Amazon Uk Customer Support

From Order to Ordeal: Learning About Amazon UK’s Customer Service Failings

Recently, I attempted to purchase a 65″ Hisense TV from Amazon UK. Unfortunately, the TV never arrived, and my experience with Amazon’s support services as a UK consumer left much to be desired. Working in support each day and having been a support team lead, it can be a real eye opener and a great learning experience when you need to request support yourself.

Note: Although the TV was purchased from a reputable third-party merchant, the TV was dispatched by Amazon from an Amazon fulfilment centre, making Amazon the carrier.

Here’s a comprehensive timeline and analysis of this frustrating encounter.

Purchase and Initial Confirmation

  • On Friday, 17th October 2025, at 12:25 am, I purchased the TV from Amazon’s listing, which promised delivery by 18th October 2025 if bought within the next six hours.
  • Within minutes, at 12:29 am, I received an email confirming my purchase and reiterating the promised delivery date of 18th October 2025.

Dispatch and Delivery Updates

  • On 17th October at 9:38 am, Amazon emailed to confirm the TV had been dispatched from Derby, England. The app was updated at 9:33 am, reflecting this status.
  • On 18th October at 6:48 am, another email and app update indicated the item was out for delivery.
  • The delivery driver arrived at my home around 2:15 pm on 18th October, but after searching his van, he explained the TV wasn’t there. He apologised and suggested the TV would arrive in a few days, either Sunday, 19th, or Monday, 20th.

Attempts to Resolve with Support

Note: Do not use the Amazon UK AI Chatbot. It’s potentially the worst chatbot implementation I’ve used. You can only select predefined options, and when you do actually chat to the bot, it simply regurgitates the same information it said a few messages ago. In my case, it would simply repeat, “Come back after the 24th,” or ask what order I needed help with, despite having already discussed the correct order with me.

The screenshot below is from a chat I tried to have with it on the 22nd of October before finally deciding to call support again. The chat was much longer than shown, but it was pretty much useless once you could eventually type responses.

Screenshot

At 2:30 pm on 18th October, I called Amazon UK support. The agent apologised, stating they would escalate the issue to the delivery station and promised to provide an update by email within 2–4 hours. No update ever arrived via email from the delivery station.

On 19th October, the app changed to “Delivery expected today,” but again, after waiting at home all day, nothing arrived. Late that night, the status updated again, apologising for the delay and stating that delivery would be by 24th October. If not, I could request a refund the next day, which would be the 25th of October.

Escalating the Support Case

  • I called Amazon again on 20th October, and was assured the TV was at their Bathgate depot in Scotland and would be delivered either that day or the next. The TV never arrived, and no further updates came via app or email as of the 21st.
  • On 22nd October at 1 pm, I called again to ask for an update. I was reassured again that it would arrive, potentially later that day, the 21st, from the Bathgate warehouse, which is ironically just a 20-minute drive from my home. When I checked in again at 6 pm via another support call, the representative had no information about the delivery and could not provide any details about when it would be delivered.
  • Therefore, I requested an immediate refund. When they refused, I mentioned that I was then requesting an immediate refund under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, Section 28(2). The representative stated that Amazon’s policy does not permit refunds until October 25th. I asked for a manager, who regurgitated the same script-like information and could not provide a refund due to Amazon’s internal policies.

Understanding the Consumer Rights Act 2015, Section 28(2)

I’m no expert on the Consumer Rights Act, but on this occasion and as a last resort to attempt to get a refund, it felt like it applied to my experience and was worth a try.

The Consumer Rights Act 2015 is the cornerstone of consumer protection law in the UK. Section 28(2) specifically addresses delivery obligations and is directly relevant to my situation.

Section 28(2) states: “Unless the trader and the consumer have agreed otherwise, the contract is to be treated as including a term that the trader must deliver the goods to the consumer.”

The act further specifies that, unless an agreed delivery time exists, goods must be delivered:

  • Without undue delay, and
  • In any event, not more than 30 days after the contract is entered into.

However, in my case, as Amazon and I agreed to a specific delivery date: 18th October 2025. This was clearly stated in both the product listing and the confirmation email I received minutes after purchase. When Amazon failed to deliver by the agreed date, specific consumer rights were triggered.

According to Section 28(6), if a trader fails to deliver goods at the agreed time, the consumer may treat the contract as at an end (and receive a full refund) if:

  • The trader has refused to deliver the goods, or
  • Delivery at the agreed time is essential, or
  • The consumer told the trader before the contract was entered into that delivery at the agreed time was essential.

In my situation, I believe Amazon breached the agreed delivery date of 18th October, as that specific delivery date was essential and the only reason I ordered the TV from Amazon.

By 22nd October, four days after the agreed delivery date, the TV still had not arrived despite multiple assurances from Amazon support staff. At this point, I believe that I had every legal right under the Consumer Rights Act to request an immediate refund. Amazon’s insistence that I wait until 25th October appears to contradict UK consumer law, particularly given that:

  1. We had an agreed delivery date (18th October)
  2. That date had passed without delivery
  3. I had already been patient and reasonable in giving Amazon additional time to fulfil its obligation.
  4. Amazon provided multiple subsequent delivery promises and dates, but they were all broken and not met.
  5. I cannot wait at home every day between the hours of 8 am and 8 pm from the 18th of October until the 25th of October, on the off chance they may deliver a 65” TV, without any prior warning, that cannot be left outside at a front or back door of the property, should I not be home

The Consumer Rights Act was designed to protect consumers from precisely this type of situation, where a retailer fails to deliver goods as promised and then makes the consumer wait indefinitely while providing false reassurances.

Lack of Transparency and Communication

  • I requested Amazon’s official complaints procedure, but was denied. The manager promised escalation to an internal team but refused to provide me with any details, the name of or contact information for the team he was escalating to. No escalation email, which I requested to be copied in on, ever arrived, nor did any other form of confirmation that it had indeed been escalated. Therefore, the lack of transparency and reassurance about what was actually going on continued.

Summary and Reflections

  • As of 22nd October, I still have no TV, no further communication from Amazon, no access to a complaints procedure, and the tracking timeline on the Amazon app and website has remained unchanged since 18th October.
  • Speaking with Amazon support staff, who are all based outside the UK, have little local knowledge, and clearly follow scripts, has been unproductive. They are not empowered by Amazon to address or help resolve genuine consumer concerns.
  • Amazon’s claim at the bottom of their emails as Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company” rings hollow when their customer service is so poor, particularly for UK consumers.
  • The service came across as robotic and untrained, as it failed to grasp UK consumer rights law and logistics standards.
  • Given my extensive background and experience in logistics, e-commerce, and customer support, it was clear that the TV was likely lost, damaged, or possibly even stolen at this point.
  • The logistical process should also prevent such errors, as all items loaded onto delivery vans are assigned and tracked via a delivery note and, nowadays, digital scanning.
  • At the very least, if Amazon had lost what is quite an expensive item, a replacement item should have been dispatched to me by Amazon, and a new delivery date arranged.

Conclusion

While it’s true that I’m frustrated the TV never arrived, my most profound disappointment stems from discovering just how utterly inadequate Amazon UK’s customer support structure truly is. This experience has been a profound wake-up call about the gulf between Amazon’s public image and the reality UK consumers face when something goes wrong.

I’ve been an Amazon customer for years, trusting in their reputation and expecting that if issues arose, they would be resolved professionally and efficiently. Instead, I encountered:

  • Support staff who were clearly reading from scripts, with no authority to actually solve problems.
  • Representatives based outside the UK with no understanding of UK consumer protection laws.
  • Managers who were unable to provide policy references or access to formal complaint procedures.
  • A complete absence of accountability or transparency in their processes.
  • Repeated false promises about delivery with no follow-through or communication.
  • A systematic denial of my legal rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

What troubles me most is the realisation that Amazon seems to have built a support system designed not to help customers, but to deflect, delay, and frustrate them into giving up. The repeated assurances that “it will arrive today” or “it’s at the local depot and you will receive it today or tomorrow” were not genuine attempts to solve my problem; they were tactics to push the issue down the road and make it someone else’s problem.

The fact that multiple support representatives and even a manager were either unaware of or chose to ignore UK consumer law is deeply concerning. These aren’t complex or obscure regulations; the Consumer Rights Act 2015 is fundamental to UK retail operations. Yet Amazon’s support staff seemed either untrained in these basic legal requirements or instructed to disregard them in favour of Amazon’s own policies, which their staff refused to share or reference to me.

Perhaps most disappointing is Amazon’s refusal to provide access to a formal complaints procedure. When pressed, representatives simply stonewalled, offering vague promises of “internal escalation” while refusing to give any contact information, reference numbers, or timelines. This isn’t customer service, it’s a deliberate barrier to accountability.

For a company that positions itself as “Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company,” this experience has been eye-opening. Amazon’s customer-centricity appears to exist only when transactions go smoothly. The moment something requires actual customer support, the façade crumbles, revealing a system that treats UK consumers with indifference at best and contempt at worst.

It seems my only recourse now is to wait until the 25th of October to request a refund, despite having every legal right to demand one immediately. At this point, I am 100% confident the TV will never arrive. But more significantly, I now know that Amazon UK cannot be trusted to honour their commitments or respect consumer rights when problems arise. That loss of trust and realisation is far more valuable to me than any TV would be.


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