Amazon's protection against state action has always been that it offers a good enough return experience that people will turn to it rather than public authorities with problems. It's not a legal shield so much as a practical one, though.
People seem to talk about amazon as if it has some unprecedented customer service and that is why it's so successful. But this is the bare minimum for pretty much any shop. Is it different in America?
I feel like you didn't returns something with Amazon, but a third party seller instead.
Amazon will ship you the replacement as soon as you confirm and give you a return shipping label to print and stick on the package, which you can bring to your local post office. The process is quite painless.
> I can only return the item in a very short window after it is purchased.
Their return windows is 30 days for most stuff, which is good enough.
Instead of hoping for Amazon to make this slightly less bad, I think legal action is called for at this point.