Amazon digital pre-order sales are final

[subcon959]

I'm just wondering if this is well-known already and I'm just late to the party.

According to customer services, if you make a digital pre-order on Amazon you cannot cancel that pre-order even if it's months before release date.

Anyone experienced this? Is it even legal for them to do this?

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Err...yes you can?

 

[subcon959]

Err...yes you can?

That button is useless and doesn't do anything after the day you ordered. It happened to me and after escalating to a supervisor I was told in no uncertain terms that it is the case. I have the chat log somewhere, I even made him clarify that it is actual Amazon policy.

Jason | Customer Service
I understand, but when you placed the order and let it process since the 8th, we could not cancel it
You could only cancel it on the 8th
J3:00 PM
Are you saying once a pre-order is made it cannot be cancelled even if it is weeks to release date?
3:01 PM
Jason | Customer Service
No, unfortunately now
not*
J3:02 PM
That really isn't made clear anywhere at the time of ordering, not to mention I'm not sure it's even legal
Consumers have a right to cancel any order before delivery
3:03 PM
Jason | Customer Service
We are unable to refund you now
J3:03 PM
Please make absolutely sure Amazon is standing behind this statement that pre-orders cannot be cancelled once made even if weeks/months in advance
3:05 PM
Jason | Customer Service
We stand behind the policy that game and software purchases, including pre-orders are non refundable after purchase

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

That button is useless and doesn't do anything after the day you ordered. It happened to me and after escalating to a supervisor I was told in no uncertain terms that it is the case. I have the chat log somewhere, I even made him clarify that it is actual Amazon policy.

Well I can tell you there's nothing in any of their public policies about this, so I assume that's BS and if I were you I'd contact them again and ask them to provide the specific passage for that policy. It will say if a product is non-refundable on the product page, however that doesn't apply to pre-orders until you receive them.

I can also tell you that Nintendo does the exact same thing, you can't refund any digital purchase made for any of Nintendo's digital products, pre-orders included, and were even taken to court over it in the EU, and wound up winning the right to refuse any refunds for their digital products.

 

[BORTZ]

I canceled a few. Twice in 2017 in fact. Persona 5 and FFXII were scheduled to get to my place a week+ after the release date, despite preordering. I called BS and canceled.

 

[tech3475]

Here’s the terms from the UK site:

2.6 Cancellation; Returns; Accessing and Risk of Loss. All purchases of Applications are final. You cannot cancel your purchase of an Application once delivery has started, including via download or by us making it available to you in the cloud. By placing an order to purchase an Application, you acknowledge and agree to this. We do not accept returns of Applications, except as required by law or unless indicated otherwise on the Application detail page. Once you purchase an Application and we or the Publisher make it available to you, you are responsible for downloading (if applicable) and confirming your ability to access Applications, including retrieving the licence key for the Application if applicable, and bear all risk of loss after downloading the Application or retrieving the licence key, including any loss due to a computer or hard drive malfunction. If you are unable to complete a download or access an Application, please contact Amazon Customer Service for assistance. We will usually continue making Applications you have purchased available to you in Your Games & Software Library so that you can download additional copies of the Application and retrieve your licence key (if applicable), but that is not always the case, and we may limit or disable further downloads of an Application due to licencing restrictions or for other reasons.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/cu...u?ie=UTF8&extra=target="top"&nodeId=201441190

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Here’s the terms from the UK site:



https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=dsvrt_availability_tou?ie=UTF8&extra=target="top"&nodeId=201441190

Which does not cover pre-ordered products. As noted in that quote "You cannot cancel your purchase of an Application once delivery has started, including via download or by us making it available to you in the cloud."

Which would mean any pre-order that has not been "delivered" could be refunded.

 

[tech3475]

Which does not cover pre-ordered products. As noted in that quote "You cannot cancel your purchase of an Application once delivery has started, including via download or by us making it available to you in the cloud."

Which would mean any pre-order that has not been "delivered" could be refunded.

My guess would be that they were going by the first bit which says ‘all purchases are final’, it might be worth bringing it up in a chat.

 

[subcon959]

The thing that bothered me the most was that there was a cancel pre-order link, which I clicked before the delivery date, yet it didn't do anything.. and of course you don't realise that it didn't work until the delivery date has come and you've been given the code so now they can use the policy not to refund or cancel. Surely, that part is violating something? Human decency perhaps?

 

[spectral]

I'd try again with a different CS agent. It's possible you just got an inept arsehole. Pretty sure there is no policy against cancelling pre-orders before the code are sent. As for the button not working, if I clicked a cancel order button and hadn't got an email confirmation of the cancellation by next day, I'd be on to CS to check.

 

[cearp]

If you bought with a credit card it would be quite easy to do a charge-back