An online shopper was understandably shocked when he opened up his Amazon account and found a giant dildo in his basket.
Arstechnica reports that a man, known only as ‘Pedro’, had tried to buy a specialised textbook for a class he was taking from the German version of Amazon.
However, he was disappointed when the book arrived and it was out of date, despite it being listed online as a current edition.
Pedro did the reasonable thing and got in touch with Amazon’s customer service to see if he could get the up-to-date version instead. Unfortunately, they couldn’t find the right version of the book and instead asked him to return the book for a refund.
By this point, Pedro had spent a considerable amount of time looking for the correct version of the book and then even longer waiting while Amazon looked for the book in its warehouse.
Given that he wasn’t happy with the overall shopping experience, he made his displeasure known by leaving negative feedback on a customer satisfaction survey. Naturally, he then presumed this was the end of the matter.
But it wasn’t.
Pedro claims when he next opened up Amazon, a giant dildo, specifically ‘The Hulk 10.25-inch Huge Dong Black’ had been added to his shopping basket.
Pedro told Arstechnica:
If my best friend did it to me while I wasn’t watching, of course I would find it funny, I’m not a prude. The problem is, I was at the office, in an open space, with people behind me. A guy and two girls were sitting by me when I opened up Amazon and they saw the contents of my shopping basket.
Amazon
Pedro immediately suspected that a malicious Amazon customer service rep might have put the dildo in his basket as revenge for his less than glowing review.
He quickly emailed Amazon and asked them what on earth was going on. Andreas Mühlbauer, from Amazon’s Customer Relations team, eventually got in touch about the mishap.
Mühlbauer was apparently very sympathetic during the phone call, claiming he didn’t really understand how it had happened and apologised for the incident. Mühlbauer reportedly assured Pedro that he had “been in touch with the HR department” to ensure that such an incident doesn’t happen again. They also added a €100 voucher to his Amazon account.
Amazon have refused to comment on the incident claiming that they could not comment on the case “due to our privacy policy”.
Pedro told Arstechnica, that he’s not that bothered about the bizarre experience any more, but he did have one more important issue about the whole thing.
He said:
Anyway the entry for “The Hulk” is completely misleading. I would expect something called “The Hulk” to be green. Its picture is pink and the description says it is black. My whole issue with Amazon.de started because of incorrect description of items – and this entry does not help their case.
Get your shit together Amazon – make it green!
More of a concept than a journalist, Tom Percival was forged in the bowels of Salford University from which he emerged grasping a Masters in journalism.
Since then his rise has been described by himself as ‘meteoric’ rising to the esteemed rank of Social Editor at UNILAD as well as working at the BBC, Manchester Evening News, and ITV.
He credits his success to three core techniques, name repetition, personality mirroring, and never breaking off a handshake.