Amazon paying customers for damages over defective goods sold by third-party sellers

Amazon will be paying up to $1,000 to customers who purchased what were said to be “dangerous” items on its site but were sold by third-party sellers. It was said that the e-commerce company is changing its return policies and will instead pay the customers for the products that caused injury or damage.

According to CNN Business, Amazon stated on Tuesday, Aug. 10, that it will first deal with customers’ complaints then will go after the third-party sellers that are not willing to compensate qualified claims of the buyers or if they are unresponsive to dissatisfaction claims. Jeff Bezos’ company announced that it will start implementing the changes on Sept. 1, and this is applicable to all the items sold on its Amazon e-commerce platform.

It was said that this new process will be saving both the sellers' and buyers' time, money, and effort. The new policy will change the process of returns where the customers directly contact the sellers if there are issues with their purchase. Now they have to contact Amazon’s customer service that will, in turn, notify the seller about the problem.

The company will address the customer’s complaint and pay compensation by itself if the seller doesn’t respond. Later, Amazon will separately go after the seller. In case the seller

Finally, if the seller doesn't respond, Amazon said it will "address the immediate customer concern, bear the cost ourselves, and separately pursue the seller." If the seller refuses to acknowledge the claim, the company may decide to pay the buyer up to $1,000.

“We are extending our A-to-z Guarantee to protect customers in the unlikely event a defective product sold through Amazon.com causes property damage or personal injury - regardless of who sells it,” the company wrote on a blog post. “Now, in the unlikely event a defective product sold through Amazon.com causes property damage or personal injury, Amazon will directly pay customers for claims under $1,000 which account for more than 80% of cases - at no cost to sellers, and may step in to pay claims for higher amounts if the seller is unresponsive or rejects a claim we believe to be valid.”