Damion loves to trade in his tech for newer, better tech when a new item comes out. He also loves to save the manual and accessories so his old gear is extremely sellable when something new comes out. He decided to give Amazon’s Trade-in Service a try instead of his usual venues, Craigslist and eBay. Things went smoothly when he traded in an iPhone 4S, then… not so smoothly when he decided to trade in his iPad for an iPad Mini.

I traded in my immaculate iPhone 4s in its original box with all of the accessories and manuals unopened. I shipped it off to Amazon.com and was surprised that 8 days later I had a $285 credit in my Amazon.com account. BOOM! Love it. Purchased a NEST 2.0 thermostat that I have been drooling over. Could not have been easier.

When the iPad Mini came out. I decided to trade in an immaculate White 32GB Retina AT&T iPad. I got an estimated value of $485. I boxed up the iPad, again immaculate in condition in original box with manuals, accessories, etc. The iPad shipped on November 2 and arrived at Amazon on Nov 7th via UPS and was signed for by [redacted]. That is when the trouble began. A week goes by and the status shows “Not Delivered”. A second week goes by with the same status “Not Delivered”. So I call Amazon.com and this is where the fun begins.

The woman on the phone repeats the same thing three times. “When the item is processed we will give you a gift card in the appropriate amount.” I stated that I could care less about the money at this point, that I was more concerned with where my iPad was. She repeated the same thing and then told me to call back in two weeks.

I waited a week and the status still showed the same thing “Not Delivered”. I called UPS to confirm delivery. UPS confirmed delivery of the iPad to Amazon. I then emailed Amazon.com customer service.

Here again is where Amazon.com refuses to research the problem and email the same statement over and over.

Hello,

I’m sorry to know that you did not receive the gift certificate for your Trade in ID: TRN-1542140-2297884 for your “Apple iPad MD370LL/A (32GB, Wi-Fi + AT&T 4G, White) NEWEST MODEL”. I will definitely help you with this.

Your trade in status is “Not yet received” . Its doesn’t means that we did not receive your trade in, we received your package and we’ve sent forwarded it to our merchants.

We are waiting for merchant approval for your trade in if your submission is accepted by the merchant, Amazon Gift Card funds for the quoted amount will be deposited automatically in your account within 2 business days of receiving your trade-in at the processing facility. We cannot send cash or a check for your trade-in.

Your payment for this item should be issued soon. In the rare case that you wait longer than expected and your Trade-In submission status doesn’t change, please write back to us on December 7, 2012 to let us know: (then they simply list amazon.com contact links)

Amazon.com then switches tactics to say that USPS will show an item as being delivered but it really has not been “Delivered” and “Received into the System”. Problem is I shipped it via UPS using Amazon.com’s own UPS generated label.

My last communication was hysterical because they claimed they really could not help me because I was not using the email address listed as the main email address on my Amazon.com account.

Each time, they could not simply answer my question on where was my property? Amazon kept fixating on the damn gift certificate.

The kicker is that I received a note from Amazon.com Customer Service that says the following: “Thanks for your trade-in, Damion! Your trade-in has expired because we did not receive it within 25 days of submission. You can create another trade-in at the Amazon Trade-In Store.” So they have had my iPad for three weeks and are rejecting the trade in because it was “NOT RECEIVED” within 25 days of submission.

Now according to Amazon, they are supposed to return my item. The only problem is if they don’t acknowledge receipt of the item, and acknowledge where it is, how can I be certain that I will get my property back? And I am sure that if I contact customer service, they will simply recite the policy that “it was not received on time and therefore will be returned.”

I was going to use the proceeds of the trade in to buy Christmas gifts. Now Amazon.com seems to have “scrooged” that idea up beyond belief. Suffice it to say I will never use Amazon.com’s trade in service and will promptly cancel my Amazon.com prime membership.

They made a fortune on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. They don’t need my money anyway. Too bad that don’t spend any of that money on customer service.

Most likely, when the iPad continues to not show up, if Damion makes enough of a fuss they will give him the full value of the gift certificate that he was supposed to have. That’s been the experience of other readers, anyway. What he may never end up with, though, is an answer about where the iPad ever ended up, and who signed for it.

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