Amazon dumps driver who drove off with boy’s birthday PS5

Amazon says it will no longer work with a courier who drove off with at least one of the company’s many missing PlayStation 5 consoles.

The unnamed driver was captured on CCTV by Oxfordshire mum Jenni Walker, who had bought a PS5 as a birthday gift for her son.

Speaking to Eurogamer this afternoon, Walker said her son – who turned 16 the day PS5 launched in the UK – had not wanted the driver to get into any trouble.

But CCTV footage, shared on social media by Walker’s husband Richard, appears to show the driver handling a large PS5-shaped box at the back of his van. After delivering other packages, the driver then puts the big box back and drives away.

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Eurogamer has obscured the driver’s face, though it is clearly visible in the original recording.

The Walker family initially contacted Amazon, and went through a similar process with customer support I’ve now heard dozens of times in the past week from the many, many people similarly affected.

In short, Amazon initially said it would investigate, gave some hope of a replacement being delivered, then later issued a refund.

Walker told me she, like many others I’ve spoken to, tried to refuse a refund for some time, believing this would end the contract between her and Amazon, and their responsibility to deliver the console she’d paid for.

She was initially offered a £5 gift voucher in compensation, though this was eventually raised to £50.

Walker’s daughter, meanwhile, drove in person to the local Amazon depot and confronted the site’s boss with the CCTV footage, saying it showed one of his drivers speeding away with the £450 next-gen console. The site’s boss confirmed the driver shown on camera was one of his employees, and said they would be fired.

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“We have very high standards for our delivery service providers and how they serve customers,” Amazon said today in a statement to Walker’s local paper, Oxford Mail, which also picked up the story. “The delivery associate will no longer be delivering on behalf of Amazon.”

As for Walker and her son, the hunt is on again for another PS5 – though she has decided to avoid the scalpers on eBay. Not only are the consoles there overpriced, but it may be that’s where her son’s original PS5 ended up.

Last week, Amazon promised to “put it right” for every PlayStation 5 customer who did not receive the console they’d paid for, after many received alternative items or simply nothing at all.

Yesterday, we checked in with some of those affected to see how things are going, and if Amazon had kept its word…

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