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I shopped on Amazon for many years. I never had problems until around the time of COVID19. It seems to be a cesspool of scammers and conartists now. Amazon does

I shopped on Amazon for many years. I never had problems until around the time of COVID19. It seems to be a cesspool of scammers and conartists now. Amazon doesn't do much of anything about it either. I'm out a couple hundred bucks. I'm kind of annoyed. I need a reliable place to order stuff. Aliexpress and eBay seem ahead of Amazon now. That's bad. My favorite scam: Futures. Sellers will sell low-availability things at (slightly) inflated prices and long ship times. If prices go down, you get the product. If prices go up, they refund you. It's too complex for Amazon minimum wage drones to understand why this is a scam, so you can't do anything about it. Amazon wouldn't refund my Prime, which renewed around the time of COVID19, and which hasn't really worked. That's turning into a scam too.

JKCalhoun 6y ago
> Aliexpress and eBay seem ahead of Amazon now. Wow, that is bad.
tehlike 6y ago
File a dispute with your bank.
- kube-system 6y ago
  If you do that, you'll never have to worry about getting scammed at Amazon again, since they'll probably close your account.
  - tehlike 6y ago
    "Amazon wouldn't refund my Prime" -> I assumed this was to close account :) And i believe they wouldn't close the account.
    - kube-system 6y ago
      Why would you assume that? A prime subscription is not a requirement for an Amazon account. It seems to me they were saying that they didn't want to pay for expedited shipping if Amazon couldn't provide expedited shipping. And it is fairly common for online retailers to ban accounts that do charge-backs. Amazon will ban people for having too many returns.
  - grugagag 6y ago
    Ok, then open another one. It is a bit time consuming but at least you don't take the loss.
    - kube-system 6y ago
      It's not that easy, Amazon closes accounts that attempt to evade their bans too, by cross referencing shipping addresses, names, emails, credit cards, IP addresses, etc.
jedberg 6y ago
> It's too complex for Amazon minimum wage drones to understand why this is a scam, so you can't do anything about it. Too be fair, it's not exactly a scam. No one is really being cheated out of anything. It's annoying for sure, but there is no deception.
- sukilot 6y ago
  Charging the card and not yet shipping is a scam.
  - jedberg 6y ago
    But they don't charge the card until they ship.
    - shiftpgdn 6y ago
      Yes but they tie up the opportunity to charge the card for weeks on end while you try to get them to ship or have Amazon cancel it. Imagine buying a $500 widget and the seller delays and delays. You decide to order elsewhere and then finally the seller fulfills the order. You are now committed to $1000 of widget when you only wanted one.
      - jedberg 6y ago
        But when you buy from the second vendor you can just cancel the first order. Amazon lets you cancel any time before shipment. They don't do pre-auths on the card either.
- stefs 6y ago
  imo it's a bit like an auction where the seller can accept or refuse to honor the outcome, depending on the highest bid. but is there actually "no deception"? i mean, if i order something i'm usually reasonally sure i'll actually get the product. them not honoring their side of the contract does seem like deception.
- gibba999 6y ago
kube-system 6y ago
I switched mainly to eBay a few years ago. No inventory commingling, and the users generally post seller reviews associated with the seller instead of on a generic product page.

JKCalhoun 6y ago

> Aliexpress and eBay seem ahead of Amazon now. Wow, that is bad.

tehlike 6y ago

File a dispute with your bank.

kube-system 6y ago
If you do that, you'll never have to worry about getting scammed at Amazon again, since they'll probably close your account.
- tehlike 6y ago
  "Amazon wouldn't refund my Prime" -> I assumed this was to close account :) And i believe they wouldn't close the account.
  - kube-system 6y ago
    Why would you assume that? A prime subscription is not a requirement for an Amazon account. It seems to me they were saying that they didn't want to pay for expedited shipping if Amazon couldn't provide expedited shipping. And it is fairly common for online retailers to ban accounts that do charge-backs. Amazon will ban people for having too many returns.
- grugagag 6y ago
  Ok, then open another one. It is a bit time consuming but at least you don't take the loss.
  - kube-system 6y ago
    It's not that easy, Amazon closes accounts that attempt to evade their bans too, by cross referencing shipping addresses, names, emails, credit cards, IP addresses, etc.

jedberg 6y ago

> It's too complex for Amazon minimum wage drones to understand why this is a scam, so you can't do anything about it. Too be fair, it's not exactly a scam. No one is really being cheated out of anything. It's annoying for sure, but there is no deception.

sukilot 6y ago
Charging the card and not yet shipping is a scam.
- jedberg 6y ago
  But they don't charge the card until they ship.
  - shiftpgdn 6y ago
    Yes but they tie up the opportunity to charge the card for weeks on end while you try to get them to ship or have Amazon cancel it. Imagine buying a $500 widget and the seller delays and delays. You decide to order elsewhere and then finally the seller fulfills the order. You are now committed to $1000 of widget when you only wanted one.
    - jedberg 6y ago
      But when you buy from the second vendor you can just cancel the first order. Amazon lets you cancel any time before shipment. They don't do pre-auths on the card either.
stefs 6y ago
imo it's a bit like an auction where the seller can accept or refuse to honor the outcome, depending on the highest bid. but is there actually "no deception"? i mean, if i order something i'm usually reasonally sure i'll actually get the product. them not honoring their side of the contract does seem like deception.
gibba999 6y ago

kube-system 6y ago

I switched mainly to eBay a few years ago. No inventory commingling, and the users generally post seller reviews associated with the seller instead of on a generic product page.