There are many scenarios which can constitute a life-of-death emergency necessitating the immediate presence of the police, but not getting a refund for a product that you purchased online is definitely not one of them.
But police staff working at West Yorkshire Police’s contact centre had to answer a 999 call being made by someone who seemed to think that the police should attend their location on blues-and-twos for this very reason.
A tweet shared on the @WYP_Contact twitter account said:
“I’ve just taken a call on the 999 line from someone stating that Amazon wouldn’t give them a refund for an item.
“This is absolutely not a 999 call”.
The mind boggles as to just how anyone could come to the conclusion that, in the event of being refused a refund from the worlds largest online retailer, then the police should immediately be called via 999.
Did the ‘complainant’ really think that the police would come rushing around to their address for such a non-police related matter?
Calls like this one not only wastes the time of the emergency services, but they can also put peoples lives at risk who might actually be in need of immediate help.

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