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 customer service to see about getting the proper version. A few days later, Amazon told Pedro that it 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 happy with the overall shopping experience. He 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.

"If my best friend did it to me while I wasn't watching, of course I would find it funny," Pedro told Ars. "I'm not a prude."

"The problem is, I was at the office, in an open space, with people behind me. A guy and two girls were sitting by me when I opened up Amazon and they saw the contents of my shopping basket."

Pedro immediately suspected a culprit: an Amazon customer service rep, acting in retaliation for the negative feedback.

Ding dong

Pedro's first reaction was to take a screenshot—and then to e-mail Amazon and ask them what was going on. His ticket bounced around between a number of customer service representatives, eventually ending up with Andreas Mühlbauer of the "Executive Customer Relations" team at Amazon.de. After a few back-and-forth e-mails, Pedro spoke to Mühlbauer on the phone on the morning of October 22.

According to Pedro, Mühlbauer was very sympathetic during the phone call and apologised profusely for the incident. Mühlbauer assured Pedro that he had "been in touch with the HR department" to ensure that such an incident doesn't happen again. As a small gesture of apology, Mühlbauer told Pedro that the company would add a €100 voucher to his Amazon.de account. (Pedro sent us a screenshot of the €100 that was credited to his account, pictured right.)

Later in the phone call, after Pedro explained how irritating the whole situation had been, Pedro says that Mühlbauer sympathised and said that he "can't really understand" how an associate from customer service could do such a thing. Unfortunately, Mühlbauer said, he hadn't been able to talk to the associate and therefore couldn't ascertain what the associate's intention had been.

Pedro asked why he hadn't been able to talk to the associate involved with the incident. "Has he been fired or put on paid leave?" he asked, but Mühlbauer said that he was not allowed to talk about "that internal process."

A private matter

It's a strange story; did it actually happen? Over the last couple of months we've been trying to confirm the details.

As the alleged incident unfolded, Pedro forwarded all of his e-mail correspondence with Amazon's customer service representatives to us. Pedro also took some notes during the phone call with Mühlbauer, which he shared with us. They appear to be authentic. For privacy reasons, Pedro asked that we do not publish his surname.

At the end of October, I e-mailed Mühlbauer, asking if he could confirm or deny that an Amazon associate had placed something in Pedro's shopping basket without his consent. Daniel Baur, another member of the Amazon.de Executive Customer Relations team, responded within a couple of days, saying that Amazon could not comment on the case "due to our privacy policy."

Pedro contacted Amazon, giving them permission to talk to me about his case. I e-mailed Amazon again on November 6, asking for a confirmation or denial, and got no response. I tried again on November 17, but no comment was forthcoming. Finally, at the beginning of December, I told Mühlbauer and Baur that I intended to write about the incident and asked if they wished to provide a statement of any kind. I received no response.