what are you talking about. i buy things from amazon weekly and i have never once received something in paper wrap with no padding and have never paid for a return.

Ordered an alarm keypad it came in a box with zero padding.. just sliding around. A lot of my wife’s orders have been in blue bubble wrapped packaging

Other things however come just as you would expect (paper wrapping or bubble wrapped). So it all depends on the amazon worker doing his or her job..

Source? Literally everything I've returned on Amazon over the last couple years has had at least one free return option (usually via UPS / Amazon Hub dropoff).

Clothing comes to mind, that's also the only case I've ever received something in just a white plastic bag.

Basically, you choose why you're returning. In some cases if you say something other than "the item was defective", it'll only have options that cost money.

It's super rare, but I've seen it before.