7 ms·
The majority of listings are cheap rebranded junk from brands with random six letter all caps names. Or in this case, cheap fake junk. Amazon doesn't care. Th
by dc3k 4y ago
The majority of listings are cheap rebranded junk from brands with random six letter all caps names. Or in this case, cheap fake junk.
Amazon doesn't care.
They don't care about the flood of fake reviews
They don't care that sellers get a pile of 5-star reviews, then re-use the same listing to sell something completely different
They also don't seem to care what the words "free", "two-day", and "guaranteed" mean either, because I am constantly given the option of "FREE two-day shipping" that 1) I am paying for and 2) has a delivery date 9 days in the future. The "guaranteed delivery date" changes between when I order and when the thing ships _every time_ and I complain to support chat and get $5 off my order _every time_
It's garbage all the way down.
- medion 4y agoSo… stop using it?
- blowski 4y agoI do now get books from a local bookshop, cables direct from Anker, electronics from a UK high street chain, etc. But sometimes, due to Amazon's monopolistic behaviour, there are times when Amazon is the only choice.
- bushbaba 4y agoI think the problem is harder than you make out. How do you expect them to combat this while still allowing new sellers to have vast reach.
- blowski 4y agoIf I opened a shop on the high street selling fake hard drives I’d be shut down. Why does Amazon get a pass simply because they’re doing it at scale?
- fshbbdssbbgdd 4y agoWhere I live in the US there are flea markets with stalls selling fake electronics like they have on Amazon. Neither the stalls nor the flea markets get shut down.
- TeMPOraL 4y agoBut is Amazon a flea market or a mall?
- chii 4y ago> If I opened a shop on the high street selling fake hard drives I’d be shut down so who's doing the shutting down?
- p-e-w 4y agoThe law, which applies to everyone except companies like Amazon for some reason.
- themitigating 4y agoWhat law?
- bogantech 4y agoTrademark, FCC and other safety regulations etc
- mcv 4y agoI would really hope the US has some consumer protection laws. If it doesn't, they should address that. Are these fake items also accessible from the EU? I'd expect the EU wouldn't take kindly to these sort of scams.
- gambiting 4y agoWell, they do show up in UK Amazon, page 2 of results after searching for "portable SSD" https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mobile-External-Portable-Storage-Laptop/dp/B0BMXL4KC9/ref=sr_1_25?crid=4PC17KHOC9F1&keywords=portable+ssd&qid=1673944052&sprefix=portable+ssd%2Caps%2C72&sr=8-25 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mobile-External-Portable-Storage-La...
- blowski 4y agoYes. I searched for 16TB SSD drive” on UK Amazon, and quite a few £90 models matching the description were there.
- hnbad 4y ago
- hef19898 4y agoI never stumbled across one of those offerings, but are those fake SSDs sold by Amazon or by a marketplace vendor? Because Amazon's management of its marketplace can only be described as hands-off at best, but legally they are not the seller.
- blowski 4y agoHow many people say "Oh no, I didn't buy this from Amazon, I bought it from Amazon _Marketplace_"? I've never heard anyone say it, so perhaps it's a rather technical distinction. Amazon is paid to list it (they're "sponsored listings"), store it, deliver it, and profits from the sale. I think we can hold them accountable for the sale. It's somewhat akin to how "handling stolen goods" is just as much a crime as stealing them in the first place. If Amazon can't guarantee what they're selling, they shouldn't be selling it.
- viraptor 4y agoThe long tail can be hard to deal with, but let's not talk about the problem being hard until they start dealing with at least the trivial stuff: obvious scams and item swaps. Right now they just ignore the issues.
- causality0 4y agoThe same way every other site on the internet does: a report button.
- manicdee 4y agoIt’s the fish John West rejects that makes them the best. I expect Amazon to control quality so that new sellers will have vast reach instead of Amazon becoming a toxic swamp that nobody goes near.
- Herbstluft 4y ago> allowing new sellers to have vast reach Right now new sellers do not stand a chance unless they work in a niche (and even then you can't find anything on Amazon anymore unless you already know brand name + model name). These fake/spam sellers are clogging up everything. Amazon could easily combat this, maybe not 100%, but 1-2 quality well trained human moderators (nothing outsourced, only focused on this single job, no other support roles) would probably be enough to signicantly improve the situation. I am going to make the claim that I could clean up a product category by myself in a few hours.
- tjoff 4y agoOn top of that they have a horrendous site and shopping experience. That people choose to go to amazon is beyond me. Don't you have other options?
- davidwritesbugs 4y agoNot to mention the bizarrely bad search engine which is so utterly useless it can only be deliberately bad. This is an example of the consequences of monopoly you've nowhere else to go so they can ignore your dissatisfaction.
- DocTomoe 4y agoIn 20 years of me being a customer with Amazon, I have never once had a problem with them. Returns are quick and easy. Payment systems work. I can't say the same for other stores. And thus, other stores successively lost my business (with the exception of some seriously fringe stuff, like speciality tea, electronics components ... and computer parts)
- Semaphor 4y agoThe same for me, and the interface is actually better than many websites, including pretty much all larger warehouse-style stores.
- quijoteuniv 4y agoYes, this is the problem. They are convenient for the customer. It does not mean that their business model is close to what man can call «evil»
- DocTomoe 4y agoTo be fair, that's the problem with OTHER vendors, not with them. They would have been free to put the customer first as well, but chose not to. Why should I as the customer accept subpar service just because the only place I get decent one is morally ambiguous to some people?
- 4y ago
- edf13 4y agoTheir seller systems are complete garbage too - a real jumbled mess of options scattered through various pages that have been upgraded by different parties over the years!
- Traubenfuchs 4y agoIt's funny to end up in interfaces/UIs of previous generations. Like today I wanted to stop part of an order I just made and ended up in some old legacy view to select which item order I wanted to revoke. It would probably be little work to renew this page, at least adapt it visually to the current design. But they just don't care. That wouldn't create value I suppose.
- xerxesaa 4y agoWhile you may be right, I can tell you from experience that what seems simple can sometimes be embarrassingly complicated at Amazon. I previously worked there and my team once spent 2 months adding a new option in a dropdown box. This was on one of the seller-facing pages. There are parts of Amazon that have a ton of legacy code and ownership between those systems can be a real mess.
- madaxe_again 4y agoIt isn’t that Amazon don’t care - it’s that this is what consumers demand and are most happy with. Most people will never realise they’ve em been defrauded - they'll just be happy with the deal they got on their 16TB SSD. Heck, if you opened it up and showed them that they had been defrauded, they would likely be angry with you, not Amazon. I mean, if this isn’t the case, explain politics to me.
- TeMPOraL 4y ago> It isn’t that Amazon don’t care - it’s that this is what consumers demand and are most happy with. No, it's not. Customers don't have a say in this; they choose out of what's available, accepting what they can get, because they're not able to communicate their preferences, and are easily duped by the vendors who understand the space better than them. > I mean, if this isn’t the case, explain politics to me. People don't have a say in this; they choose out of what's available, accepting what they can get, because they're not able to communicate their preferences, and are easily duped by the politicians who understand the space better than them. The general population has very little agency on the mass market and in the political process.
- madaxe_again 4y agoIt’s minmax - at what point do you hit optimal balance between consumer contentment and cheapness of goods, and thereby maximise your revenue? The answer is by deceiving the consumer. The only variable is by what degree, and in some categories, the degree can be egregious. In others, it’s smaller (“100% juice!”, “full self driving”, “unlimited data!”). This is why I say it’s what consumers want - as the market demonstrates it to be so, otherwise this would not exist. It’s the same in politics. How much can you get away with before they squeak? Turns out, an awful lot.
- TeMPOraL 4y agoYou switched from "what consumers want" to "get away with" in the last paragraph. But those two phrases are not synonymous. Consumers "getting what they want" implies their actual preferences are being fulfilled. But they're not. Instead of getting what they want, the consumers get worst possible things the sellers can get away with ("what the market can bear", I guess) - and they can get away with quite a lot, thanks to deception you mention. My objection is with saying consumers "get what they want", because it has opposite connotations to what really happens.
- herbst 4y agoAliExpress recently introduced 15 day shipping. You instantly get your money back shouldn't it arrive. Support and mediation being way faster and more customer oriented anyway. No idea why people use Amazon to buy china trash, when they could buy the trash themself at at least half the price.
- nixass 4y ago>No idea why people use Amazon to buy china trash No idea why people buy trash at all. Also I've no idea how are people unable to browse, filter products and read "sold by" information. I personally don't buy anything that's not "sold by Amazon" or at least "fulfilled by Amazon". If such product doesn't exist there I go elsewhere. Simple
- herbst 4y agoSold by Amazon just means that someone is warehousing his china trash with Amazon. This just increases the minimal markup (so the price) but not the average product quality. Even some Amazon branded products are just obvious rebranded China trash.
- nixass 4y agoNo "fulfilled by Amazon" means that someone is warehousing his china trash with Amazon. Sold by Amazon is both warehoused and fulfilled by Amazon
- zzleeper 4y agoI've switched away from Amazon. Used it since maybe 2006, and loved it back then, but as you say, garbage. In contrast, most other online stores (the ones I use, selling their own good quality products, not wish/ali) are now a pleasure to use, with fast and very cheap shipping.
- BMorearty 4y agoI would like to...but when I want to buy some random product and the first thing I need to do is find a store that sells it, and then I add the product to my cart on that store and check out, and then it shows me a shipping price that's MORE than the product I'm buying, and takes 10 days to deliver...I end up heading back to Amazon. :(
- KingOfCoders 4y agoSame here, been a user from the beginning, but switched away as I was only getting used hardware (in Germany) when ordering and being sold new Amazon hardware.