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Man buys £3,000 'bitcoin mining kit' online and gets sent Boss Baby DVD: 'It was stressful for me'

Ichim Bogdan Cezar was only offered a refund two months later, after he had submitted multiple complaints

Aatif Sulleyman
Wednesday 24 January 2018 18:15 GMT
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A man who spent more than £3,000 on a bitcoin-mining product listed on Amazon instead received a DVD copy of children’s film The Boss Baby.

Ichim Bogdan Cezar, from Stoke, ordered the cryptocurrency mining kit last November.

He paid £3,149.99 for the product but never received it, and says he was only offered a refund two months later, after he had submitted several complaints to Amazon.

Cezar bought the bitcoin-mining hardware from a seller based in Derbyshire, called Minifigures Direct Ltd., the Plymouth Herald reports.

He made his purchase on 21 November and received a package on 5 December.

However, to his surprise it contained a DVD copy of The Boss Baby – a 2017 film – rather than the Tanli ASIC Processing Bitmain AntMiner S9 13.5 TH/s he had ordered and paid for.

After complaining to Minifigures Direct Ltd., the seller claimed a “mistake” had been made, and that Cezar would have the correct product by 16 December.

It failed to arrive, and Cezar made multiple unsuccessful attempts to contact the seller. He then got in touch with Amazon on 18 December, which also tried to contact the seller.

On 20 December, Minifigures Direct Ltd. marked Cezar’s return request as “resolved”.

He then requested a refund for the product, on 23 December and again the following day, but both claims were rejected because Cezar had received and signed for a delivery.

Amazon then advised him to contact Royal Mail if he wished to pursue the matter further.

He says he submitted another request to Amazon on 29 December, and the company offered him a refund on 20 January.

“It was very stressful for me,” Cezar told the Plymouth Herald. “The thing that bothered me the most was the fact that it felt like Amazon wasn’t willing to put in any effort to help me get my money back.”

Amazon told The Independent that it doesn’t comment on individual customers, but has confirmed that Cezar has now been refunded.

“At Amazon, we are committed to providing our customers with the best possible shopping experience,” a spokesperson for the company said.

“All sellers on Amazon Marketplace must adhere to our selling guidelines. Any seller found to contravene those guidelines will be subject to action from Amazon including removal of product listings and their account.

“The Amazon A-to-Z Guarantee provides additional protection for customers who buy from Amazon.co.uk’s third party Marketplace and if a customer received the item, but the item was defective, damaged, or not the item depicted in the seller’s description, we will refund or replace that item.”

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