Amazon 30-day Post-Order Price Guarantee 2013

2013.07.04 UPDATE:
July 4th. Amazon has reduced the Post Order Price Matching timeframe to just seven days after delivery of the item. You can find the official policy here.
2013.04.16 OLDER INFO: Commenter aruba19 has notified me that as of 4/16/2013 Amazon honored the 30 day price guarantee again! This is great news and as such the rating has been raised from 1 star to 5 stars 🙂 The rest of the article is merely for historical purposes as Amazon seems to have re-implemented this wonderful policy, woot!

MORE OLD INFO BELOW, SEE HERE FOR LATEST.

Well, this is a sad day. Amazon will no longer refund the price difference if they lower an items price after you purchase it.

Their nice original policy:

Post-Order Price Guarantee [original policy]
Amazon.com’s prices for released items will change from time to time based on a variety of factors. If Amazon.com’s price for an already-released item decreases within 30 days after we ship the item to you, we’ll be glad to refund the difference in price if you contact us within that 30-day period. Please click the Contact Us button on the right side of this page, and be sure to have your order number handy so we can assist you.

This was a very nice policy as sometimes you might order an item from Amazon and the next day it would be drastically cheaper, meaning you overpaid. Sometimes the price difference could be hundreds of dollars if for example it was a laptop, DSLR, or high-end computer parts (SSD drives, video cards, etc.)

Their new policy eliminates price protection for customers:

Post-Order Price Match Policy [new policy]
With the exception of TVs, we do not offer post-order price matching when an item’s price drops after you buy it. Our prices regularly change, and the price you paid when your order shipped was the lowest price we were able to offer at the time. We consistently offer competitive prices on everything we carry because we know low prices are very important to our customers.

This is a real bummer as the Post-Order Price Guarantee was one of the ways that Amazon really stood out above the crowd (NewEgg, TigerDirect, Wal-Mart, etc.)

I contacted Amazon to see when this new policy went into effect, but the customer service representative would not say. 🙁

END OLD INFO, NO LONGER VALID, SEE LATEST INFO HERE.

6 comments

  • aruba19

    Strange… As of today, 04/16/2013 they still do the 30 day price guarantee. I know because i just did one. Something I bought a couple of weeks ago dropped in price and I sent Amazon customer service a note about it, quoting item, order number and price change amount. The refunded the difference within a couple of hours. NOTE: for this to work you must have bought the item directly from Amazon and the price drop must be on the exact same item and be done by Amazon. So noticing a better price by a 3rd party seller or having bought from a 3rd party seller then noticing a lower price offered by Amazon if you buy from them is not going to do you any good. If you buy directly from Amazon and then Amazon drops the price on the item within 30 days, you’re in luck! 🙂

    • Hi Aruba, that is great news!

      That is certainly how it used to work so I am glad to hear that they have re-instated their 30-day price guarantee and I will verify this the next time I have a qualifying order. 🙂

      Best regards,
      -JD

  • Amazon customer

    I also received a price adjustment in April 2013 from Amazon. About 28 days after I purchased a new camera directly from Amazon, I noticed that the price had dropped $100. First I called their customer service number, while the woman who answered the phone was very polite, she told me that it is against Amazon’s policy to give price adjustments on cameras. I then sent Amazon customer service a very polite email explaining the situation and to my surprise, I received a response indicating that they had refunded me the $100 difference! Interestingly, the price on Amazon has since returned to the price I initially paid. All I can say is, “Don’t give up!” and be polite, it is possible to get a price adjustment within 30 days!

    • Hello and thank you for your informative comment about Amazon.

      It is great to hear further confirmation of Amazon’s price adjustment policy. Your recommendation to be polite is spot on and I am very happy that you were able to save the $100 difference (lower price).

      Thanks again and have a great week 🙂
      -JD

  • Tony

    I emailed Amazon today (27/8/2013) about this and received the following reply:


    Amazon.co.uk
    Your Account Amazon.co.uk
    Message From Customer Service
    Hello,

    I’ve looked at your order and can see that the price change was significant and you just received this item from us.

    Under the circumstances, I’ll make a one-time exception for you and issue a refund for the price difference in the amount of GBP 15.01.

    Refunds usually go through within 2 to 3 days and you’ll see this amount credited on your next statement. This doesn’t include your bank’s processing time.

    When the refund is completed, we’ll send you an e-mail to confirm the date, amount and payment details.

    After receiving the confirmation e-mail, you can see the refund in Your Account: http://www.amazon.co.uk/yourorders

    Please understand that I’m issuing this refund as an exception and that this is against our standard policy.

    I hope this helps. We look forward to seeing you again soon.

    Warmest regards,
    Naveen Kanukuntla”

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