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I nearly got taken by a scammer because Amazon transferred me to one. I purchased a set of Reolink cameras on Amazon, (they've been great) one of them failed a

I nearly got taken by a scammer because Amazon transferred me to one. I purchased a set of Reolink cameras on Amazon, (they've been great) one of them failed a couple months in. I contacted Amazon customer support (via my Amazon login and in their interface) and they wanted to troubleshoot with their technical team. Eventually the (very helpful) Amazon technician suggested contacting Reolink for support and started a 3-way call. The "Reolink" technician got my phone number and then said they wanted to call me back. They called me back a minute later (now without Amazon recording the conversation) and asked me for my NVR's serial number so they could connect to my NVR. I was shocked they had a backdoor into my NVR but I figured I'd let it play out. A minute later the technician said that he was having trouble connecting because "an internet virus is corrupting my firewall". I was extremely confused and thought it must be a translation problem. Until he kept insisting it was a problem and became belligerent and angry. He said I needed to pay $300 to have an on-site technician troubleshoot the problem. I got angry because he was making some weird excuse for their camera not working, and wanting to charge me rather than just ship me a replacement. I refused and he started mocking me. I demanded his manager and he ignored me. Eventually I hung up and called Amazon back. The Amazon technician was helpful and shipped me a replacement. I contacted Reolink via email to complain about their technician. They responded that they have no on-site technicians and that it was a scam! I was blown away that Amazon would transfer me to a scammer. I contacted Amazon again and let them know what had happened. Hopefully they will figure out how their guy got this scammers phone number and teach him how to find a 3rd party phone number...

Nextgrid 5y ago
> I was blown away that Amazon would transfer me to a scammer. I contacted Amazon again and let them know what had happened. Hopefully they will figure out how their guy got this scammers phone number and teach him how to find a 3rd party phone number... 1) Amazon is complicit in shady behavior on their platform, whether it's inventory commingling, sketchy sellers repurposing existing, well-reviewed listings for a totally different product or those bribing customers to leave good reviews with gift cards or free stuff. 2) The tech support number could very well be provided by the seller, and you could've bought the camera from a listing from said seller instead of the real Reolink (if the "real" Reolink even sells on Amazon to begin with). Maybe tech support scammers are now using this as a new lead-generation tactic ("legitimately" sell a high-maintenance product but scam anyone that calls for support?).
- jjoonathan 5y ago
  Yep. Amazon gets a cut and they act like it.
  - dangus 5y ago
    This is quite a jump to conclusions. The alternative theory of the customer service rep googling a phone number and getting the wrong one is far more likely. Or, it's possible that the company's own seller login was compromised and a scammer changed their contact number. The idea that a wildly successful multi-billion dollar company would actually set up such an easily-noticed system where they "get a cut" of phishing scams is outlandish.
    - danachow 5y ago
      > The alternative theory of the customer service rep googling a phone number and getting the wrong one is far more likely. Their support staff is that reckless and Amazon has no training and other systems in place to prevent that? Your theory doesn’t paint them in any better light.
      - bllguo 5y ago
        it's far more believable than amazon being in cahoots with scammers. whether you think this is "better" or "worse" wasn't really part of the discussion
    - ethanbond 5y ago
      I don't think the "cut" implies they are in on some phishing scam. It's saying they take a cut of all volume, so even volume that's harmful to consumers is hardly worth Amazon's attention (as is evidenced by the obviously massive economy of systematic scamming that happens via Amazon, all of which, again, they get a cut of).
    - daniel-cussen 5y ago
______-_-______ 5y ago
I bet your Amazon rep just searched for Reolink and clicked on a Google ad that happened to belong to the scammers.
- dqv 5y ago
  Well this initiated a rant, not directly related to ads, but Google in general. This is an internet literacy issue I’ve noticed more and more. People will refer to Google listings as an authoritative source even if the data comes from some third party. “Is this Jordan’s Tiles?” “No. This is Patrick. You have the wrong number.” “It says on their website this is the number!” “Their website is wrong, this isn’t Jordan’s Tiles.” more argument with me just hanging up because they’re clueless (someone even had the audacity to ask me what the number was for Jordan’s Tiles like I’m their personal assistant) And finally I went on Google and searched for Jordan’s Tiles. There my number was on the listing and on a third party source. The right number was on the lower ranking Jordan’s Tiles website. They were so argumentative about being so wrong, it was outside of their ability to understand that the internet can and does give you the wrong information.
  - ejb999 5y ago
    I've had that happen to me as well - person finds a wrong number online someplace, calls me, and then is mad at me that I am not who they are looking for...go figure.
    - rolobio 5y ago
      Had this happen to me when I was in IT. I got a cold transfer of an angry customer who wanted to talk to a guy who had a very similar name. I told the customer that they wanted the other guy, I was in the wrong department, and they wouldn’t believe me. They said “I know it’s you from yesterday, I recognize your voice!” How was I supposed to argue against that?? Eventually I convinced them and did a warm transfer to the correct guy. We do have similar voices…
    - rhizome 5y ago
      "Call Google. Ask for Sundar."
switchbak 5y ago
Not an isolated incident. My mother was transferred to an Amazon employee who tried to scam her as well. This was years ago, and I reported it to Amazon. No idea what eventually happened, but I was shocked that they'd be so brazen about committing fraud as an actual employee.
Cd00d 5y ago
I'm blown away that Amazon has phone support! I had no idea!
- MerelyMortal 5y ago
  They don't make it as easy to call as they did in the past though.
overtonwhy 5y ago
Lots of call centers get targeted with this type of scam. I think it's because call center employees are so poorly treated and compensated that it's appealing to join the scam. I've seen the same exact thing happen with QuickBooks support. The actual agent you're speaking with gives your contact info to the scammer who calls you back.
- LegitShady 5y ago
  I've never seen this before but I imagine the call center employee has a lot more to lose being a part of fraud than the scammer who isn't legitimately employed and can't be found. Doesn't seem likely.
carabiner 5y ago
Amazon today is a street side flea market. You really don't know what you'll get. I've started ordering more stuff from traditional retailers. Their online operations these days are really good, and at most a few dollars more than Amazon. Clothes from macys.com, home goods from homedepot.com and target.com, and so on. You're not flooded with choices with these stores that are mostly garbage, instead you get only 1-3 choices that are reputable.
- jimmaswell 5y ago
  These days I'll order certain things from Wal Mart if I'm wary of what I see on Amazon.
- m463 5y ago
  I think ordering on amazon has become a little like getting your car towed. Towing companies appear to be a large shell game where your $200 tow is handled my one or more middlemen who eventually get some poor independent towtruck driver to tow you for $75 Amazon should do something that would allow partnering with decent brands. Customers would be happy, brands could keep their reputation, amazon could get a reasonable cut, and they would still sell stuff via flea-market brands and the made up word-salad amazon brands
  - Spooky23 5y ago
    Tow drivers make a lot of money. They do a lot of subcontracting and mutual aid type arrangements.
    - weq 5y ago
      Towys in my country are usually connected to some kind of mafia. Never met an altruistic one like like matts offroad recovery in my travels.
      - alvah 5y ago
        Same here (Western Australia) and it's closer to $2500 than the $200 mentioned above.
itslennysfault 5y ago
Reason #99,999 that I don't use Amazon anymore. Just buy stuff in-person, pay the shipping, wait the week, or whatever. You'll be fine I promise.
- dheera 5y ago
  Stuff in person costs 2X the price though. Especially bike parts. It's often cheaper to buy from Amazon but never go through troubleshooting support. Always return or replace. If that doesn't work, give a 1 star review, wait for the seller to come chasing you with a gift card in return for 5 stars. Change it to 5 stars, spend the gift card, and then change it back to 1 star.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - craftyguy 5y ago
    As someone why buys a lot of cycling parts online, there are many mom/pop bike shops with web storefronts, that are very reasonably priced and often include "free" shipping. Stop giving bezos your money, you have no excuse.
    - jeromegv 5y ago
      Yeah.. lots of people keep repeating "but its expensive out of amazon!" and they never tried. Sure, you can find cheaper products on Amazon, but once you start looking around, it's definitely not always the case. But people are lazy, they get multiple amazon packages a week, and love to complain about Bezos but do nothing about it.
      - weq 5y ago
        I bought a book on Amazon in 2005, it came (weeks) late, i complained, got sent another, ended up receiving 2 books. It was my last purchase from Amazon. Since then, the only time i see Amazon is on the backend of a scammer. Amazon in my opinion, in every sense, a scam itself. First off, its just morphed from a book store into a upper class ebay. Alibabba became the chinese ebay. I'll pay that drop shipper the money, i got no problem with the conveince they give but realistically whats the point of going through 3 middle men when i can wait an extra week and limit that to 0 or 1.
Galaxeblaffer 5y ago
It's really hard recognizing the image Amazon have in the US compared to my personal experience with amazon.de . The service is stellar, shipping both ways is free as long as you buy products covered by prime. Refunds are with no questions asked (as long as you don't start abusing it i guess). As soon as you go into 3rd party sellers the experience gets muddled, though I've had plenty of good experiences with those as well. There's simply nothing here in Europe that gets even close to what Amazon offers. I really really hope it will never be like the horror stories i see here on HN.
- nattaylor 5y ago
  My US based Amazon experience is like yours with fast shipping and easy refunds/exchanges, so don't lose hope. I guess with 100e6 or so customers, there are bound to be some bad experiences.
- rolobio 5y ago
  Amazon US used to be as you describe. But now its mostly just cheap knockoff stuff. I hardly purchase there anymore. Its really sad because they used to have such a wide selection.
  - monksy 5y ago
    > just cheap knockoff stuff. By that you mean overpriced dropshipping from aliexpress.
    - mitchdoogle 5y ago
      Everything I've seen on AliExpress has a 30-60 day delivery window. Amazon gets it there within a couple days. I don't mind paying a couple extra bucks to get something in 2 days vs 60. And that's not really drop shipping anyway.
  - pmoriarty 5y ago
    Where do you shop instead?
1270018080 5y ago
Amazon hasn't been usable in a long time for me. It takes more time to find non-counterfeit/trash products than it's worth.
dheera 5y ago
> The Amazon technician was helpful and shipped me a replacement. Considering they have a backdoor, why did you want a replacement instead of a refund?
- rolobio 5y ago
  Had they actually had a backdoor, I would have unplugged it from the internet. Clearly the scammer did not have a backdoor.
craftyguy 5y ago
> I was blown away that Amazon would transfer me to a scammer You shouldn't be. The amazon store's core business model is allowing scammers to sell garbage to unsuspecting buyers.
reincarnate0x14 5y ago
Do you know if the original order was from Reolink? If I had to guess, that may have been a questionable reseller, I've seen several cases in which it looks like you're ordering from SomeCorp as fulfilled by Amazon but once you get into the actual order process it shows up as some other seller that was in the "Buying Options" list. Definitely sketchy behavior on Amazon's part, never dealt with the selling side there so no idea if this is sellers gaming Amazon or just awful market platform in general.
ashtonkem 5y ago
Given how many fake products amazon sells and intermingles with legitimate products, it isn’t at all surprising that they forwarded you to a scammer. They just don’t care about protecting their customers, apparently.
- imtringued 5y ago
  They don't care about protecting third party brands. They will definitively make sure their Amazon Basics products are free of scams.
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    For me it’s less about them not caring about third party brands, and more about them not caring about protecting their customers from scams and fakes.
mensetmanusman 5y ago
Apparently Amazon sells smart home lights from China that will not work if they can’t connect to their home servers in China. Be careful out there…
dreamcompiler 5y ago
Slightly OT but I swore off Reolink because as late as two years ago they still required a Flash plugin before you could view camera captures in a web browser. I think they've finally fixed that, but the utter cluelessness of requiring Flash in 2020 left a bad taste in my mouth.
faangiq 5y ago
Keep in mind some manager 1000% got promoted for introducing this “innovative” feature.
eek2121 5y ago
It sounds like you bought a product not sold by Amazon and got transferred to the company in question. Don't buy 3rd party products sold on Amazon. I always tell people this. They ignore me and then stories like yours pop up. NOTE: This applies to prime items as well. Amazon's vetting services for 3rd party sellers is nonexistent. I could literally sell you dog shit right now; with no verification I even exist. I've had a seller account for over a decade, and I've not sold a single item. The Amazon Marketplace is an anonymous Craigslist. Please don't forget that.
- imtringued 5y ago
  >Don't buy 3rd party products sold on Amazon. I always tell people this. They ignore me and then stories like yours pop up. So buy Amazon Basics and nothing else? Also I tried to avoid buying from third party sellers but the Amazon website is so deceptive that you are bound to buy something from a third party seller at some point. There is obviously no option to hide third party sellers because that would solve the problem and Amazon's opinion is the problem shouldn't be solved.
evancoop 5y ago
The question reduces to one of incentives. Scams are extremely easy to initiate, cheap to scale, and once they're sniffed out, extremely easy to replicate with a small variation in location/product/approach. In other words, they're like good software. So...what might curtail the proliferation of scams (besides cruel and unusual punishments)? Decentralization? More factors of authentication?

Nextgrid 5y ago

> I was blown away that Amazon would transfer me to a scammer. I contacted Amazon again and let them know what had happened. Hopefully they will figure out how their guy got this scammers phone number and teach him how to find a 3rd party phone number... 1) Amazon is complicit in shady behavior on their platform, whether it's inventory commingling, sketchy sellers repurposing existing, well-reviewed listings for a totally different product or those bribing customers to leave good reviews with gift cards or free stuff. 2) The tech support number could very well be provided by the seller, and you could've bought the camera from a listing from said seller instead of the real Reolink (if the "real" Reolink even sells on Amazon to begin with). Maybe tech support scammers are now using this as a new lead-generation tactic ("legitimately" sell a high-maintenance product but scam anyone that calls for support?).

jjoonathan 5y ago
Yep. Amazon gets a cut and they act like it.
- dangus 5y ago
  This is quite a jump to conclusions. The alternative theory of the customer service rep googling a phone number and getting the wrong one is far more likely. Or, it's possible that the company's own seller login was compromised and a scammer changed their contact number. The idea that a wildly successful multi-billion dollar company would actually set up such an easily-noticed system where they "get a cut" of phishing scams is outlandish.
  - danachow 5y ago
    > The alternative theory of the customer service rep googling a phone number and getting the wrong one is far more likely. Their support staff is that reckless and Amazon has no training and other systems in place to prevent that? Your theory doesn’t paint them in any better light.
    - bllguo 5y ago
      it's far more believable than amazon being in cahoots with scammers. whether you think this is "better" or "worse" wasn't really part of the discussion
  - ethanbond 5y ago
    I don't think the "cut" implies they are in on some phishing scam. It's saying they take a cut of all volume, so even volume that's harmful to consumers is hardly worth Amazon's attention (as is evidenced by the obviously massive economy of systematic scamming that happens via Amazon, all of which, again, they get a cut of).
  - daniel-cussen 5y ago

______-_-______ 5y ago

I bet your Amazon rep just searched for Reolink and clicked on a Google ad that happened to belong to the scammers.

dqv 5y ago
Well this initiated a rant, not directly related to ads, but Google in general. This is an internet literacy issue I’ve noticed more and more. People will refer to Google listings as an authoritative source even if the data comes from some third party. “Is this Jordan’s Tiles?” “No. This is Patrick. You have the wrong number.” “It says on their website this is the number!” “Their website is wrong, this isn’t Jordan’s Tiles.” more argument with me just hanging up because they’re clueless (someone even had the audacity to ask me what the number was for Jordan’s Tiles like I’m their personal assistant) And finally I went on Google and searched for Jordan’s Tiles. There my number was on the listing and on a third party source. The right number was on the lower ranking Jordan’s Tiles website. They were so argumentative about being so wrong, it was outside of their ability to understand that the internet can and does give you the wrong information.
- ejb999 5y ago
  I've had that happen to me as well - person finds a wrong number online someplace, calls me, and then is mad at me that I am not who they are looking for...go figure.
  - rolobio 5y ago
    Had this happen to me when I was in IT. I got a cold transfer of an angry customer who wanted to talk to a guy who had a very similar name. I told the customer that they wanted the other guy, I was in the wrong department, and they wouldn’t believe me. They said “I know it’s you from yesterday, I recognize your voice!” How was I supposed to argue against that?? Eventually I convinced them and did a warm transfer to the correct guy. We do have similar voices…
  - rhizome 5y ago
    "Call Google. Ask for Sundar."

switchbak 5y ago

Not an isolated incident. My mother was transferred to an Amazon employee who tried to scam her as well. This was years ago, and I reported it to Amazon. No idea what eventually happened, but I was shocked that they'd be so brazen about committing fraud as an actual employee.

Cd00d 5y ago

I'm blown away that Amazon has phone support! I had no idea!

MerelyMortal 5y ago
They don't make it as easy to call as they did in the past though.

overtonwhy 5y ago

Lots of call centers get targeted with this type of scam. I think it's because call center employees are so poorly treated and compensated that it's appealing to join the scam. I've seen the same exact thing happen with QuickBooks support. The actual agent you're speaking with gives your contact info to the scammer who calls you back.

LegitShady 5y ago
I've never seen this before but I imagine the call center employee has a lot more to lose being a part of fraud than the scammer who isn't legitimately employed and can't be found. Doesn't seem likely.

carabiner 5y ago

Amazon today is a street side flea market. You really don't know what you'll get. I've started ordering more stuff from traditional retailers. Their online operations these days are really good, and at most a few dollars more than Amazon. Clothes from macys.com, home goods from homedepot.com and target.com, and so on. You're not flooded with choices with these stores that are mostly garbage, instead you get only 1-3 choices that are reputable.

jimmaswell 5y ago
These days I'll order certain things from Wal Mart if I'm wary of what I see on Amazon.
m463 5y ago
I think ordering on amazon has become a little like getting your car towed. Towing companies appear to be a large shell game where your $200 tow is handled my one or more middlemen who eventually get some poor independent towtruck driver to tow you for $75 Amazon should do something that would allow partnering with decent brands. Customers would be happy, brands could keep their reputation, amazon could get a reasonable cut, and they would still sell stuff via flea-market brands and the made up word-salad amazon brands
- Spooky23 5y ago
  Tow drivers make a lot of money. They do a lot of subcontracting and mutual aid type arrangements.
  - weq 5y ago
    Towys in my country are usually connected to some kind of mafia. Never met an altruistic one like like matts offroad recovery in my travels.
    - alvah 5y ago
      Same here (Western Australia) and it's closer to $2500 than the $200 mentioned above.

itslennysfault 5y ago

Reason #99,999 that I don't use Amazon anymore. Just buy stuff in-person, pay the shipping, wait the week, or whatever. You'll be fine I promise.

dheera 5y ago
Stuff in person costs 2X the price though. Especially bike parts. It's often cheaper to buy from Amazon but never go through troubleshooting support. Always return or replace. If that doesn't work, give a 1 star review, wait for the seller to come chasing you with a gift card in return for 5 stars. Change it to 5 stars, spend the gift card, and then change it back to 1 star.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- craftyguy 5y ago
  As someone why buys a lot of cycling parts online, there are many mom/pop bike shops with web storefronts, that are very reasonably priced and often include "free" shipping. Stop giving bezos your money, you have no excuse.
  - jeromegv 5y ago
    Yeah.. lots of people keep repeating "but its expensive out of amazon!" and they never tried. Sure, you can find cheaper products on Amazon, but once you start looking around, it's definitely not always the case. But people are lazy, they get multiple amazon packages a week, and love to complain about Bezos but do nothing about it.
    - weq 5y ago
      I bought a book on Amazon in 2005, it came (weeks) late, i complained, got sent another, ended up receiving 2 books. It was my last purchase from Amazon. Since then, the only time i see Amazon is on the backend of a scammer. Amazon in my opinion, in every sense, a scam itself. First off, its just morphed from a book store into a upper class ebay. Alibabba became the chinese ebay. I'll pay that drop shipper the money, i got no problem with the conveince they give but realistically whats the point of going through 3 middle men when i can wait an extra week and limit that to 0 or 1.

Galaxeblaffer 5y ago

It's really hard recognizing the image Amazon have in the US compared to my personal experience with amazon.de . The service is stellar, shipping both ways is free as long as you buy products covered by prime. Refunds are with no questions asked (as long as you don't start abusing it i guess). As soon as you go into 3rd party sellers the experience gets muddled, though I've had plenty of good experiences with those as well. There's simply nothing here in Europe that gets even close to what Amazon offers. I really really hope it will never be like the horror stories i see here on HN.

nattaylor 5y ago
My US based Amazon experience is like yours with fast shipping and easy refunds/exchanges, so don't lose hope. I guess with 100e6 or so customers, there are bound to be some bad experiences.
rolobio 5y ago
Amazon US used to be as you describe. But now its mostly just cheap knockoff stuff. I hardly purchase there anymore. Its really sad because they used to have such a wide selection.
- monksy 5y ago
  > just cheap knockoff stuff. By that you mean overpriced dropshipping from aliexpress.
  - mitchdoogle 5y ago
    Everything I've seen on AliExpress has a 30-60 day delivery window. Amazon gets it there within a couple days. I don't mind paying a couple extra bucks to get something in 2 days vs 60. And that's not really drop shipping anyway.
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  Where do you shop instead?

1270018080 5y ago

Amazon hasn't been usable in a long time for me. It takes more time to find non-counterfeit/trash products than it's worth.

dheera 5y ago

> The Amazon technician was helpful and shipped me a replacement. Considering they have a backdoor, why did you want a replacement instead of a refund?

rolobio 5y ago
Had they actually had a backdoor, I would have unplugged it from the internet. Clearly the scammer did not have a backdoor.

craftyguy 5y ago

> I was blown away that Amazon would transfer me to a scammer You shouldn't be. The amazon store's core business model is allowing scammers to sell garbage to unsuspecting buyers.

reincarnate0x14 5y ago

Do you know if the original order was from Reolink? If I had to guess, that may have been a questionable reseller, I've seen several cases in which it looks like you're ordering from SomeCorp as fulfilled by Amazon but once you get into the actual order process it shows up as some other seller that was in the "Buying Options" list. Definitely sketchy behavior on Amazon's part, never dealt with the selling side there so no idea if this is sellers gaming Amazon or just awful market platform in general.

ashtonkem 5y ago

Given how many fake products amazon sells and intermingles with legitimate products, it isn’t at all surprising that they forwarded you to a scammer. They just don’t care about protecting their customers, apparently.

imtringued 5y ago
They don't care about protecting third party brands. They will definitively make sure their Amazon Basics products are free of scams.
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  For me it’s less about them not caring about third party brands, and more about them not caring about protecting their customers from scams and fakes.

mensetmanusman 5y ago

Apparently Amazon sells smart home lights from China that will not work if they can’t connect to their home servers in China. Be careful out there…

dreamcompiler 5y ago

Slightly OT but I swore off Reolink because as late as two years ago they still required a Flash plugin before you could view camera captures in a web browser. I think they've finally fixed that, but the utter cluelessness of requiring Flash in 2020 left a bad taste in my mouth.

faangiq 5y ago

Keep in mind some manager 1000% got promoted for introducing this “innovative” feature.

eek2121 5y ago

It sounds like you bought a product not sold by Amazon and got transferred to the company in question. Don't buy 3rd party products sold on Amazon. I always tell people this. They ignore me and then stories like yours pop up. NOTE: This applies to prime items as well. Amazon's vetting services for 3rd party sellers is nonexistent. I could literally sell you dog shit right now; with no verification I even exist. I've had a seller account for over a decade, and I've not sold a single item. The Amazon Marketplace is an anonymous Craigslist. Please don't forget that.

imtringued 5y ago
>Don't buy 3rd party products sold on Amazon. I always tell people this. They ignore me and then stories like yours pop up. So buy Amazon Basics and nothing else? Also I tried to avoid buying from third party sellers but the Amazon website is so deceptive that you are bound to buy something from a third party seller at some point. There is obviously no option to hide third party sellers because that would solve the problem and Amazon's opinion is the problem shouldn't be solved.

evancoop 5y ago

The question reduces to one of incentives. Scams are extremely easy to initiate, cheap to scale, and once they're sniffed out, extremely easy to replicate with a small variation in location/product/approach. In other words, they're like good software. So...what might curtail the proliferation of scams (besides cruel and unusual punishments)? Decentralization? More factors of authentication?