William B.

Hello,
Wanted to bring something to light that just happened to me when purchasing a high dollar scope from Amazon.com. I just purchased a Steiner T5Xi from Amazon the seller, not a 3rd party seller (want to be sure that is clear that this came direct from Amazon as the merchant) and when I received the package today I received a shrink wrapped sealed T5Xi box with a Steiner seals on both sides of the box underneath the shrink-wrap. However, all I actually received in the original box were 2 freakin Ice Mountain water bottles inside! I almost got sick.

Someone tried very hard to defraud either Amazon if it came from Steiner this way or an Amazon employee stealing and knowingly sending the package out this way. It had the LPN label on the outside of the box which usually indicates a previous customer return at some point which means, they were trying to pass it off as "New."

What strikes me as very odd was that the manufacture stickers were still sealing the box inside the shrinkwrap. I cut them both myself. That, and the fact that whoever did this knew the weight of the scope to get almost exactly the same weight with the 2 water bottles.

I'm just in complete shock and awe. I've had someone try to rip me off before on eBay trying to say I sent them junk in a box. Thankfully, I record every package I send prior to shipping so I have the process on file for just these instances but the fact that it came from a billion dollar retailer sealed in this manner just baffles me.

I can attach some pictures of the box and seals and contents of the package.

This is the 2nd purchase of a scope in 1 week that was received as the wrong item. I also ordered a 3-12x44mm scope, again from Amazon the merchant, not a 3rd party merchant, and what I received was the same model but the 4-18x44mm version INSIDE the 3-12x44mm box. So obviously, they are selling used or returned items as "New" and their now $15 p/h employees are not even checking the boxes to verify the contents.

I am done purchasing anything from Amazon, period. They are clearly falsely marking items as "New" that are previously used or returned items and the folks in charge of checking these things to ensure that they are returned correctly and properly retested are failing miserably.

Thanks for your attention,
William Burnett