Sebastian Anthony:

On a fateful day in October 2015, Pedro—an IT contractor living in Ireland—was surfing Amazon.de for a specialised textbook he needed for a new extracurricular art class. He found the book, ordered it, but was disappointed when it arrived. The listing had said that the book was the current edition, but Amazon sent Pedro the previous edition.

Pedro got in touch with Amazon customer service to see about getting the proper version. A few days later, Amazon told Pedro that they had ultimately failed to find the right version of the textbook and that he should instead return the book for a full refund.

Pedro, who by this point had spent a long time looking for the correct version of the book and then more time waiting while Amazon looked for the book in its warehouse, wasn’t very happy with the overall shopping experience. Pedro made his displeasure known by providing negative feedback on a customer satisfaction survey, and he figured that was the end of it.

But it wasn’t. According to Pedro, when he next opened up Amazon.de, a giant dildo—specifically, “The Hulk 10.25-inch Huge Dong Black”—had been added to his shopping basket.

I don’t think Pedro was being anal about his order, but someone at Amazon was obviously frustrated enough to cock-up his day — I wonder if the reported working conditions have anything to do with it.

While it certainly looks like an associate at Amazon placed a giant dildo in a customer’s shopping basket, we cannot prove it. With that said, the €100 “gesture of apology,” the hints from Mühlbauer that the associate had been fired or changed role, and Amazon not denying the incident, all point towards an uncomfortable truth: the giant dildo really was thrust into Pedro’s shopping basket without his permission.

Thanks for that paragraph Sebastian — I laughed out loud.