Have you ever tried to get a refund from Amazon.com?

I ordered a tread­mill from Amazon on 11.29.09. It was deliv­ered on 12.9.09, and a week after the deliv­ery I moved to a new place. That’s when I assem­bled the tread­mill and real­ized it was not work­ing. The dis­play was OK, the timer was count­ing down, but the belt was not mov­ing. So here’s what I’ve been doing the last cou­ple of months.

Dec 29, 09:
I call Amazon and talk to Devine C. but am told that I can­not have it replaced because I’ve changed my address since the deliv­ery. I should call the man­u­fac­turer and try to get it fixed. I call Merit Fitness about 3 times but due to the high num­ber of calls, I am asked to leave a mes­sage and am reas­sured that I will be con­tacted within 24hrs. I am not.

Late Dec – early Jan:
I keep calling.

Early Jan:
Someone finally answers. One hour on the phone explain­ing what is work­ing and what’s not. The rep­re­sen­ta­tive says that they will send me some parts and have a tech­ni­cian in my region con­tact me within a week.

A cou­ple of weeks later:
I get the parts.

Mid Jan:
I call again and get the num­ber of the tech­ni­cian. I call them and we sched­ule an appointment.

Late Jan:
I file for half a day off work and stay at home, wait­ing. Nothing. I call again and am told the tech­ni­cian should have already stopped by. I go to the door and see a note that they were there but the bell was not work­ing. The bell is work­ing but even if it wasn’t, why didn’t they knock? Or call? I call again and they tell me that the tech­ni­cian will be back later. File for another half day off work. The tech­ni­cian comes about an hour later and after look­ing at the tread­mill informs me that I don’t have the nec­es­sary parts. He will have Merit Fitness ship the parts and sched­ule a new appoint­ment within a week.

Two weeks later:
No parts, no call. I call Merit Fitness again. They apol­o­gize but the defect is so expen­sive to fix that I am bet­ter off replac­ing it. They tell me I can just keep or throw away the old unit, and I should call Amazon to get a new one. They don’t know why I wasn’t informed about that ear­lier and had to call myself.

Feb 10, 2010:
I call Amazon and talk to Amanda H. I tell her I want my money back and I don’t care for a replace­ment unit any­more. No prob­lem, we will pick the unit up, and you will get refunded as soon as we get it. What’s your new address? I give her my new address and she tells me some­body will call me back to sched­ule a pickup. No one ever calls me back.

Feb 15, 2010:
I call Amazon again and talk to Vanessa C. We sched­ule an appoint­ment for Sunday so I don’t miss any­more time from work, just ruin a weekend.

Sunday Feb 21, 2010:
I get a call from the ship­ping com­pany to come out because they are at the address. I get out, but nobody’s there. Call them back, turns out they went to the old address. They will give me a call back in 5 min­utes. One hour later, no call. I call them and they tell me that’s the address they got from Amazon. Nothing they can do about it, I should call Amazon. At this point I am pretty frus­trated. I call Amazon and talk to Cassandra S. She apol­o­gizes, it was their mis­take. But still, they can’t give me a refund with­out the item. And I can­not have the tread­mill picked up the same day, so we have to reschedule.

So what’s it gonna be – do I want to miss another day from work, or stay home one more week­end? I tell them it’s been two months and I want my money back, I don’t care how they will pick up the tread­mill. Not my prob­lem any­more. I get to talk to the man­ager. Then the manager’s man­ager. Then the manager’s manager’s man­ager whose name is Aaron D. I tell him what I told the rest – I will leave the tread­mill in front of the house. I live in the Seattle area so it rains pretty often, but it’s not like it can get any more bro­ken than it already is. So come pick it up when­ever you want, then send me my money back. Doesn’t sound like the man­ager cares too much about the item. He’s OK with me just leav­ing it out­side. I will be refunded as soon as they get it, in what­ever con­di­tion it might be. So there it is now, wait­ing to be picked up in front of my house. It’s been sunny the last cou­ple of days so they might get lucky. I don’t really care either way – just want it out of my sight at this point.

Tuesday Feb 23, 2010:
Three dif­fer­ent peo­ple from a local ship­ping called Ceva call me to con­firm the pickup date for Wednesday between 1 and 4 pm. I explain to each of them that I will leave the item at my front door. They tell me it is fine as long as I pro­vide a note with the item num­ber, order num­ber and my signature.

9 am Wednesday:
I leave the tread­mill with the note attached to it (see photo) in front of my house and leave for work.

1:19 pm:
I receive a call from Amazon and they tell me that the dri­ver couldn’t pick up the item because nobody was home to sign for it. I tell her what hap­pened. She coun­ters back say­ing that the dri­ver didn’t find a note (see photo). She sounds very upset like I am try­ing to blame her. She asks me if I want to sched­ule another appoint­ment since they can’t come and pick it up the same day. I say no and end the conversation.

1:45 pm:
I take another half day off work to go home and try to han­dle this. I call Amazon and talk to Sarah B. who is sup­posed to trans­fer me to Aaron D., but I get dis­con­nected. I call again and talk to Kaylene who basi­cally tells me that it is my prob­lem and I have to call the ship­ping com­pany myself. I ask her to trans­fer me to Aaron D. She snaps at me and tells me that we are not going any­where with this, but agrees to trans­fer my call.

2:00 pm:
I finally get to talk to Aaron D. who still remem­bers me from our con­ver­sa­tion last Sunday. He tells me that I was sup­posed to leave the item out­side, but in a dry area, where the dri­ver can pick it up. It sounds like he wants me to build a lit­tle house for the tread­mill or leave the key for my house. I tell him that we’ve never agreed on that. At that point he tells me to call Ceva again and sched­ule another pickup. I call and talk to Jamie who tells me that I can’t con­tact them directly. They will have to call me back after Amazon enters the order to sched­ule the pickup. So now I am wait­ing to see what hap­pens next. It’s so ridicu­lous that it’s almost entertaining.

Just to give you more back­ground infor­ma­tion: I have been shop­ping at Amazon for years and have never had any com­plaint before. In fact, I have never filed a com­plaint for any­thing in my life. But this is ridicu­lous. What do you sug­gest I should do?