Amazon is refunding sales tax overcharges to customers in Del Mar Heights, thanks to a campaign led by a retired doctor who contacted The San Diego Union-Tribune and sounded the alarm on the NextDoor social media platform.<\/p>\n
Del Mar Heights, a neighborhood in the city of San Diego, shares the 92014 ZIP code with the city of Del Mar. But the two areas have different sales tax rates, because Del Mar voters approved a one-cent surcharge back in 2016.<\/p>\n
Amazon had apparently been charging customers the proper rates \u2014 7.75% in Del Mar Heights and 8.75% in the city of Del Mar \u2014 for many years, but suddenly started charging Del Mar Heights residents 8.75% on May 1.<\/p>\n
Joe Witkin, a retired emergency room doctor in Del Mar Heights, discovered the ongoing error on June 26 while reviewing his purchase of a laptop for a child\u2019s birthday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know why I did the math, but I figured out it was the wrong tax rate,\u201d Witkin said last week.<\/p>\n
An avid Amazon shopper along with his wife, Witkin discovered he had been overcharged a total of $69.90 on 66 purchases between May 1 and June 26 \u2014 49 orders by him and 17 orders by his wife totaling $6,990.<\/p>\n
Witkin said he thought Amazon would immediately acknowledge the obvious error when he contacted them and would then begin proactively refunding all the overcharges in Del Mar Heights.<\/p>\n
But it wasn\u2019t nearly that simple.<\/p>\n
In its response to his first email on June 26, Amazon said, \u201cI realize you\u2019re disappointed that we\u2019re unable to grant your request for additional compensation.\u201d<\/p>\n
His second email on June 27 got only a slightly more satisfying response: \u201cI\u2019ve opened a request regarding your tax inquiry to our tax specialists. I\u2019ll respond to your question in approximately 2-3 business days. This time frame is an estimate and may vary depending on the amount of research required to investigate your inquiry.\u201d<\/p>\n
But on July 12, Witkin got some good news.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have taken a look at your account and I can confirm the tax rate that should have been calculated is 7.75%,\u201d Amazon said in an email. \u201cAmazon is actively working on getting this fixed & we will issue refund for all the orders that we charged incorrect tax rate. Please reply to this email with all the order numbers and we are happy to issue refund from our end.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Joe](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/SUT-L-amazon-tax-003.jpg\")
Joe Witkin, who lives in Del Mar Heights, noticed that Amazon has been using the wrong tax rate for people in his area after he bought a computer. His receipt is seen here on July 16, 2025, in San Diego, California. (K.C. Alfred \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n
While appreciative, Witkin said he was still somewhat irked.<\/p>\n
\u201cClearly, Amazon needed to proactively take responsibility for their error and reimburse all orders on which they have overcharged, without customers having to ask for it \u2014 period,\u201d he told the Union-Tribune.<\/p>\n
During his drawn out email exchange with Amazon, Witkin posted on NextDoor and contacted the Union-Tribune, which contacted Amazon\u2019s corporate offices with a long list of questions.<\/p>\n
Within 48 hours of the Union-Tribune\u2019s inquiry, the company began proactively issuing refunds to affected customers in Del Mar Heights.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe appreciate this error being brought to our attention, and have apologized to Mr. Witkin,\u201d Amazon spokesperson Richard Rocha told the Union-Tribune by email. \u201cThis error was isolated to a small set of customers located in the Del Mar Heights area, and it\u2019s been fixed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rocha said the onus is on Amazon to fix the error \u2014 not its customers.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo action is required by our customers as our team is reviewing all accounts in the Del Mar Heights area, and should we find an issue, we\u2019ll address it immediately and issue a refund to the account,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Rocha said Amazon confirmed the error happened after an update by a vendor responsible for assigning tax rates by location. The update took place May 1 and affected customer orders after that date, he said.<\/p>\n
The company\u2019s move prompted an outpouring of thanks to Witkin this weekend from NextDoor members who had been complaining about Amazon since Witkin revealed the sales tax errors.<\/p>\n
Karla Deerinck expressed frustrated in a post three weeks ago, explaining to other NextDoor users that her husband was told by Del Mar city officials that it was Amazon\u2019s responsibility to return the money \u2014 not the city that gets the tax revenue.<\/p>\n
But over the weekend, Deerinck\u2019s attitude was much improved.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just got a notice of a refund as well without ever notifying Amazon that we were overcharged (because it was only on a few orders),\u201d she posted. \u201cAnd they gave us a $5 gift card.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jordan Henry also made an upbeat post.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just received a notification that I\u2019m receiving a refund from Amazon regarding overcharged sales tax,\u201d he said. \u201cIn my case it\u2019s a pittance, but everyone\u2019s efforts bore fruit. Thanks!\u201d<\/p>\n
Witkin said he received a $75 gift card \u2014 the refund he was owed, plus $5.10.<\/p>\n
Amazon declined to say how many customers were affected and whether these kinds of errors are common or rare across the nation.<\/p>\n
Of the roughly 13,000 people living in the 92014 ZIP code, about 4,000 live in the city of Del Mar and about 9,000 in Del Mar Heights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Amazon is refunding sales tax overcharges to customers in Del Mar Heights, thanks to a campaign led by…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":81622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,1370,728,8629,50,80,3549,7264,7289,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-81621","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-latest-headlines","12":"tag-local-news","13":"tag-local-politics","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-san-diego","17":"tag-sandiego","18":"tag-top-stories-sdut","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114893354700372415","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}