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The problem seems to exclusively affect HN commenters, who have the remarkable misfortune of having every single item they buy off Amazon turn out to be counter

The problem seems to exclusively affect HN commenters, who have the remarkable misfortune of having every single item they buy off Amazon turn out to be counterfeit. It's a total scourge on the community of HN but miraculously doesn't seem to affect anyone else. Occasionally I'll see a broken-English listing from a third-party seller advertising a $800 camera for $200, but when that happens I just...don't purchase the obvious counterfeit product.

ghaff 8y ago
I suspect there’s something to what you say. People buying on price are more likely to hit counterfeits. It’s also statistics. With a large enough population, some people are going to get unlucky purely by chance.
whack 8y ago
But how else can I be a disruptive hacker if I don't buy $800 cameras for $200?
MagicPropmaker 8y ago
I've gotten counterfeit Brita water filters and counterfeit SanDisk USB drives. And, no, I wasn't trying to find a "bargain". See this article in the Atlantic about the problem -- it's not just a bunch of crazy HN zealots: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/04/amazon-may-have-a-counterfeit-problem/558482/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/04/amazo... @dang -- can you ban this user for his unhelpful comments that mock real people with real problems?
nordsieck 8y ago
> The problem seems to exclusively affect HN commenters, who have the remarkable misfortune of having every single item they buy off Amazon turn out to be counterfeit. It's a total scourge on the community of HN but miraculously doesn't seem to affect anyone else. I'm sure that much of the anecdata on HN unfairly paints Amazon in an poor light in regards to counterfeit goods. At the same time, I suspect that many, many people have bought counterfeit goods on Amazon and don't realize it.
rjf72 8y ago
One side issue you'll run into when discussing things like this is a major response bias. People who have neutral or good experiences are far less to chime in saying as much. By contrast you'll have a very large percentage of anybody who ever had a negative experience say something. Like I suspect the vast majority of people, I've ordered plenty of items from Amazon and also never run into a single counterfeit. --- As a tangent, you could also apply this same bias to driving the things like the division in social media. People surround themselves with people of the same affection and biases which, in turn, ends up being seen from their perspective as 'normal' which, in turn, drives radicalism since their distorted perspective creates a false reality.
Accacin 8y ago
So I've been using Amazon for years, and only had a bad experience once. I always used to use Anker products, especially their screen protectors that were cheap and worked well enough. I ordered the exact same listing maybe 4 or 5 times (at the top it would say 'You ordered this item on XX.XX.XXXX) and the sixth time I ordered it, what turned up wasn't Anker at all, and wasnt' even pretending to be. The pack was completely different and this was from a store listed as 'Anker'. Of course, Amazon refunded and sent the correct item but it does happen.

ghaff 8y ago

I suspect there’s something to what you say. People buying on price are more likely to hit counterfeits. It’s also statistics. With a large enough population, some people are going to get unlucky purely by chance.

whack 8y ago

But how else can I be a disruptive hacker if I don't buy $800 cameras for $200?

MagicPropmaker 8y ago

I've gotten counterfeit Brita water filters and counterfeit SanDisk USB drives. And, no, I wasn't trying to find a "bargain". See this article in the Atlantic about the problem -- it's not just a bunch of crazy HN zealots: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/04/amazon-may-have-a-counterfeit-problem/558482/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/04/amazo... @dang -- can you ban this user for his unhelpful comments that mock real people with real problems?

nordsieck 8y ago

> The problem seems to exclusively affect HN commenters, who have the remarkable misfortune of having every single item they buy off Amazon turn out to be counterfeit. It's a total scourge on the community of HN but miraculously doesn't seem to affect anyone else. I'm sure that much of the anecdata on HN unfairly paints Amazon in an poor light in regards to counterfeit goods. At the same time, I suspect that many, many people have bought counterfeit goods on Amazon and don't realize it.

rjf72 8y ago

One side issue you'll run into when discussing things like this is a major response bias. People who have neutral or good experiences are far less to chime in saying as much. By contrast you'll have a very large percentage of anybody who ever had a negative experience say something. Like I suspect the vast majority of people, I've ordered plenty of items from Amazon and also never run into a single counterfeit. --- As a tangent, you could also apply this same bias to driving the things like the division in social media. People surround themselves with people of the same affection and biases which, in turn, ends up being seen from their perspective as 'normal' which, in turn, drives radicalism since their distorted perspective creates a false reality.

Accacin 8y ago

So I've been using Amazon for years, and only had a bad experience once. I always used to use Anker products, especially their screen protectors that were cheap and worked well enough. I ordered the exact same listing maybe 4 or 5 times (at the top it would say 'You ordered this item on XX.XX.XXXX) and the sixth time I ordered it, what turned up wasn't Anker at all, and wasnt' even pretending to be. The pack was completely different and this was from a store listed as 'Anker'. Of course, Amazon refunded and sent the correct item but it does happen.