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More specifically, the responsibility for chasing down the manufacturer for a refund is shifted onto the retailer, not the consumer.
by ashtonkem 6y ago
More specifically, the responsibility for chasing down the manufacturer for a refund is shifted onto the retailer, not the consumer.
- briandear 6y agoAnd the retailer has leverage the consumer does not. “Fix this or we don’t sell your stuff.”
- an_opabinia 6y agoHas Amazon systemically refuses refunds for people who try to return counterfeit goods? It definitely doesn’t care if you don’t even notice. But they do the returns if you ask. The former is what needs to change.
- ashtonkem 6y agoI actually had them refuse a return on a blatantly counterfeit set of coffee filters (they were 1/4 size and didn’t even fit the brand they were marked for). Given that it was about $12, I didn’t fight them about it.
- cscurmudgeon 6y agoOnly within their refund period. I have had so many products break down after their return window. Most recent example: Expensive chargers which stopped work within a few months. The seller’s page was gone. Customer support was of no use. This seems to be a common pattern. Fly by night sellers whose pages disappear within a few days.
- x0x0 6y ago"duracell" cr2032s -- those little pancake batteries for your car keyfob -- that die within 4 months. Which is weird, because the duracells at my hardware store last like 5 years.
- ping_pong 6y agoYes, this exact same thing happened to me with cr2032s. Now I'm only buying from trusted retailers who own their inventory.
- yomly 6y agoWhen you buy these fakes from Amazon are they sold by Amazon? Or are they 3P sellers? Or is the problem that FBA sellers are infecting legitimate "sold by Amazon" inventory?
- myself248 6y agoIf Amazon commingles the inventory from unknown supply chains, how can any of it be called "legitimate"?
- yomly 6y agoYeah - FBA is actually a really awful attack vector. I hope that they internally are able to track sub-ASIN level inventory, otherwise they have made a fantastic laundering platform.
- AnssiH 6y agoYes, they are able to track original sources (by never putting commingled units in the same bin), per seller help pages (and e.g. Amazon comments in this article: https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2019/04/03/1554287401000/Amazon--sub-prime---Part-II/ https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2019/04/03/1554287401000/Amazon-...).
- yomly 6y agoYeah fair. There will be all kinds of audits which would be hard if they couldn't do that
- nkrisc 6y agoIf you bought it on Amazon.com and your credit card was charged by Amazon.com, you bought it from Amazon. Consumers shouldn't be concerned with what supplier Amazon gets their inventory from.
- 7952 6y agoI had that happen and the agent advised me to do a chargeback!
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y agoThen Amazon nukes your account.
- the-dude 6y agoWhich account is getting nuked? The buyers or the sellers?
- Natanael_L 6y agoDepending on Amazon's mood that day, the answer might be "yes"
- heavyset_go 6y agoYou can't even report that the reason for your return is that you suspect or know that the item you received is counterfeit during the return process. If Amazon cared about a problem this big, they would collect metrics from customers on it.
- furyg3 6y agoThere may be other reasons (legal) to not want to collect these metrics...
- leoc 6y agoRepeating myself: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19199343 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19199343 > The classic "control fraud" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_fraud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_fraud strategy is to incentivise your subordinates to maximise revenues while "neglecting" to check that they aren't engaging in fraud to do it. Then you can protest your innocence when the fraud comes to light.
- amelius 6y agoWould control fraud work in a company as big as Amazon? If you're that big, then there's a huge probability of a whistleblower or unhappy ex-employee exposing you.
- rodgerd 6y agoWhen Wells Fargo set incentives that were impossible to meet without defrauding customers, yes, they got caught. They fired thousands of tellers.
- coffeefirst 6y agoAbsolutely. The bigger you are the easier it is to claim plausible deniability for each of the "isolated" incidents. If the executives will even meet the people who they've put in this position, it's easier to lose or just never hear the complaints and red flags.
- Alex3917 6y ago> But they do the returns if you ask. Only if you notice within the return window. They wouldn't refund our purchase of The Wire box set (when DVDs were still a thing) unless we got it "authenticated" as being a counterfeit by HBO, and even then they were extremely difficult about it.
- rasz 6y agoreturn? you mean knowingly transport illegal goods across state and international borders? 18 U.S.C. § 2314 (1994)) (indicating that shipping counterfeit merchandise across state lines “may violate laws prohibiting the interstate transportation of stolen property”
- slavik81 6y agoCould you clarify? Looking at the rules here, none of them would seem to apply. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2314 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2314
- rasz 6y agoDont know, google found this as a possible interpretation. Courier services usually have this somewhere in ToS, plus customs will confiscate it and you end up on the hook.
- OscarTheGrinch 6y agoYes, and therefore the retailer is incentivised not to sell junk in the first place. The problem with being an "everything store" is that everything also includes an overwhelming majority of crap, looking at you crappy "genuine sony" camera batteries that held about 10 minutes of charge, fulfilled by amazon.
- throwanem 6y agoYeah, no, you got lucky with that - I found out Amazon can't be trusted with high-ticket items by getting a $1200 lens that turned out to be gray market. Works fine, but I better hope I never need warranty service. Amazon can't be trusted with high-ticket items, including but not limited to camera equipment. Go to B&H or Adorama, or Newegg or Micro Center for high-ticket computer parts (cf. the recent spate of GPU scams), or the like. And - preferably to any of those options - support your local small retailer, if any.
- ikeboy 6y agoEvery retailer you mentioned deals in grey market products. Here's B&H proudly admitting to it: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/find/HelpCenter/USGrey.jsp https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/find/HelpCenter/USGrey.jsp
- acomjean 6y agoYou can buy gray market, and save a few dollars. It’s different when you buy and get grey market unexpectedly.
- ceejayoz 6y ago> For IMP items only, B&H provides a warranty identical to the provisions and limitations of the manufacturer's warranty for such items, with the exception of the time period, which is equal to the term of the manufacturer's warranty or one (1) year, whichever is less.* Your dated B&H sales receipt is all you need to obtain warranty coverage from B&H for a "grey market" product purchased from us. This is not typically the case if you get a grey market lens on Amazon. It's also something you'll be told on the listing.