I spent £630 on new phone on Amazon – but I was sent wire cutters instead

A WOMAN who spent £630 on a new phone on Amazon has been left “horrified” after the online giant sent her wire cutters instead.

Clair Wilson, 34, started “flapping and hyperventilating” when the delivery she thought contained her new OnePlus smartphone turned out to be a pair of cheap wire cutters.

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After calming down, Clair, from Nottingham, got in contact with Amazon customer services who guaranteed her a refund if she returned the parcel with a return label stuck on it.

But after the 10-day wait period, Amazon refused to issue it.

Clair received the bungled order on October 12 and immediately sent it back after discovering what had happened.

She said: “I get a knock at the door and it’s the Amazon delivery man. He asks for the one-time passcode, which I think is required for any purchase over £150, and I give it to him. He hands over the parcel.

“It feels heavy, it looks fine, nothing out of the ordinary. He goes on his merry way and I go inside, open up the parcel and I’m horrified to see a pair of automatic wire cutters!

“While this is going on my husband is playing D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) on the computer next to me and I’m just flapping and hyperventilating like ‘oh my God, oh my God.’

“So I get on to customer services and I’m just so stressed out at this point I can’t even see straight so he helps me find the number.

“I was told I could be sorted with a refund. Someone said ‘all I want you to do is print out this Amazon return label, stick it to the parcel it came in and I’ll make a note and we can get you a refund no problem.'”

Clair posted the package on October 14 and after 10 days, she didn’t hear a peep from Amazon.

When she got back in touch with customer service, they tell her she sent back “the wrong item”.

She said: “And they’re saying ‘we haven’t got the phone and you’re asking for a refund. If you send us the phone you can have a refund.’

“How am I meant to send you the phone I never got? They started an internal investigation and the outcome of that was that they had sent a phone.

“They said ‘it’s impossible for an item coming from the fulfilment centre to not be picked up and the condition of the parcel and the weight of the parcel upon delivery was accurate for a phone.’

“Therefore they deduce that if I hadn’t got the phone it must have been stolen somewhere between me taking it off of the delivery man and opening it up.

“So I replied to them that this is not the case and if it has been stolen it’s on their end as I did not receive the phone. By this point I’ve sunk so many hours of my time. I’m just so tired, I’m knackered.

“I’m just over it. So I sent back this well thought out, reasoned response and they just copy and pasted the exact same email.

“I’m stressed out. Everyone at work knows and I just don’t know what to do.”

Clair said the unexpected hit to her finances have taken a mental and physical toll.

She said: “Absolutely (it has affected my Christmas), I’ve had to really cut back on my spending to accommodate the huge loss. Luckily I saved up about half of the amount.

“But the month of November I’ve hardly spent anything because I simply can’t afford to. My family are going to have to make do with hand-made gifts or something.

Clair will receive a refund in a couple days’ time, but not after a month-long fight that ended today.

An Amazon spokesperson confirmed they were happy to have resolved the matter with the customer.