Amazon asks for my ID before refunding a defective DVD/VCR — but why?
David Cerullo bought a $273 DVD/VCR combo from Amazon that stopped loading DVDs after a few weeks. He returned it and Amazon confirmed receipt, then froze his refund pending identity verification. Amazon’s automated system flagged his account for “abnormal activity” and rejected his valid Colorado driver license five times as “not from the United States.” Customer service representatives could only tell him to wait three days and try again with no path to a human reviewer. The account had no purchases in five years before this one. Under the Colorado Consumer Protection Act, retailers must provide refunds for defective merchandise and cannot create unreasonable barriers to returning faulty products.