How do I return a product to Amazon.com?

Yes you can return things, but you don't want to just mail it back to them in Seattle because they need tracking information. A lot of companies work with what they call RMA's for this reason: return merchandise authorization numbers. Fortunately Amazon doesn't make it that complicated.

I will say up front that if the product has any wear and tear, any damage, or is otherwise in other than "pristine, new" condition, you might have an issue with your return. On the other hand, if you open the box, pull the product out, say "eewwww" and are ready to return it without even slipping it onto your phone, well, you should be good to go.

Returns because the product is defective or not as described include pre-paid postage, but since you just don't like the item you might end up paying for shipping. I'll show you what I mean because I recently bought an internal hard drive for my Mac Mini, just to realize when I opened it that it's the wrong size. Oops. Similar problem, though...

To start out, I went back to the Amazon.com home page. On the top right look for "Your Account":

A click on that and there are zillion and one things you can do. It's quite impressive:

As I've highlighted, find and click on "Return Items or Gifts". Now you have a few options:

Since this is a new return and it's not a gift you received or you checking on the status of a previous return, click on the yellow "Return Items" button.

For security sake, you'll need to log in to your account again:

Easily done. Click on "Sign in using our secure server" and you'll see details of your most recent order:

Fortunately, that's the one I want. If not, on the same page is a link to your previous orders. You'll need to find the exact order that contained the item you want to return.

I click on "Return an Item from this order" and since there's only one, it's simple enough:

Note the check box floating by itself on the left. You need to check it before eyou specify a reason for the return and proceed. Once you've done that, let's look at all the reasons you might want to return something to Amazon.com:

Probably good that they don't have a "Didn't do my homework, wrong size hard drive" option, but I figure "No longer needed/wanted" is a reasonably good match and there's certainly nothing wrong or defective with the drive, so I select that and it gives me the opportunity to add an additional comment or explanation, in which I share my sorry tale:

Now a click on "Continue" and we're just about done processing the return request:

In some situations you might be requesting a replacement unit, but given the reason for the return, that doesn't apply. My only choice, therefore, is "Refund". I click "Continue" again...

Since I'm returning it because I don't want/like it, Amazon's not going to pay the return shipping. I can use one of their postage-paid return labels or I can boldly -- and probably incorrectly! -- assume I can get a better deal myself and just get a generic shipping label. I opt for the latter and end up paying about $0.75 more than the $6.11 Amazon estimates it'll cost to ship the drive back. Oh well.

One more click on the "Continue" button and you'll have a shipping label, ready to print and tape onto the box.

Done. Now you can ship it and know that it'll be processed and handled appropriately once it arrives at the Amazon returns processing facility (which isn't in Seattle, as it turns out).

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