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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
AS IT IS 2016-03-28 Amazon Customer Banned for Too Many Returns 亚马逊客户因退货太多被列入黑名单
Tuan Do of New York says Amazon has banned him from shopping on that website.
The reason? He returned too many Amazon purchases, he said on his website, TechWalls.com.
Do said he returned six items in the past two months. He said he was not satisfied with the quality of the products.
Amazon first sent him a warning about his “unusually high rate of problems,” Do said.
Later, when his wife returned a bicycle purchased on her Amazon account, the company cancelled both their accounts, Do said.
Mark Cohen is former chairman and chief executive1 officer of Sears Canada Inc. He is not surprised Amazon and other businesses are trying to stop frequent returns.
The costs are very high for a company like Amazon that offers many customers both free delivery2 and free returns, Cohen told VOA.
The website Dyanamic.action.com reported that returns cost merchants $642.6 billion a year worldwide.
But banning a customer can create bad feelings. Greg Nelson recently spoke3 to the Guardian4 newspaper after Amazon UK banned him from its shopping website.
Nelson said he sent back 37 of the 343 items he bought on the website. He said he had a good reason for each return.
“I could understand if there were evidence that I had somehow tried to abuse5 the system, but I haven’t,” Nelson told the Guardian.
Amazon said it only closes accounts “in a tiny fraction6 of cases” when it finds “extreme account abuse.”
Cohen, the former head of Sears Canada and now a Columbia University professor, said many returns are valid7. It is fine to return clothing that does not fit, is the wrong color, or arrived damaged, he said.
But there are many cases of “clear abuse.”
Cohen cites8 the example of people who buy a dress or suit, wear it once to a wedding or other special event, and then return it.
Cohen said Sears Canada had a customer who bought items from the Sears Catalog9 all the time – and returned every single purchase.
Cohen said it seemed the customer wanted something to do and enjoyed placing orders, getting them delivered and sending them back.
Cohen said he had to convince10 his staff to ban the customer. Some staffers said a ban did not fulfill11 the company’s promise to “completely satisfy” customers.
He helped write a letter to the customer. It explained she could no longer shop “since we clearly have been unable to satisfy your needs as much as we have tried.”
Cohen had won the argument.
On his TechWalls website, Do said he bought “almost everything” from Amazon. That included cheap items like groceries and toilet paper, and more expensive items like laptop computers.
He said the returned items costs more than the products he kept. But he said he only returns products “when they don’t meet my expectation.”
Do had some support from his online readers. “Bob” wrote that he, too, was banned for too many returns.
“It was a crazy high percentage in one bad month. But, yes, they were all defective12. I wasn’t abusing/trying and returning,” Bob wrote.
Cohen said online businesses like Amazon are getting hit with more returns than traditional stores.
One reason, he said, is that shopping online does not allow customers to try on clothing or take a close look before buying.
Many products, he said, are returned after they have been taken out of their packages, often in bad shape. In the case of clothing, he said, returns often come in after the selling season ended for winter or summer.
That makes them hard to sell, or forces big price cuts, Cohen said.
Words in This Story
shopping – v. the activity of buying things either at a store or online.
bicycle – n. a 2-wheeled vehicle that a person rides by pushing on foot pedals13
account – n. a record that allows people to buy goods from a business
frequent – adj. happening a lot
customer – n. someone who buys goods from a business
fraction – n. a small percentage of the time
extreme – adj. very serious or severe
catalog – n. a book containing a list of things that you can buy,
defective – adj. having a problem or fault that prevents something from working correctly
1 executive | |
adj.执行的,行政的;n.执行者,行政官,经理 | |
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2 delivery | |
n.交付;投递;分娩;解救者;演讲的风格 | |
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3 spoke | |
n.(车轮的)辐条;轮辐;破坏某人的计划;阻挠某人的行动 v.讲,谈(speak的过去式);说;演说;从某种观点来说 | |
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4 guardian | |
n.监护人;守卫者,保护者 | |
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5 abuse | |
vt.滥用;辱骂;诋毁;n.滥用;恶习;弊端 | |
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6 fraction | |
n.小部分,碎片;一点,一些;分数 | |
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7 valid | |
adj.有确实根据的;有效的;正当的,合法的 | |
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8 cites | |
引用( cite的第三人称单数 ); 传唤; 记起; [军事]传(或通)令嘉奖 | |
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9 catalog | |
n.目录(册)vt.将…编入目录,将…编目 | |
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10 convince | |
vt.使确认,使信服;使认识错误 | |
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11 fulfill | |
vt.履行,实现,完成;满足,使满意 | |
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12 defective | |
adj.有毛病的,有问题的,有瑕疵的 | |
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13 pedals | |
n.(自行车或其他机器的)踏板( pedal的名词复数 );脚蹬子;(钢琴、风琴等的)踏板;踏瓣 | |
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