Amazon 20 Percent Off Coupon Was Too Good to Be True

The old adage “if it’s too good to be true, it probably is” came into play for some shoppers on Tuesday when they saw Amazon advertising a 20% discount code TELE20AB on many listings across the site.

One person started a thread on the Amazon discussion boards said they had spent several hundred dollars on goods the day before so they were peeved to learn about the sale.

But it turned out that many who tried to redeem the code had been unsuccessful in doing so. Not only did people reply on that particular thread, it was reported on social media as well.

When a customer reached out to @AmazonHelp on Twitter (“the Tele20ab code is it working and there rep isn’t helping”), an Amazon representative asked the customer to reach out to them with a DM (Direct Message) – we didn’t find any official response from Amazon offering details about problems with the code.

Sellers were concerned that shoppers would blame them instead of Amazon for what appeared to be a glitch. “It is in my Handmade store on every item listed. I think it may be another glitch,” one seller wrote. “According to the terms, items sold by third party sellers do not qualify. So why is this “CODE” prominently displayed on all my listings?”

“When I try to redeem the 20% coupon, it does REDEEMED with a green check mark, but when I go to checkout No discount is applied,” another seller said. “If this a glitch, I can see a lot of angry customers wanting their discount, and with only 3rd party sellers on the front line, we are going to hear about it from customers.”

It’s still not clear if the code worked for any customer for any products.

Let us know if you hear from sellers asking you about the code. It’s possible that sellers unaware of the glitch may get testy with customers thinking they’re trying to scam them into giving out a discount.

Ina Steiner

Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 - present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 - present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.