.
BTW - works great with my AT&T 4G Pre 3!
We are whinning because we are out the money and because we were given very poor service. We spent money to buy another one from somewhere else and were ignored and/or lied to by Amazon's customer support. Yes, Amazon is suppose to give me a full refund (they haven't yet) now that I returned it, but I had to spend $250 to get another one from somewhere else (after being told by the Amazon CSR that it would be my best option). Not to mention the time and hassle of transferring all the data off the original one I purchased to the replacement one. We are upset because Amazon could have issued this refund when we called originally instead of putting us through this hassle.
I agree that it is not whinning. I went through the same ordeal with Amazon with their ridiculous suggesstion that in order to take advantage of the firesale, I would have had to return my existing Touchpad with ZERO guarantee that you could get a replacement at the lower price. I was actually waiting to see if I could get a new one during round two of the firesale and then return it. There was no way in **** that I was going to lose my Touchpad on a whim.
Having said all of that, I was PLEASANTLY surprised yesterday that I had received a refund of $450. I decided to keep my Touchpad (luckily) and went on to purchase another for $267 from Amazaon so I can have a spare. I guess I really like it that much.
I am lookinng forward and praying that much greater investment (by HP, new buyer or licensing) in placed in developing Webos further and refining the hardware. That would be a one-two punch. Regarding the apps, I am VERY happy with the volume. In fact, I have too (free and paid) much but I wanted to support the developers.
I am sooo Disappointed with the amazon!!! I will never buy from them and will tell all the people I know not to buy coz of the hp touchpad refund/pricematch!!! They don't value their customers and have to wait for this time....too bad amazon!!!
I was surprised to receive the email from Amazon about the refund for my 32G TouchPad. I ordered my TP from Amazon because I could be guaranteed delivery for July 1 (and it did arrive bang on time). I did NOT ask about a refund because I had purchased so early, but I will take that $450 and spend some of it in the App catalog to help support some of our valiant developers. I will also buy more books for my Nook (I still don't like Amazon's approach to ebooks; the new hardware still does not seem to be able to use epub files).
How do we get Costco to do the same? Any hope of shaming them into matching Amazon's policy?
Wal-Mart.....anyone from Wal-Mart reading this....it's your turn guys... I've been bugging my local Wal-Mart non stop, sorry sir nothing has come from corp. I call corp. lady on phone says that's all the calls she's received as of late