Last October, an Amazon customer had a ten-inch pink dildo called “The Hulk Huge Dong” in his virtual shopping cart. That wouldn’t ordinarily be news — it’s 2016, and one imagines people unwrap huge dongs from nondescript Amazon cardboard shells daily — but our shopper hadn’t ordered this particular dong himself. In fact, he alleged, an Amazon customer-service rep had put it there in an act of hulking, huge, pink, and ultimately impotent revenge.
Ars Technica U.K. editor Sebastian Anthony related the amusing (but also kind of creepy) tale of “Pedro,” an Ireland-based IT guy who had a bad experience trying to order a textbook on Amazon.de. After Pedro left Amazon some honest, negative feedback telling them what happened, a dildo described as “10.25 inches in length, perfect for comic book lovers” unexpectedly appeared in his shopping cart. He put two and two together: Amazon was dicking around with him.
I know what you’re thinking: There’s more than one explanation for this mystery dildo. Could it be just a bug? A prank by one of Pedro’s friends? Probably not. Ars’s Anthony investigated, and found what looks like a clear-cut case of an employee using his powers for evil (and/or comedy). After sending in a screenshot of the ominous dong, Pedro managed to escalate his case to “Executive Customer Relations.” According to Ars, he was told that the matter had been referred to the HR department to make sure it didn’t happen again.
The executive rep told Pedro he couldn’t reveal whether the prankster had been fired or put on leave, and said he “can’t really understand” how someone could do that to a customer. Amazon offered Pedro a €100 credit by way of apology, and he sent Ars a screenshot to verify that he’d received it.
Despite corresponding with Pedro and directly with Amazon, Anthony felt he still couldn’t definitely prove a low-level rep was behind the prank, but it “certainly looks” like that’s what happened.
Pedro added some additional details in the comments of the Ars story that are also worth reading. The combined text probably constitutes the most thorough investigation ever conducted into a ten-inch pink dildo that didn’t actually ship.
