Do You Know This Amazon Price-Matching Trick?

We all know Amazon’s pricing fluctuates from day-to-day, making it hard to determine if we’re always getting the best deals the website has to offer. While most other major retailers offer price-matching refunds — i.e. they’ll refund you the difference if a product’s price drops within a certain number of days — Amazon makes no such promises.

However, there’s a rumor making its rounds on the web about a price-matching hack you can use on Amazon. Of course, Amazon won’t confirm it; so we decided to do a little research of our own to see if this insider price-matching trick really works.

The original rumor, which started circulating in March 2013, goes something like this: Amazon will issue you a refund if the price of an item you bought drops within 30 days of purchasing. While the website didn’t publicize this policy, it was so successful with customers that Amazon changed their tune and began only honoring price-matching refunds for up to 7 days after purchasing.

However, by 2016, Amazon revised their return policies to eliminate any language of price change refunds altogether. As a result, Amazon customers looking for price-related refunds had to get creative—hatching up price-matching hacks to get their dough back.

For instance, the comments on one Reddit thread alone offered dozens of different tricks to get around Amazon’s updated price-matching policy. While suggestions range from “asking politely” to filing a claim with your credit card company, the consensus seems to be that there are still ways to get your refund — even if it means simply returning the item and repurchasing it at the lower price.

According to one Apartment Therapy editor, all it took was nicely asking the customer service rep for the refund.

“I had been watching the price of some smart light bulbs for a while and pulled the trigger once they’d dropped to a satisfyingly low price. But just a few days after I bought the bulbs (I hadn’t deleted my CamelCamelCamel email alert yet), the price dropped another $10 or so. I was able to pop into the customer service chat and request a credit for the price difference no problem. The person on the other end of the chat let me know you can request a refund for the price difference within 7 days on items that are sold and shipped by Amazon.”

And let’s not forget all the good folks on Reddit, who for better or worse, have managed to get the better price (even if it meant returning and reordering). As commenter xjayroox explains:

“I bought a Rocksmith 2014 as a gift for my brother and it still hadn’t even shipped 5 days later when it went on sale. Amazon told me the only thing I could do was purchase it again and refuse the shipment on the incoming package to get the discount.”

It seems indirect price-matching refunds are possible for Amazon customers, as long as you’re willing to do the legwork.