Amazon and Waitrose ban customer for complaints and returning too much

theguardian.com:

Retailers can bar shoppers for – in their view – returning too many items or making too many complaints, as Nannette Herbert has discovered.

Herbert told Guardian Money she has been banned by a number of retailers – including Amazon and Waitrose – for making complaints and refund requests.

Businesses are sometimes alerted when a customer displays “unusual” activity, such as requesting what might be viewed as a disproportionate number of refunds, and can block them from making future purchases.

Consumers can also be banned for making too many complaints if the retailer believes they are abusing the process.

Amazon told Herbert, who lives in London, that it was closing her account last month, saying she had “consistently requested refunds for a large number of orders”.

She says the ban – which has since been lifted – had caused “many different problems”, including the fact that the self-published author was locked out of her publishing account.

“They said I had returned too many things, which isn’t true at all,” she says. “I’ve kept most of what I ordered … and I’ve ordered a lot of stuff. It doesn’t say anywhere in their terms and conditions they ban you if you return a certain number of items.”

Waitrose also blocked Herbert’s online account in December last year after she made repeated complaints about the quality of the food delivered, after “strenuous efforts to satisfy” her needs.

“They were delivering out-of-date things,” Herbert says. “They expect me to pay full price, and if I make a complaint about it, they ban me. I’m blamed for their mistakes.”

In response, Amazon told us that returning purchases on Amazon.co.uk “is easy and free on millions of items”, and that customers can return most within 30 days.

It adds: “We want