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Garadget is a "cloud-enabled garage door opener" sold for $99 on Amazon. The manufacturer seemingly disabled the product, or primary advertised features of the

Garadget is a "cloud-enabled garage door opener" sold for $99 on Amazon. The manufacturer seemingly disabled the product, or primary advertised features of the product, in retribution for a short negative review left on Amazon. IMO Amazon should immediately drop the product when they catch wind of that, and so should any other retailer that carries it. The manufacturer's abused their relationship with the retailer (which now has to handle a return of a perfectly good device they sold) and the customers (who now have to fear retribution for reviewing products they purchased at retailers). Regardless of whether the content of the review was justified or not, this probably won't go well for Garadget, whoever he is. A journalist has already reached out to the customer. I can sympathize with being frustrated with customers. It takes a lot of self-control to remain professional at times. If you don't have that kind of self-control, you need to hire someone else to do customer support that does, or you won't have a very successful business. Being the boss doesn't mean there are no repercussions for your actions.

CaliforniaKarl 10y ago
According to the Amazon.com page for the item, it ships from and is sold by the manufacturer. So it's not a proper Amazon item, it's an Amazon Marketplace item. In this case, I don't think Amazon even is the retailer, they're just the platform, in the same sense as eBay/PayPal. Also, the guy (presumably guy) has said to return the product for a refund, so things will pretty much be zeroed out, unless the customer doesn't go through with it.
- vidarh 10y ago
  But this now means that no Amazon reviews of this product are remotely trustworthy for the simple reason that they have made public that bad reviews risks getting your device bricked. To me that means their products are now inherently suspect.
dovdovdov 10y ago
Their domain still leads to an indigogo page. People should avoid startups those use crowdfunding websites as risk free capital gainer preorder pages. They don't get proper investment for a reason.
- cyberferret 10y ago
  Seriously? What about companies that emphatically don't want to sell off a large percentage of their company and their souls to a board of venture capitalists and the like?
  - madeofpalk 10y ago
    Then bootstrap and self-fund.
    - cyberferret 10y ago
      One thing for a software or services based company, but if you are a product based company that needs significant capital investment to get production started, and you haven't got any credit history to be able to get a bank loan, then crowd funding seems to be a legitimate way to go. Plus you get the added bonus of getting marketplace validation from your actual customers if they fork out the money to subscribe to you. First responder to this thread was pretty much lambasting all projects that opt for the crowd funding pathway, which I think is a grossly unfair judgement call.
      - madeofpalk 10y ago
        Then talk to investors to take investment. I don't think its unreasonable that someone who takes a risk on giving you money in your infancy to realise your product should get some equity or something else from it that's more than just a "preorder".
    - quadrangle 10y ago
      It's crazy how many people do not realize that "bootstrap" as in "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" is a sarcastic MOCKERY of that sort of sentiment. It's like we need new idioms. Here's a suggestion: "This poor new mother doesn't need welfare, she can live off her own milk!" I bet it would take a long time before "live off your own milk" degrades to being taken non-sarcastically…
  - 10y ago
_pmf_ 10y ago
> I can sympathize with being frustrated with customers. It takes a lot of self-control to remain professional at times. That's why you shell out customer service to disillusioned minimum wage drones: they hate you as much as the customer, which creates a subconscious empathic link.
_Codemonkeyism 10y ago
Amazon lets far worse things go unnoticed, like fake medical products. Why? Because of the money.
- tajen 10y ago
  Amazon has already bricked a Kindle (and the full user account) because it had "a pirate PDF", according to their automations. Just, don't but from Amazon. Even Alibaba is better.
  - msh 10y ago
    Do you have a reference? Googling dont reveal any cases, only people speculating if they might do it.
    - a3_nm 10y ago
      The closest analogue I know is Amazon remotely wiping books from customer devices when Amazon noticed that they did not have the right to sell them in the first place: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18ama... (Ironically, the books were by Orwell.) There was a lawsuit which was settled http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/techflash/2009/09/amazon_settles_lawsuit_over_deleted_1984.html http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/techflash/2009/09/am... and apologies from Amazon which said they would not do it again (this was in 2009) http://mashable.com/2009/07/17/amazon-remote-delete/ http://mashable.com/2009/07/17/amazon-remote-delete/.
      - NotSammyHagar 10y ago
        Yes, that was a mistake, and they said it was a mistake, and they won't do it again. So you can't use this as a general example of how amazon behaves - unless you are arguing they listen and try to fix mistaken behavior.
        a3_nm 10y ago
abcd_f 10y ago
> A journalist has already reached out to the customer. Then let's hope the journalist won't forget to talk to Garadget as well.
- lightbritefight 10y ago
  Why? He listed his reasons for the ban in the thread. He though the customer was rude, so he disabled the $100 device he sold. Gradget just now deleted a comment recommending contacting Amazon and the US attorney general, and has locked the thread.

CaliforniaKarl 10y ago

According to the Amazon.com page for the item, it ships from and is sold by the manufacturer. So it's not a proper Amazon item, it's an Amazon Marketplace item. In this case, I don't think Amazon even is the retailer, they're just the platform, in the same sense as eBay/PayPal. Also, the guy (presumably guy) has said to return the product for a refund, so things will pretty much be zeroed out, unless the customer doesn't go through with it.

vidarh 10y ago
But this now means that no Amazon reviews of this product are remotely trustworthy for the simple reason that they have made public that bad reviews risks getting your device bricked. To me that means their products are now inherently suspect.

dovdovdov 10y ago

Their domain still leads to an indigogo page. People should avoid startups those use crowdfunding websites as risk free capital gainer preorder pages. They don't get proper investment for a reason.

cyberferret 10y ago
Seriously? What about companies that emphatically don't want to sell off a large percentage of their company and their souls to a board of venture capitalists and the like?
- madeofpalk 10y ago
  Then bootstrap and self-fund.
  - cyberferret 10y ago
    One thing for a software or services based company, but if you are a product based company that needs significant capital investment to get production started, and you haven't got any credit history to be able to get a bank loan, then crowd funding seems to be a legitimate way to go. Plus you get the added bonus of getting marketplace validation from your actual customers if they fork out the money to subscribe to you. First responder to this thread was pretty much lambasting all projects that opt for the crowd funding pathway, which I think is a grossly unfair judgement call.
    - madeofpalk 10y ago
      Then talk to investors to take investment. I don't think its unreasonable that someone who takes a risk on giving you money in your infancy to realise your product should get some equity or something else from it that's more than just a "preorder".
  - quadrangle 10y ago
    It's crazy how many people do not realize that "bootstrap" as in "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" is a sarcastic MOCKERY of that sort of sentiment. It's like we need new idioms. Here's a suggestion: "This poor new mother doesn't need welfare, she can live off her own milk!" I bet it would take a long time before "live off your own milk" degrades to being taken non-sarcastically…
- 10y ago

_pmf_ 10y ago

> I can sympathize with being frustrated with customers. It takes a lot of self-control to remain professional at times. That's why you shell out customer service to disillusioned minimum wage drones: they hate you as much as the customer, which creates a subconscious empathic link.

_Codemonkeyism 10y ago

Amazon lets far worse things go unnoticed, like fake medical products. Why? Because of the money.

tajen 10y ago
Amazon has already bricked a Kindle (and the full user account) because it had "a pirate PDF", according to their automations. Just, don't but from Amazon. Even Alibaba is better.
- msh 10y ago
  Do you have a reference? Googling dont reveal any cases, only people speculating if they might do it.
  - a3_nm 10y ago
    The closest analogue I know is Amazon remotely wiping books from customer devices when Amazon noticed that they did not have the right to sell them in the first place: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18ama... (Ironically, the books were by Orwell.) There was a lawsuit which was settled http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/techflash/2009/09/amazon_settles_lawsuit_over_deleted_1984.html http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/techflash/2009/09/am... and apologies from Amazon which said they would not do it again (this was in 2009) http://mashable.com/2009/07/17/amazon-remote-delete/ http://mashable.com/2009/07/17/amazon-remote-delete/.
    - NotSammyHagar 10y ago
      Yes, that was a mistake, and they said it was a mistake, and they won't do it again. So you can't use this as a general example of how amazon behaves - unless you are arguing they listen and try to fix mistaken behavior.
      - a3_nm 10y ago

abcd_f 10y ago

> A journalist has already reached out to the customer. Then let's hope the journalist won't forget to talk to Garadget as well.

lightbritefight 10y ago
Why? He listed his reasons for the ban in the thread. He though the customer was rude, so he disabled the $100 device he sold. Gradget just now deleted a comment recommending contacting Amazon and the US attorney general, and has locked the thread.