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My (anecdotal) experience with dodgy sellers was this: I bought something that didn't work correctly, I left a review. The seller contacted me and offered money
by bloopernova 8y ago
My (anecdotal) experience with dodgy sellers was this: I bought something that didn't work correctly, I left a review. The seller contacted me and offered money direct to paypal, bypassing Amazon. They did so by attaching an image with the offer to the ticket.
I wasn't comfortable with that kind of interaction, so I informed Amazon. Lots of copious apologies from Amazon, and I assume the company was "fired". But the company just changed their name slightly and are still selling the same items.
- ineedasername 8y agoWith the ability to create fake reviews that can (far) outnumber the negative, I'm surprised sellers bother that much like this... I wonder if a legitimate negative review somehow has more "signal to noise" in it in terms of how it's shown and received by buyers.
- bloopernova 8y agoIt's gotten to the point where I won't buy from sellers with names that look like they're from a password generator set to "letters only, human pronounceable" I did send amazon fraud dept a detailed email about my experiences and the new company selling the exact same items. Amazon needs to have a vastly larger fraud department staffed with actual humans, instead of automated systems that people can game very easily. Or offer bounties to customers for successful fraud removals. Although people would probably game that too.
- CamelCaseName 8y agoYou want to know the best way, in my experience, to see if an Amazon seller is legitimate? Check if their seller name is trademarked with the USPTO. Trademarks take 9 months to get, and aren't necessary to sell on Amazon, but a real business will usually trademark its name.
- bloopernova 8y agoThat sounds like a Firefox/Chrome extension waiting to be written ;)
- CamelCaseName 8y agoHuh. Great idea. I'll let you know when it's done.
- GhostVII 8y agoHow much money were they offering? I definitely would have taken it, and then re-posted the same review a day later.
- sigfubar 8y agoI was just thinking the same thing. Street taught me that criminals can be victimized to no end because they won’t call the police no matter what.
- joering2 8y agoThey wouldnt call the police. They would simply open Paypal dispute and tell paypal that he agreed to remove his review for money and now he posted it again.
- ilovetux 8y agowhile that's true in a lot of cases, I'd be careful. calling the police is far from the only recourse available to people.
- InGodsName 8y agoI think PayPal will freeze your account if you do this.
- oh_sigh 8y agoHow exactly would they do that? Beyond Paypal just doing whatever they want whenever they want.
- bloopernova 8y agoThey were offering a refund of what I had paid. I really wasn't comfortable with giving them my paypal address.
- siruncledrew 8y agoI would take the refund too, but some other avenue than Paypal. For all the buyer knows, the seller could have been using a stolen Paypal account that would have been charged back via a dispute by the victim, and the buyer would be SOL. The seller could also refund the buyer and still open a dispute with Paypal to claim a chargeback. It's suspicious the seller strongly wants to avoid using Amazon for refunds. I'm not a crypto-fanatic, but I would have pushed the seller to send money to a crypto wallet address, and then I would have immediately withdrawn it to a bank account. Then still posted the bad review of the seller anyways.