5 ms·

Yeah I agree, but I think the problem is that Amazon doesn't know who the bad actors are. To actually verify all the goods would require an enormous amount of p

Yeah I agree, but I think the problem is that Amazon doesn't know who the bad actors are. To actually verify all the goods would require an enormous amount of physical checking, requiring an enormous amount of staff trained to tell a good raincoat from a piece of shit one (a week of wearing?), compounded by bad actors simply shifting identities. It's a similar problem to Facebook not being able to tame disinformation: how can a trust based system police maleficence at scale?

FireBeyond 7y ago
They can start to isolate and A/B test. Banks look for common merchants in cases of credit card theft... Seller A is a seller-in-common of 5 counterfeit goods, they're a likely candidate. Even if you can't demonstrate it immediately, you can then start to bin out their stuff. High index that that seller is counterfeiting/selling it? Start un-mingling their stuff, internally - you don't -need- to physically verify authenticity, but if you're unmingling their stuff due to suspicion they're a bad actor and you keep getting complaints... probably a good sign. > compounded by bad actors simply shifting identities Identities have to keep getting paid. Start requiring ACH/EBT payments only for those actors (i.e. no more checks or whatever). They might be able to keep 'creating' identities - it might be harder to keep creating bank accounts.
badlucklottery 7y ago
Fixing commingling doesn't involving solving the underlying bad seller problem. It just draws a line for savvy users between known-good sellers and the wild west.
petra 7y ago
Rfid tags have reached a cost of one-cent, at least according to this: http://www.smart-alliance.com/en/news_ms_2883.html http://www.smart-alliance.com/en/news_ms_2883.html At this point, it's possible to put the on most/all commingled products and automatically verify authenticity. How hard are those to fake, btw?

FireBeyond 7y ago

They can start to isolate and A/B test. Banks look for common merchants in cases of credit card theft... Seller A is a seller-in-common of 5 counterfeit goods, they're a likely candidate. Even if you can't demonstrate it immediately, you can then start to bin out their stuff. High index that that seller is counterfeiting/selling it? Start un-mingling their stuff, internally - you don't -need- to physically verify authenticity, but if you're unmingling their stuff due to suspicion they're a bad actor and you keep getting complaints... probably a good sign. > compounded by bad actors simply shifting identities Identities have to keep getting paid. Start requiring ACH/EBT payments only for those actors (i.e. no more checks or whatever). They might be able to keep 'creating' identities - it might be harder to keep creating bank accounts.

badlucklottery 7y ago

Fixing commingling doesn't involving solving the underlying bad seller problem. It just draws a line for savvy users between known-good sellers and the wild west.

petra 7y ago

Rfid tags have reached a cost of one-cent, at least according to this: http://www.smart-alliance.com/en/news_ms_2883.html http://www.smart-alliance.com/en/news_ms_2883.html At this point, it's possible to put the on most/all commingled products and automatically verify authenticity. How hard are those to fake, btw?