SEATTLE – A consumer-protection lawsuit from Seattle-based law firm Hagens Berman accuses Amazon.com of collecting funds from millions of its customers in response to since invalidated tariffs, passing the buck on rising costs through higher prices.
This doesn’t make sense to me at all. First of all the only party paying an actual tariff is the party that imports the goods. Is that Amazon? For a lot of things, I’m sure it is. For other things, Amazon is just paying a higher price for the goods due to tariffs, but they are not the one paying the tariffs and thus could not be the one to refund them. I work with a lot of different companies to source materials and none of them are refunding any tariffs. What makes Amazon different? Also, last I heard the tariffs were deemed illegal, but that ruling is under appeal so nothing has really changed at this point. Also keep in mind that only the latest round of tariffs is in question. There were tariffs that went into effect in Trump’s first term and were upheld during the Biden era. Those aren’t going anywhere. I’m not a big fan of Amazon, but I don’t see where this lawsuit has any teeth since every other company out there is handling things the same way.
If a company adds a tariff charge to its bill when a consumer pays, or it can be shown that they passed along a charge by raising the price by the tariff amount or similar, then it is clear the consumer paid. The party paying the tariff is the consumer. Suing for a refund sets precedent, and how the current round of tariffs were deemed illegal in the first place.
Yeah, “everyone else is doing it, so why are you only suing this megacorp??” Because I can’t sue every company at the same time?
OP’s comment reads like such a “if you didn’t bring enough lawsuit for everyone, you can’t have any at all” argument.
But mah anti Trump rant? But really, thank you. People here act as if “Amazon didn’t pay the tariffs anyway, because they got the money back from the customer”. That is like saying the customer didn’t pay, it was the company they work for.
This doesn’t make sense to me at all. First of all the only party paying an actual tariff is the party that imports the goods. Is that Amazon? For a lot of things, I’m sure it is. For other things, Amazon is just paying a higher price for the goods due to tariffs, but they are not the one paying the tariffs and thus could not be the one to refund them. I work with a lot of different companies to source materials and none of them are refunding any tariffs. What makes Amazon different? Also, last I heard the tariffs were deemed illegal, but that ruling is under appeal so nothing has really changed at this point. Also keep in mind that only the latest round of tariffs is in question. There were tariffs that went into effect in Trump’s first term and were upheld during the Biden era. Those aren’t going anywhere. I’m not a big fan of Amazon, but I don’t see where this lawsuit has any teeth since every other company out there is handling things the same way.
If a company adds a tariff charge to its bill when a consumer pays, or it can be shown that they passed along a charge by raising the price by the tariff amount or similar, then it is clear the consumer paid. The party paying the tariff is the consumer. Suing for a refund sets precedent, and how the current round of tariffs were deemed illegal in the first place.
Yeah, “everyone else is doing it, so why are you only suing this megacorp??” Because I can’t sue every company at the same time? OP’s comment reads like such a “if you didn’t bring enough lawsuit for everyone, you can’t have any at all” argument.
But mah anti Trump rant? But really, thank you. People here act as if “Amazon didn’t pay the tariffs anyway, because they got the money back from the customer”. That is like saying the customer didn’t pay, it was the company they work for.