According to the Justice Department, Amazon has lost hundreds of thousands of dollars to a man in North Carolina and has sought a refund for a series of luxury goods that never returned, from expensive coffee machines to new computers.
He is currently facing federal crime.
Hudson Hamrick, who lives in Charlotte, was charged on Monday for a wire fraud in the western part of North Carolina, court documents show. He has been accused of adjusting over 300 fraudulent transactions that cost Amazon over $ 290,000.
McClatchy News was unable to ask Hamrick for comment, and information about his defense lawyer was not immediately available.
According to billing documents, allegations of fraud continued from October 2016 to some time in 2020.
Meanwhile, prosecutors said Hamrick ordered an expensive product from Amazon, filed a return, and received a full refund. However, instead of returning the item, Hamrick has been accused of returning a cheaper version, which is often broken and significantly less valuable than the item received.
According to court documents, Hamrick succeeded in receiving fake refunds for more than 270 product returns, of which about 250 were significantly less valuable than what he originally ordered.
If the return was not initiated, Hamrick claimed that he had never received the product or arrived broken and asked for a concession, the government said.
The prosecution said, “We will either store new and expensive items or resell them on our online platform.”
The government has pointed out several specific incidents in 2019 and 2020, including high-end coffee makers.
The court said Hamrick reportedly purchased a Jura professional coffee machine from Amazon for $ 3,536 in July 2019. He asked to return it after about a week and was given a refund. However, prosecutors said Hamrick sent another Jura coffee machine, which was $ 2,000 cheaper, instead of returning the coffee machine he received.
He has been accused of reselling a professional coffee maker on his Amazon account about seven months later.
According to prosecutors, Hamrick repeated the plan with the $ 4,200 iMac Pro in August 2019, this time returning “a much older, less valuable non-Pro model with a completely different serial number.” He reportedly sold the iMac Pro on eBay later in the same month.
In September 2019, prosecutors said Hamrick bought a gaming laptop from Amazon for $ 2,776 and returned it the next day. But the laptop he sent back wasn’t worth as much as $ 2,300.
Hamrick also purchased a $ 1,200 Fuji spray paint system from Amazon in February 2020 and tried to return another $ 349 worth of Fuji model. Fuji makes a spray device According to its website, it is used by the aftermarket automotive industry and spray tanning companies.
Prosecutors said Amazon blocked the refund of Hamrick’s returns, but he was able to resell the device using his Amazon account.
Isn’t Prime Day trading too good and true?Probably so, watchdog warns
A surge in alerts about “suspicious activity” as scammers impersonate Amazon