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This is a totally solved problem. In the normal retail world, sellers are responsible for the defective items they sell, regardless of if they knew or not. If

This is a totally solved problem. In the normal retail world, sellers are responsible for the defective items they sell, regardless of if they knew or not. If you buy a defective thing from best buy, they are responsible. They may turn around and sue the next person up the chain for doing the same (selling it to them). This incentivizes companies to be careful who they buy from. The problem here is that the article refers to them as "third party sellers". They aren't in most cases, amazon just has a large distributed supply chain. If you want amazon to care, make them liable for the stuff sold on their website, the same way best buy is for the stuff in their store. Problem solved. This will not destroy their business - it has not destroyed any other business. It will simply cause them to care.

stronglikedan 7y ago
> If you buy a defective thing from best buy, they are responsible. Not really. They just assume liability for competition's sake. They could effectively tell you to go pound sand, but that would hurt them competitively, so they offer a return policy instead. Same as if you get a defective product from a Craig's List seller - caveat emptor.
- DannyBee 7y ago
  Not sure why you think this, in most states they, for example, cannot waive the implied warranties for consumers which has exactly the effect i said. (there are other laws as well)
kwhitefoot 7y ago
That's how it works in Europe. But when I suggested to a colleague in the US a few years ago that he take a defective disk drive back to Best Buy (or perhaps Newegg) five months after he had bought it he laughed out loud at the absurdity of the idea that the seller would do anything at all.
- DannyBee 7y ago
  He shouldn't have, the minimum period is usually a year. This is one area of the uniform code[1] that states often modify, so it varies as to length. Some are only 90 days, etc. This is also not as well known by consumers as it should be, and obviously, businesses sometimes try to claim otherwise (IE say you have to deal with the manufacturer) But, the law is incredibly consistent about this if you take someone to court. [1] In the US, there is a non-partisan uniform law commission that publishes model laws for states to adopt in various important areas. The main goal is to keep the law of each state similar in areas where that similarity is important to being able to do business across multiple states. Outside of business, they sometimes tackle complex jurisdictional efforts where states would otherwise fight with each other based on their local social/public policy. An example would be the uniform child abduction act, which ensures if a parent who does not have sole custody takes a child across state lines, you don't get into a big fight over where the child should be based on social issues that differ between states. Not all states sign everything, but they get very good uptake on most laws. https://www.uniformlaws.org/home https://www.uniformlaws.org/home

stronglikedan 7y ago

> If you buy a defective thing from best buy, they are responsible. Not really. They just assume liability for competition's sake. They could effectively tell you to go pound sand, but that would hurt them competitively, so they offer a return policy instead. Same as if you get a defective product from a Craig's List seller - caveat emptor.

DannyBee 7y ago
Not sure why you think this, in most states they, for example, cannot waive the implied warranties for consumers which has exactly the effect i said. (there are other laws as well)

kwhitefoot 7y ago

That's how it works in Europe. But when I suggested to a colleague in the US a few years ago that he take a defective disk drive back to Best Buy (or perhaps Newegg) five months after he had bought it he laughed out loud at the absurdity of the idea that the seller would do anything at all.

DannyBee 7y ago
He shouldn't have, the minimum period is usually a year. This is one area of the uniform code[1] that states often modify, so it varies as to length. Some are only 90 days, etc. This is also not as well known by consumers as it should be, and obviously, businesses sometimes try to claim otherwise (IE say you have to deal with the manufacturer) But, the law is incredibly consistent about this if you take someone to court. [1] In the US, there is a non-partisan uniform law commission that publishes model laws for states to adopt in various important areas. The main goal is to keep the law of each state similar in areas where that similarity is important to being able to do business across multiple states. Outside of business, they sometimes tackle complex jurisdictional efforts where states would otherwise fight with each other based on their local social/public policy. An example would be the uniform child abduction act, which ensures if a parent who does not have sole custody takes a child across state lines, you don't get into a big fight over where the child should be based on social issues that differ between states. Not all states sign everything, but they get very good uptake on most laws. https://www.uniformlaws.org/home https://www.uniformlaws.org/home