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The average consumer has no idea if one of these cables will actually do what they proclaim. The only way to really know is when other customers review the pro

The average consumer has no idea if one of these cables will actually do what they proclaim. The only way to really know is when other customers review the product, which we know is barely useful most of the time due to fraudulent reviews. Great job on the part of this Google engineer for writing such clear and technical reviews of the products. Now that an expert has called some of these cables out as not adhering to the spec shouldn't they be taken off of Amazon? Should they be reprimanded for false advertisement?

ocdtrekkie 11y ago
Amazon users do rely heavily on reviews, generally. I think with the Google engineers' reviews promoted to the top by the number of people who have marked them as helpful, market forces will finish the job. Few people will buy them, and those that do will have done so against solid advice. Amazon, of course, can delist things or not at their pleasure.
- poizan42 11y ago
  Or the seller creates a new account and keep selling the cables until another bad review. And then does the same again and so on.
  - acveilleux 11y ago
    Or relists under a slightly different part number.
  - ars 11y ago
    Once a part gets a bunch of good reviews unless the other one is way cheaper people will just by the known good one.
    - x0x0 11y ago
      Except for a given review, you can't tell which seller sold that item. Anyone can list on a given item.
      - ars 11y ago
        When I give a review and it's an item with a lot of sellers I mention who I bought it from. It would be good if everyone did that.
        Robadob 11y ago
        Except when sellers send their stock to Amazon, to be distributed from their warehouses (fulfilment by Amazon), I recall reading about their stock being comingled, such that one seller was being legally sought after for selling pirated DVDs that another seller had sent to Amazon. Sorry I can't find a better source at short notice. http://www.ecommercebytes.com/cab/abn/y13/m02/i25/s01 http://www.ecommercebytes.com/cab/abn/y13/m02/i25/s01
x0x0 11y ago
And in a nutshell, that's why people buy stuff from apple. imo, their brand is "here's a good thing, and we promise it will work". Amazon's is "you're on your own, but it's really fucking cheap!" That's not to say amazon doesn't have good customer service, but the whole thing is still shit. I just wanted a [cable|dongle|hdmi adapter|battery|plant spray|charger] that was what it claimed to be and worked correctly the first fucking time. The fact that you have a good return policy doesn't fix the fact that I still don't have X.
- bengoodger 11y ago
  Funny story. I wanted to buy a cheap iPad for my son. I could have got one from Amazon but after hearing so many stories about scams or refurb devices or devices with someone else's state on it I decided not to deal with that headache and ordered direct from the Apple website. Upon turning on the device for the first time it showed a screen saying it was controlled by the LDS Church and wouldn't proceed through guided setup until I acknowledged that. After some time on the phone with customer service, we determined there was no way to remove this configuration. I ended up having to return it to an Apple store. The rep there said "yeah that happens sometimes" (someone pulled from the wrong pile in fulfillment most likely). So sometimes you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't. If anything Amazon's customer service is better - to resolve an issue like this for items they ship I don't have to drive anywhere, just put the box back on my front doorstep. I wish they would make it clearer when you're buying things from them, and would do a better job of associating compatible products. This seems like data they should be able to have, and UI they should be able to build.
  - jon-wood 11y ago
    Annoyingly in places it looks like data they have and turns out but to be. I once bought a desk lamp which below it included the "people buy these together" box, which showed the llano and a bulb. Frustratingly it wasn't the right bulb, but I just fed a further data point into Amazon's model, and reinforced their belief that its useful to list those two items as a pair.
  - scintill76 11y ago
phkahler 11y ago
>> The average consumer has no idea if one of these cables will actually do what they proclaim. Isn't that what standards compliance is supposed to be for? Shouldn't the product have to be tested against the standard in order to get labeled USB X.Y ?? Or doesn't USB have such a requirement?
- oaktowner 11y ago
  Who would do the testing?
  - kartan 11y ago
    The government is the one that should apply the laws to protect consumers and fair competence. Once something fishy has been detected they have to act. https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/bureaus-offices/bureau-consumer-protection https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/bureaus-offices/bureau-consume...
  - blakeyrat 11y ago
    Does Underwriters Laboratories do that kind of testing? I'm honestly curious-- I don't think I've ever seen their logo on anything as cheap as a single USB cable. If so, you can look for their logo and have... some confidence at least.
  - tajen 11y ago
    USB is a trademark. No-one shall use it unless the USB Implementors Forum certifies them: http://www.usb.org/developers/logo_license http://www.usb.org/developers/logo_license It's the same for Android. It's open-source, but you cannot say that it's derived from Android unless you pass Google's tests (and according to Chinese independent manufacturors, you need to know people from the inside to advance your application).
- csours 11y ago
  To quote Tommy Boy: "Hell, I can take a crap in a box and slap a guarantee on it for you"
keithrl 11y ago
Lawyer here. Pure speculation/not legal advice: Theoretically, people who purchased complain to their state attorney general or report the manufacturers to the FTC. There might be some recompense under consumer fraud laws. If enough people had bought them, there might be enough people to form a class action (doubtful though). The problem is that amount of $ involved here is just not something anyone is likely to get up in arms about. It's $5. Most people will just write it off and never think about it again. No lawyer would bother either unless there were 10,000s of consumers willing to come forward and complain. Just one of those shitty situations. Caveat emptor.
- ColinDabritz 11y ago
  It's $5 for the cable, but you could potentially damage the USB C port on a laptop, and some rather expensive fruit branded laptops now charge solely via the USB C port, which you could argue destroyed the value of the laptop. That sounds like it might make a small-claims-court case sensible to me. (I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice.)
  - bkmartin 11y ago
    I was thinking the same thing. And some of these guys would not be able to capably defend very many small claims suits at one time. I always wondered what would happen in that case.
    - Turing_Machine 11y ago
      Very likely they're not even going to be around under that name by the time you file your suit, but instead operating under a different name. Good luck finding them in Shenzhen in order to collect.
  - 54mf 11y ago
    "some rather expensive fruit branded laptops" So do some rather expensive shiny-metal-branded laptops.
sowbug 11y ago
I don't want Amazon being the product police, in the same way I don't want them refusing to sell products that they think compete with them (Chromecast). Amazon should be neutral about the products it sells, instead giving people the tools they need to make buying decisions, like reviews and ratings.

ocdtrekkie 11y ago

Amazon users do rely heavily on reviews, generally. I think with the Google engineers' reviews promoted to the top by the number of people who have marked them as helpful, market forces will finish the job. Few people will buy them, and those that do will have done so against solid advice. Amazon, of course, can delist things or not at their pleasure.

poizan42 11y ago
Or the seller creates a new account and keep selling the cables until another bad review. And then does the same again and so on.
- acveilleux 11y ago
  Or relists under a slightly different part number.
- ars 11y ago
  Once a part gets a bunch of good reviews unless the other one is way cheaper people will just by the known good one.
  - x0x0 11y ago
    Except for a given review, you can't tell which seller sold that item. Anyone can list on a given item.
    - ars 11y ago
      When I give a review and it's an item with a lot of sellers I mention who I bought it from. It would be good if everyone did that.
      - Robadob 11y ago
        Except when sellers send their stock to Amazon, to be distributed from their warehouses (fulfilment by Amazon), I recall reading about their stock being comingled, such that one seller was being legally sought after for selling pirated DVDs that another seller had sent to Amazon. Sorry I can't find a better source at short notice. http://www.ecommercebytes.com/cab/abn/y13/m02/i25/s01 http://www.ecommercebytes.com/cab/abn/y13/m02/i25/s01

x0x0 11y ago

And in a nutshell, that's why people buy stuff from apple. imo, their brand is "here's a good thing, and we promise it will work". Amazon's is "you're on your own, but it's really fucking cheap!" That's not to say amazon doesn't have good customer service, but the whole thing is still shit. I just wanted a [cable|dongle|hdmi adapter|battery|plant spray|charger] that was what it claimed to be and worked correctly the first fucking time. The fact that you have a good return policy doesn't fix the fact that I still don't have X.

bengoodger 11y ago
Funny story. I wanted to buy a cheap iPad for my son. I could have got one from Amazon but after hearing so many stories about scams or refurb devices or devices with someone else's state on it I decided not to deal with that headache and ordered direct from the Apple website. Upon turning on the device for the first time it showed a screen saying it was controlled by the LDS Church and wouldn't proceed through guided setup until I acknowledged that. After some time on the phone with customer service, we determined there was no way to remove this configuration. I ended up having to return it to an Apple store. The rep there said "yeah that happens sometimes" (someone pulled from the wrong pile in fulfillment most likely). So sometimes you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't. If anything Amazon's customer service is better - to resolve an issue like this for items they ship I don't have to drive anywhere, just put the box back on my front doorstep. I wish they would make it clearer when you're buying things from them, and would do a better job of associating compatible products. This seems like data they should be able to have, and UI they should be able to build.
- jon-wood 11y ago
  Annoyingly in places it looks like data they have and turns out but to be. I once bought a desk lamp which below it included the "people buy these together" box, which showed the llano and a bulb. Frustratingly it wasn't the right bulb, but I just fed a further data point into Amazon's model, and reinforced their belief that its useful to list those two items as a pair.
- scintill76 11y ago

phkahler 11y ago

>> The average consumer has no idea if one of these cables will actually do what they proclaim. Isn't that what standards compliance is supposed to be for? Shouldn't the product have to be tested against the standard in order to get labeled USB X.Y ?? Or doesn't USB have such a requirement?

oaktowner 11y ago
Who would do the testing?
- kartan 11y ago
  The government is the one that should apply the laws to protect consumers and fair competence. Once something fishy has been detected they have to act. https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/bureaus-offices/bureau-consumer-protection https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/bureaus-offices/bureau-consume...
- blakeyrat 11y ago
  Does Underwriters Laboratories do that kind of testing? I'm honestly curious-- I don't think I've ever seen their logo on anything as cheap as a single USB cable. If so, you can look for their logo and have... some confidence at least.
- tajen 11y ago
  USB is a trademark. No-one shall use it unless the USB Implementors Forum certifies them: http://www.usb.org/developers/logo_license http://www.usb.org/developers/logo_license It's the same for Android. It's open-source, but you cannot say that it's derived from Android unless you pass Google's tests (and according to Chinese independent manufacturors, you need to know people from the inside to advance your application).
csours 11y ago
To quote Tommy Boy: "Hell, I can take a crap in a box and slap a guarantee on it for you"

keithrl 11y ago

Lawyer here. Pure speculation/not legal advice: Theoretically, people who purchased complain to their state attorney general or report the manufacturers to the FTC. There might be some recompense under consumer fraud laws. If enough people had bought them, there might be enough people to form a class action (doubtful though). The problem is that amount of $ involved here is just not something anyone is likely to get up in arms about. It's $5. Most people will just write it off and never think about it again. No lawyer would bother either unless there were 10,000s of consumers willing to come forward and complain. Just one of those shitty situations. Caveat emptor.

ColinDabritz 11y ago
It's $5 for the cable, but you could potentially damage the USB C port on a laptop, and some rather expensive fruit branded laptops now charge solely via the USB C port, which you could argue destroyed the value of the laptop. That sounds like it might make a small-claims-court case sensible to me. (I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice.)
- bkmartin 11y ago
  I was thinking the same thing. And some of these guys would not be able to capably defend very many small claims suits at one time. I always wondered what would happen in that case.
  - Turing_Machine 11y ago
    Very likely they're not even going to be around under that name by the time you file your suit, but instead operating under a different name. Good luck finding them in Shenzhen in order to collect.
- 54mf 11y ago
  "some rather expensive fruit branded laptops" So do some rather expensive shiny-metal-branded laptops.

sowbug 11y ago

I don't want Amazon being the product police, in the same way I don't want them refusing to sell products that they think compete with them (Chromecast). Amazon should be neutral about the products it sells, instead giving people the tools they need to make buying decisions, like reviews and ratings.