12 ms·

10TB portable SSDs on Amazon UK are scams

197 points by AlexMuir 4y ago

throwaway67743 4y ago
Since Amazon won't actually bother dealing with any of the counterfeit products they encourage selling, it seems like the only solution is to buy en-mass and return repeatedly (since its a fake item, it's at their cost in most parts of the world)
AlexMuir 4y ago
Went looking for an SSD earlier - the "SD-card in a box" scam is going great guns on there. Must be selling hundreds a week. Not just the ludicrous 10TB, but also 2TB. https://www.amazon.co.uk/LuBanSir-External-Design-Portable-Compatible/dp/B0BMP83X8Y/ https://www.amazon.co.uk/LuBanSir-External-Design-Portable-C... Note the reviews refer to all different stuff - phone chargers, arm slings, extension cord organisers. What a total shitshow.
- voidwtf 4y ago
  This is among greatest abuse Amazon allows in its product listings. Any change to a page should reset the reviews unless otherwise vetted by an Amazon employee. Changes shouldn't be material in nature, only corrections. A new revision/version of a product IS NOT THE SAME PRODUCT. Different product == different listing.
  - duskwuff 4y ago
    That might be going a little far. Adding an extra-large size to a listing for a T-shirt (for example) shouldn't invalidate all of the existing reviews. A more targeted approach might be to disallow sellers from adding variants to products which are not currently for sale. I suspect that would cut down on most of the abuse.
    - agumonkey 4y ago
      fair point, that said it would take amazon a blip of resources to have some NLP diff to delay validation of title changes that are too strange
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      > Adding an extra-large size to a listing for a T-shirt (for example) shouldn’t invalidate all of the existing reviews. If you want to deal with this problem rather than channel more of it into a place some of it already goes, it should, because completely different products are added as “sizes” or “colors” of existing products already. If you add a review fraud control and leave this an escape hatch, well, the results are predictable.
    - Gigachad 4y ago
      Adding something should trigger a manual review by an amazon employee.
    - Oxidation 4y ago
      An instant ban for vendors detected and confirmed to be doing this. Amazon has plenty of ability to deal with this, from a ML detection system to human validation. They just don't want to.
      - bragr 4y ago
        They do, but they just pop up as a different seller under a different name with a different business address and the cycle goes on. That's why all the sellers have weird names and make no effort to drive any sort of brand awareness or loyalty.
        Oxidation 4y ago
        All that tech, platforms, manpower and literally all the backend data about it (access patterns, descriptions, sales, back accounts, user agents, IPs, everything) and they can't detect something that's blindingly obvious to anyone paying attention?
  - nickthegreek 4y ago
    That would be an easy way to get rid of negative reviews.
    - actionfromafar 4y ago
      There already is an easy way to get rid of negative reviews. Just create a new product. That’s what they do.
- duskwuff 4y ago
  > Note the reviews refer to all different stuff - phone chargers, arm slings, extension cord organisers. What a total shitshow. This is an exploit which has been abused for years -- as I understand it, Amazon sellers can list their products as a "variant" of another, often unrelated, product which is no longer available for sale. When they do so, their product inherits all of the reviews from the previous product, and no obvious indication is given that the other variant ever existed (because it's not available).
  - phpisthebest 4y ago
    Yep a "legit" example of this is Dymo, the Dymo 550 added DRM Paper (yes DRM paper) to the product, but they listed the 550 as a variant of the 450 which was not DRM, all of the great 450 reviews followed to the new 550 trash product that no one should ever buy...
  - sdenton4 4y ago
    This should be preeeetty trivial to build a classifier for... At least to reduce the need for human review to only the egregious examples.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  Sometimes I wonder if I've been taken. The only external SSDs I've bought from Amazon were brand name Samsungs, sold-by-and-shipped-from Amazon, but both have been flakey and one failed outright. I should open them up and see if they're just really good counterfeits.
  - bragr 4y ago
    >I should open them up and see if they're just really good counterfeits They could be legit and failed QA in the factory (flaky after all) but they "fell off a truck" on the way to the electronics recycler and ended up for sale. Semi-counterfeit "3rd shift" products that are made off the books on the official line, often with lower or nonexistent QA, are common too. tl;dr counterfeiting is complicated and just opening it up might not give you a reliable answer
  - mardifoufs 4y ago
    Samsung external SSDs are known to have had issues IIRC.
  - zuminator 4y ago
    Same happened to me with a couple of Sammy m.2s. Thought it was bad luck or bad case airflow, now I wonder myself.
- ren_engineer 4y ago
  at what point is Amazon criminally liable for this? They are defrauding customers on their marketplace and in many cases letting these products buy premium real estate via their ad platform
  - phpisthebest 4y ago
    When they politically upset an Attorney General of some state for some unrelated reasons that triggers the need to make a political example out of the company
- arp242 4y ago
  That 2TB one even has an "Amazon's choice" label on it. "Amazon's Choice highlights highly rated, well-priced products available to ship immediately." How can you even expect regular people to know it's a scam? I only vaguely have an indication that £30,99 (the price it gives me) for 2TB seems too good to be true. I work in IT, but I don't spend all days buying portable SSDs so I don't really know what these things cost today, and the "Amazon's choice" label makes it give a false sense of trust ("wow it's really cheap, but maybe just some discount or whatnot? Well, I guess it must be alright because it's Amazon's Choice!")
  - hgsgm 4y ago
    "Amazon's choice" means what it says: highest value for Amazon. No wonder the fake stuff is there, it has higher profit margin.
- joshmn 4y ago
  This shop has everything. An external SSD, extension cord holders, furniture anchors, and then "pjur Analyse me! Moisturising - Water-Based Personal Lubricant - for Comfortable Anal Sex" https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=LuBanSir https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=LuBanSir
- Steve44 4y ago
  I feel that part of the problem fuelling fraud like this are reviews such as the three star one I've copied below. Given it corrupted files why did the person keep it and also still give it three stars. 3.0 out of 5 stars Good storage capacity Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 January 20231 Colour: Black-1Verified Purchase While the storage capacity is good for the value I would only use this for small files as it corrupted any large video files I had, additionally, the transfer speed was quite slow (especially for USB 3.0) reaching speeds of up to 16mb/s and regularly dropping to 0mb/s, this is not a fault of my pc as other USB 3.0 devices can reach speeds of 80mb/s on my pc.
fancyfredbot 4y ago
I was thinking that surely Amazon would lose money selling a fake product which everyone would return, but I guess some people don't realise and don't return it so that selling these ends up being profitable for both Amazon and the manufacturer. At least until someone files a class action lawsuit anyway.
- gruez 4y ago
  >I was thinking that surely Amazon would lose money selling a fake product which everyone would return, This got me curious about who pays the return costs, and after some searching it looks like the seller eats it[1]. In other words, Amazon might be making money even if the item was returned. Regardless, it also means that it might be possible to shut down these scams (or make them unprofitable) if activists purposely buys these scam listings, only to return them. The scammer would have to eat the fees, which eats into their profits. The only downside is your time plus the possibility of your amazon account getting banned if you return too much. [1] https://blog.sellerboard.com/2022/09/19/the-actual-costs-of-amazon-fba-returns-and-how-to-minimize-these-costs/ https://blog.sellerboard.com/2022/09/19/the-actual-costs-of-...
- joenathanone 4y ago
  I almost got burned by this, bought some highly rated Bluetooth speakers as gifts, thanks to the extended holiday return window I was able to return them. The scam I seem to have gotten caught by is the seller initially delivers a great product, then once they have enough 5 star reviews they swap it for an inferior product not matching any of the listed specs.
Buttons840 4y ago
How does a company that consistently sales scam products not get sued into oblivion? Is there some legal loophole Amazon is using, or is it just that they have enough money to buy the legal system outright? Is there a legal protection for marketplaces or something? Is Amazon a marketplace?
- partiallypro 4y ago
  Not just scam products, their catalogue is flooded with stolen goods. Many of which were stolen from their competitors that have physical stores. They just turn a blind eye to it. They also have a horrible counterfeit problem. It's pretty insane what Amazon gets away with. I shop at Amazon for many things, so I guess I'm part of the problem, but generally know what to avoid.
  - mk89 4y ago
    Any sources on stolen goods? That's the first time I hear it, it's quite nasty honestly. Bad stuff, scam, I can even tolerate, as I can send back, but stolen goods no way - how do I know it's stolen? I also learnt over the years what to buy and NOT to buy, but sometimes, especially for "compatible" pieces (e.g., a phone screen protector, not official from Samsung or Apple, if they exist) it's like gambling: you don't know what you're getting, and the reviews seem to be about other things (toys, remote controllers, ...literally anything).
    - Zircom 4y ago
      Tide laundry detergent is a big one. People steal it by the cartload, and either relist it themselves or sell to unscrupulous resellers who list it themselves. Pretty much any fungible commodity that grocery stores sell that's easily stolen, if it's available on Amazon almost certainly has stolen instances mixed into the supply chain, especially with FBA items. Guarantee there's plenty of people making decent money doing this in San Francisco and other cities that no longer prosecute shoplifters, there's literally no risk or downside.
      - 4y ago
ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
Amazon itself is a scam now. Moved away from it a long time back. It is not an Alibaba clone with better English copy.
- zabzonk 4y ago
  every amazon order i have put in over the last 9 years has been delivered on time and delivered what it said it would. go figure.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
    > and delivered what it said it would. How would you know? Part of the difficulty is that the counterfeits are often passable.
    - zabzonk 4y ago
      if it worked, and it has continued working properly over the years? as philip k dick said, what you care is that it looks and behaves like a human
      - yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
        It really depends on the nature of the knock-off. If it's a computer part with a slightly worse tolerance than the real one, that's fine. Heck, some clones end up better than the original. But there are ways to cut corners that look fine, and act fine... and only contain slightly more lead, after all, hardly noticeable...
hrunt 4y ago
If I take that amazon.co.uk URL and replace it with amazon.com, I get zero scam-looking SSD drives. The only results that are 10TB are 7200rpm portable drives, and the largest SSD drive is an $800 8TB drive. I wonder what makes Amazon show all those junk on its UK site, but not on its US site.
- InCityDreams 4y ago
  Try a tour of the European sites - .it .de .fr .nl etc for the same thing (often the same product codes work). I've bought stuff that was £70 uk, $200 .com and €35-for-two from a different Eu country. Arrived in 3 days. Some stuff i got from .com just took ages to arrive, but i paid less than locallly and wasn't in a rush. Khazakstan has some interesting products, too, but they were electrical - yes, but no.
JohnTHaller 4y ago
Don't forget the thousands of unsafe electrical products with no UL, CSA-US, or equivalent certification shipped directly from China.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  Electric bikes and scooters are the worst since they have a tendency to explode in to a fireball inside bedrooms and elevators.
jypepin 4y ago
Sorry, can someone explain what is happening here? What's wrong with those products?
- stevev 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - coder543 4y ago
    You don't see any scams...? How? 10TB SSDs do not exist. Any listing claiming to offer a 10TB SSD is a scam, by definition.
    - kube-system 4y ago
      SSDs of similar sizes, like 8 and 12 TB exist, but they're close to or are multiple thousands of dollars. A 10TB offering wouldn't be unreasonable to exist. Just not at this price.
      - coder543 4y ago
        "Similar sizes" are not "the same size", obviously. I've never found any manufacturer that actually makes 10TB SSDs. Whether it is "unreasonable" or not is entirely irrelevant when they don't exist. The price is an obvious clue to anyone who knows anything about storage, as you mention. But, choosing to use 10TB for the size in a scam seems like an odd choice. I have to imagine the scam would work equally well with a size that actually exists, but the current size should make it trivial for Amazon to filter out these listings, so it's odd that they aren't even tackling the low-hanging fruit.
        kube-system 4y ago
        Well, nothing exists until it does. There are oddball products out of China that are real. I suspect 10TB is a very good choice, as it is a round figure that may have broad general appeal to people, and it also dissuades people who understand the importance of powers-of-two in storage sizes -- if you're scamming people, it's better to filter for those who don't know better, rather than for people who know better.
daneel_w 4y ago
Surely one can trust a "mobble sdud state" portable drive of 10TB capacity for £79.
foobarbecue 4y ago
I saw a "16TB SSD" for $70, figured it was a scam, but was curious so I bought it. It turned out to be a metal box with a 60GB SD card inside (although actually, I couldn't even get the card to work properly when I took it out). The SD card was on a carrier board that made it present as 16TB, although I couldn't create any partitions on it. I posted a review saying it was a scam and the product disappeared quickly. I got approved for a return, but it said "seller will send you a return label within 5 days." They didn't. I got on chat support and got a full refund without having to return the product.
- ajross 4y ago
  > I saw a "16TB SSD" for $70, figured it was a scam, but was curious so I bought it. Just so folks are aware: this kind of behavior doesn't constitute a good faith purchase. If you suspect something is wrong, you aren't allowed to push the risk management off onto a retailer just because they aren't as clued in as you are. It's the same principle that says you can't take advantage of mislabeled prices or leaked discount codes. In this case, where it's just one item and the poster was probably willing to eat the cost, it's a no-harm-no-foul thing and it was good customer service of Amazon to refund the price. But in general this is a game people shouldn't be playing. (Edit: and as expected everyone wants to argue based on who the bad guy is supposed to be and not what I actually said. Amazon may be bad. This is still fraud if you do this expecting to get refunds if you can't use the item. Don't do that.)
  - SOLAR_FIELDS 4y ago
    Isn’t it Amazon’s job to do due diligence that sellers aren’t committing outright fraud on their platform? I’m not sure what you mean by “allowed”, but I would have zero problem doing exactly the same to Amazon ethically given they actively, on purpose, create this problem in the first place. Doing something like this is the only way to effect any sort of change anyway. It’s not like regulators are particularly interested in solving this problem. And clearly neither is Amazon. So maybe enough returns where they have to eat the cost will actually motivate them to enact some change.
dylan604 4y ago
Q: What makes Amazon Marketplace any different from the local flea markets that have been havens for selling stolen goods? A: You're not going to get caught selling stolen goods via Amazon. At least the local flea markets would occasionally have police stroll through looking for merch and could act upon it then and there if found. Amazon took being a fence to a whole new level that criminals are laughing all the way to the bank from the whole experience.
lazyant 4y ago
This is another example of a scam in Amazon https://www.amazon.ca/Portable-Reusable-Ultrasonic-Cleaning-Professional/dp/B0BNMGWL29/ https://www.amazon.ca/Portable-Reusable-Ultrasonic-Cleaning-... , the best seller product in its category and it's not anything ultrasonic but a little vibrating motor. The 5-star ratings where for a different product (I don't see them now so at least they fixed that but still allow the scam).
gibolt 4y ago
Looking forward to the first legit 10TB 'scam' that puts 10 1TB micro SD cards into a case. A manufacturer could probably do it for under $1k
gibolt 4y ago
Has anyone found a hard drive scam with multiple levels of fake storage? 10TB drive, containing a 1TB SSD, with a 256gb SD card, that is actually a 16gb micro SD card. It has to exist
- Gigachad 4y ago
  What would be the point? You would just increase the cost without making it any more convincing.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
zabzonk 4y ago
if it looks like a scam, and looks like it costs much less than it should, then it is a scam - if you fall for it, that is your problem
- ROTMetro 4y ago
  Actually no, we have laws about these things. It's just that we don't enforce them once a company because large enough, because reasons. Does a woman deserve to be assaulted for walking alone after a certain time of night? You can avoid the situation, but the responsibility is absolutely not on you.
  - zabzonk 4y ago
    Who is this "we"? and of course the rule whenever you by something is "buyer beware" i cannot believe you would think otherwise
    - arp242 4y ago
      > Who is this "we"? Almost every jurisdiction on the planet. Selling something that you claim does A while in fact it empathically does not do A is illegal almost everywhere. This isn't some sort of vague subjective claim or obvious exaggeration, but a very specific objective claim. "Use this deodorant and you will get laid more often" is something no reasonable person takes literally, so it's allowed. "This drive can store 10TB" is a very specific claim, and if it can only store 64GB then it's deception. There's mountains of jurisdiction on this, in many different jurisdictions around the world. Exact details differ, but it usually comes down to something like the above.
    - ROTMetro 4y ago
      In the case of the original article the UK, but I meant pretty much every society. Are you claiming that the UK regulations titled 'The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations' don't exist?
cm2187 4y ago
This is not the first time this makes it to the HN front page. Either no one at amazon reads HN, or they seem to be comfortable having their customers scammed. I find the former highly unlikely.
- cogman10 4y ago
  Anyone that's done software knows what's going on here. Scams earn amazon money. No manager or executive will prioritize addressing this issue because it'll hurt revenue. Can't be damaging those OKRs, that's where your bonuses come from. The only solution to this is new regulations and enforcement. That's the only way an amazon exec looks at this and says "Oh, if we don't fix this we'll be out billions!"
  - octacat 4y ago
    idk, if it does not hurt revenue. I cannot trust their reviews anymore, so I don't shop there for a long long time. And prices are the same as everywhere anyway.
- georgemcbay 4y ago
  Amazon has turned a blind eye to all manner of scams for YEARS. The one I ran into personally is the one where a seller takes a product that sells by the case and they take the retail cases and split them up into units that aren't meant for resale. In my case it was Hartz Delectables Bisque cat treats. These come in small cases of 12 pouches per case. The sellers will buy those cases, split them up into individual pouches, and then sell each pouch for SLIGHTLY less (eg. 11 dollars instead of 12) than the normal price of a full case of 12. The real retail cases you buy of this product have wording on them specifically saying they are meant for sale as a single unit and not to break them up, so presumably the manufacturer is aware of this sort of thing happening, but Amazon still allows marketplace users to run this fraud years after I first reported it to them (and stopped using them for any cat food related product and switched to Chewy). If you read the fine print below the fold the sellers list a valid size in ounces, which maybe gives them some legal protection, but given both the out of band pricing and the fact that Amazon often jams all of the listings of a single product type into one big listing that you sometimes can't make heads or tails of who is actually selling the exact version you are buying (as long as they are Fulfilled by Amazon) its super easy to miss this until after you've fallen victim to it. After running into this years ago I made Amazon very aware of what had occurred but the scam listings are still up on the site (AFAICT exactly the same listing since Amazon almost tauntingly informs me that I purchased this product in the past when I view the suspect listing), still wildly overpriced, with a bunch of reviews that talk about the scam but give it a 4 or 5 star review because I guess the people reviewing it didn't feel like trashing the product. My review is 1 star. The product is fine, but I'm perfectly fine with 1 starring a review of a fraud listing for a good product because best case scenario that happening repeatedly maybe pushes the real OEM into getting on Amazon's case about their policies, wish more people would do the same honestly.
boomboomsubban 4y ago
A previous post looking into these scam drives https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34409772 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34409772
imwillofficial 4y ago
Can somebody pull the andon cord on these? (Is that still a thing?)
ROTMetro 4y ago
Imagine a local store pulling the 'we're too big to stop blatant fraud in our store'. Funny the double standard large corporations get for the blatant breaking of laws in their stores versus mom and pops.
adenozine 4y ago
I’ve personally come to assume that 1/3 of everything on Amazon is fake. Is there any reputable auditing or investigation where I could read more about the evidence? Amazon seems pretty clearly to not be motivated to fix the fraud problem. Economy of scale and all that.
brianmcc 4y ago
I'm UK based. Pretty much stopped buying anything of importance from Amazon these days. Argos fills most of my online shopping needs now and often I can even just drive 10 mins to collect my stuff! Occasionally I do pause to consider just how spectacularly Amazon has blown it for general online shopping.
hmaxwell 4y ago
why spend $70 on a 10tb drive when you can spend $15 on a 16tb drive, https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804901971131.html https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804901971131.html you get screwed either way may as well go all out
c3534l 4y ago
When I tried to report a seller for a similar scam, I was told by an amazon representative that consumers can't report fraudulent sellers, only other sellers on amazon and only if they infringe on their brand. Fraud is not on its own a reportable offense. There's no button that says "report fraud." Amazon doesn't care and won't fix it.
NKosmatos 4y ago
Oh come on now, they’re shipped by Amazon and the order is processed by Amazon, but the seller is some random Chinese guy. Do your research when buying something, read the fine print, don’t buy from random people and use your common sense. Amazon doesn’t care and don’t have the workforce to go through all these fake listings. If you think you’re going to buy a 10TB SSD for ~80$ then good luck with your life :-)
- scotty79 4y ago
  If Amazon gets a share of the sale it should be responsible. If it gets fixed payment for participation in the market then it shouldn't be.
- d23 4y ago
  They’re very clearly turning a blind eye to the problem. There’s no way to report scams, and if you attempt to leave reviews on scam listings they’ll be rejected.
- octacat 4y ago
  > don’t have the workforce to go through all these fake listings Oh, so maybe not firing workforce is a good idea? So, someone could go and check the listings of SSDs (very common scam). And what's about less obvious fakes? Like an SD card with a different speed after some point?
kgbcia 4y ago
Way to many scams on Amazon. I was looking for a cellphone and decided to walk into a store than buy some Chinese phone with spyware.
simonblack 4y ago
Luckily the prices quoted for these SSDs are ridiculously low. "When it sounds too good to be true, it is." What would be far more dangerous is if the prices quoted were close enough to real prices to be credible, but low enough to be attractive. Example: Not $70 for 16 TB, but $1500 (say) for 16TB, which is roughly half-price. With Amazon, I generally buy readily-available branded items for a lower than usual price. Or else I buy that item from a known and trusted supplier.
Nifty3929 4y ago
Would we be willing to pay a lot more money for a storefront that curates their vendors and vendors products? Some of us would, but empirical evidence suggests that most won’t. This is the function that traditional specialty retailers like appliance stores and such used to do well. But most are forced to compete only on price now because otherwise people walk in, talk to an educated salesperson, touch and feel the item, find the one they want, and then buy it from the lowest priced competitor. If you want some level of curation and accountability for your SSDs, try Best Buy.
theshrike79 4y ago
Amazon is 100% just a front-end for AliExpress drop-shippers nowadays. Don't buy anything unless it's an "official" store for a brand, even the "fulfilled by Amazon" tag doesn't mean crap anymore.
joaofiliperocha 4y ago
no shit Sherlock ...
efreemanerica 4y ago
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efreemanerica 4y ago
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fmajid 4y ago
It's long past time KYC (Know Your Customer) laws were passed on marketplaces like Amazon, with liability. If the financial industry can deal with it, so can they.
kugutsumen 4y ago
ChatGPT to the rescue Urgent Request for Action on Fraudulent Products on Amazon Dear Jeff Bezos, I am writing to express my concern about the increasing prevalence of scams and fraudulent items being sold on Amazon. It appears that these vendors have been operating for some time without any consequences and have consistently deceived customers with recycled reviews. As a consumer, I am deeply troubled by this lack of action from Amazon. Not only does this violate consumer protection laws, but it also undermines the trust and confidence that customers have in your platform. This issue is not just limited to the 16TB SSD incident, as other examples such as the ultrasonic cleaning product that was actually a vibrating motor have been reported as well. I understand the difficulties in policing a platform of this size, but I believe that it is imperative for Amazon to take more decisive steps to eliminate these scams and protect the interests of its customers. The comments of other customers reflect a similar sentiment, with some even opting to stop purchasing important items from Amazon due to this issue. I hope that you will take the necessary steps to address this problem and ensure that Amazon remains a trusted and reliable platform for customers. Sincerely, [Your Name]

197 points by AlexMuir 4y ago

Since Amazon won't actually bother dealing with any of the counterfeit products they encourage selling, it seems like the only solution is to buy en-mass and return repeatedly (since its a fake item, it's at their cost in most parts of the world)

AlexMuir 4y ago

Went looking for an SSD earlier - the "SD-card in a box" scam is going great guns on there. Must be selling hundreds a week. Not just the ludicrous 10TB, but also 2TB. https://www.amazon.co.uk/LuBanSir-External-Design-Portable-Compatible/dp/B0BMP83X8Y/ https://www.amazon.co.uk/LuBanSir-External-Design-Portable-C... Note the reviews refer to all different stuff - phone chargers, arm slings, extension cord organisers. What a total shitshow.

voidwtf 4y ago
This is among greatest abuse Amazon allows in its product listings. Any change to a page should reset the reviews unless otherwise vetted by an Amazon employee. Changes shouldn't be material in nature, only corrections. A new revision/version of a product IS NOT THE SAME PRODUCT. Different product == different listing.
- duskwuff 4y ago
  That might be going a little far. Adding an extra-large size to a listing for a T-shirt (for example) shouldn't invalidate all of the existing reviews. A more targeted approach might be to disallow sellers from adding variants to products which are not currently for sale. I suspect that would cut down on most of the abuse.
  - agumonkey 4y ago
    fair point, that said it would take amazon a blip of resources to have some NLP diff to delay validation of title changes that are too strange
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > Adding an extra-large size to a listing for a T-shirt (for example) shouldn’t invalidate all of the existing reviews. If you want to deal with this problem rather than channel more of it into a place some of it already goes, it should, because completely different products are added as “sizes” or “colors” of existing products already. If you add a review fraud control and leave this an escape hatch, well, the results are predictable.
  - Gigachad 4y ago
    Adding something should trigger a manual review by an amazon employee.
  - Oxidation 4y ago
    An instant ban for vendors detected and confirmed to be doing this. Amazon has plenty of ability to deal with this, from a ML detection system to human validation. They just don't want to.
    - bragr 4y ago
      They do, but they just pop up as a different seller under a different name with a different business address and the cycle goes on. That's why all the sellers have weird names and make no effort to drive any sort of brand awareness or loyalty.
      - Oxidation 4y ago
        All that tech, platforms, manpower and literally all the backend data about it (access patterns, descriptions, sales, back accounts, user agents, IPs, everything) and they can't detect something that's blindingly obvious to anyone paying attention?
- nickthegreek 4y ago
  That would be an easy way to get rid of negative reviews.
  - actionfromafar 4y ago
    There already is an easy way to get rid of negative reviews. Just create a new product. That’s what they do.
duskwuff 4y ago
> Note the reviews refer to all different stuff - phone chargers, arm slings, extension cord organisers. What a total shitshow. This is an exploit which has been abused for years -- as I understand it, Amazon sellers can list their products as a "variant" of another, often unrelated, product which is no longer available for sale. When they do so, their product inherits all of the reviews from the previous product, and no obvious indication is given that the other variant ever existed (because it's not available).
- phpisthebest 4y ago
  Yep a "legit" example of this is Dymo, the Dymo 550 added DRM Paper (yes DRM paper) to the product, but they listed the 550 as a variant of the 450 which was not DRM, all of the great 450 reviews followed to the new 550 trash product that no one should ever buy...
- sdenton4 4y ago
  This should be preeeetty trivial to build a classifier for... At least to reduce the need for human review to only the egregious examples.
rootusrootus 4y ago
Sometimes I wonder if I've been taken. The only external SSDs I've bought from Amazon were brand name Samsungs, sold-by-and-shipped-from Amazon, but both have been flakey and one failed outright. I should open them up and see if they're just really good counterfeits.
- bragr 4y ago
  >I should open them up and see if they're just really good counterfeits They could be legit and failed QA in the factory (flaky after all) but they "fell off a truck" on the way to the electronics recycler and ended up for sale. Semi-counterfeit "3rd shift" products that are made off the books on the official line, often with lower or nonexistent QA, are common too. tl;dr counterfeiting is complicated and just opening it up might not give you a reliable answer
- mardifoufs 4y ago
  Samsung external SSDs are known to have had issues IIRC.
- zuminator 4y ago
  Same happened to me with a couple of Sammy m.2s. Thought it was bad luck or bad case airflow, now I wonder myself.
ren_engineer 4y ago
at what point is Amazon criminally liable for this? They are defrauding customers on their marketplace and in many cases letting these products buy premium real estate via their ad platform
- phpisthebest 4y ago
  When they politically upset an Attorney General of some state for some unrelated reasons that triggers the need to make a political example out of the company
arp242 4y ago
That 2TB one even has an "Amazon's choice" label on it. "Amazon's Choice highlights highly rated, well-priced products available to ship immediately." How can you even expect regular people to know it's a scam? I only vaguely have an indication that £30,99 (the price it gives me) for 2TB seems too good to be true. I work in IT, but I don't spend all days buying portable SSDs so I don't really know what these things cost today, and the "Amazon's choice" label makes it give a false sense of trust ("wow it's really cheap, but maybe just some discount or whatnot? Well, I guess it must be alright because it's Amazon's Choice!")
- hgsgm 4y ago
  "Amazon's choice" means what it says: highest value for Amazon. No wonder the fake stuff is there, it has higher profit margin.
joshmn 4y ago
This shop has everything. An external SSD, extension cord holders, furniture anchors, and then "pjur Analyse me! Moisturising - Water-Based Personal Lubricant - for Comfortable Anal Sex" https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=LuBanSir https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=LuBanSir
Steve44 4y ago
I feel that part of the problem fuelling fraud like this are reviews such as the three star one I've copied below. Given it corrupted files why did the person keep it and also still give it three stars. 3.0 out of 5 stars Good storage capacity Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 January 20231 Colour: Black-1Verified Purchase While the storage capacity is good for the value I would only use this for small files as it corrupted any large video files I had, additionally, the transfer speed was quite slow (especially for USB 3.0) reaching speeds of up to 16mb/s and regularly dropping to 0mb/s, this is not a fault of my pc as other USB 3.0 devices can reach speeds of 80mb/s on my pc.

fancyfredbot 4y ago

I was thinking that surely Amazon would lose money selling a fake product which everyone would return, but I guess some people don't realise and don't return it so that selling these ends up being profitable for both Amazon and the manufacturer. At least until someone files a class action lawsuit anyway.

gruez 4y ago
>I was thinking that surely Amazon would lose money selling a fake product which everyone would return, This got me curious about who pays the return costs, and after some searching it looks like the seller eats it[1]. In other words, Amazon might be making money even if the item was returned. Regardless, it also means that it might be possible to shut down these scams (or make them unprofitable) if activists purposely buys these scam listings, only to return them. The scammer would have to eat the fees, which eats into their profits. The only downside is your time plus the possibility of your amazon account getting banned if you return too much. [1] https://blog.sellerboard.com/2022/09/19/the-actual-costs-of-amazon-fba-returns-and-how-to-minimize-these-costs/ https://blog.sellerboard.com/2022/09/19/the-actual-costs-of-...
joenathanone 4y ago
I almost got burned by this, bought some highly rated Bluetooth speakers as gifts, thanks to the extended holiday return window I was able to return them. The scam I seem to have gotten caught by is the seller initially delivers a great product, then once they have enough 5 star reviews they swap it for an inferior product not matching any of the listed specs.

Buttons840 4y ago

How does a company that consistently sales scam products not get sued into oblivion? Is there some legal loophole Amazon is using, or is it just that they have enough money to buy the legal system outright? Is there a legal protection for marketplaces or something? Is Amazon a marketplace?

partiallypro 4y ago
Not just scam products, their catalogue is flooded with stolen goods. Many of which were stolen from their competitors that have physical stores. They just turn a blind eye to it. They also have a horrible counterfeit problem. It's pretty insane what Amazon gets away with. I shop at Amazon for many things, so I guess I'm part of the problem, but generally know what to avoid.
- mk89 4y ago
  Any sources on stolen goods? That's the first time I hear it, it's quite nasty honestly. Bad stuff, scam, I can even tolerate, as I can send back, but stolen goods no way - how do I know it's stolen? I also learnt over the years what to buy and NOT to buy, but sometimes, especially for "compatible" pieces (e.g., a phone screen protector, not official from Samsung or Apple, if they exist) it's like gambling: you don't know what you're getting, and the reviews seem to be about other things (toys, remote controllers, ...literally anything).
  - Zircom 4y ago
    Tide laundry detergent is a big one. People steal it by the cartload, and either relist it themselves or sell to unscrupulous resellers who list it themselves. Pretty much any fungible commodity that grocery stores sell that's easily stolen, if it's available on Amazon almost certainly has stolen instances mixed into the supply chain, especially with FBA items. Guarantee there's plenty of people making decent money doing this in San Francisco and other cities that no longer prosecute shoplifters, there's literally no risk or downside.
    - 4y ago

ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago

Amazon itself is a scam now. Moved away from it a long time back. It is not an Alibaba clone with better English copy.

zabzonk 4y ago
every amazon order i have put in over the last 9 years has been delivered on time and delivered what it said it would. go figure.
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
  > and delivered what it said it would. How would you know? Part of the difficulty is that the counterfeits are often passable.
  - zabzonk 4y ago
    if it worked, and it has continued working properly over the years? as philip k dick said, what you care is that it looks and behaves like a human
    - yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
      It really depends on the nature of the knock-off. If it's a computer part with a slightly worse tolerance than the real one, that's fine. Heck, some clones end up better than the original. But there are ways to cut corners that look fine, and act fine... and only contain slightly more lead, after all, hardly noticeable...

hrunt 4y ago

If I take that amazon.co.uk URL and replace it with amazon.com, I get zero scam-looking SSD drives. The only results that are 10TB are 7200rpm portable drives, and the largest SSD drive is an $800 8TB drive. I wonder what makes Amazon show all those junk on its UK site, but not on its US site.

InCityDreams 4y ago
Try a tour of the European sites - .it .de .fr .nl etc for the same thing (often the same product codes work). I've bought stuff that was £70 uk, $200 .com and €35-for-two from a different Eu country. Arrived in 3 days. Some stuff i got from .com just took ages to arrive, but i paid less than locallly and wasn't in a rush. Khazakstan has some interesting products, too, but they were electrical - yes, but no.

JohnTHaller 4y ago

Don't forget the thousands of unsafe electrical products with no UL, CSA-US, or equivalent certification shipped directly from China.

Gigachad 4y ago
Electric bikes and scooters are the worst since they have a tendency to explode in to a fireball inside bedrooms and elevators.

jypepin 4y ago

Sorry, can someone explain what is happening here? What's wrong with those products?

stevev 4y ago
[flagged]
- coder543 4y ago
  You don't see any scams...? How? 10TB SSDs do not exist. Any listing claiming to offer a 10TB SSD is a scam, by definition.
  - kube-system 4y ago
    SSDs of similar sizes, like 8 and 12 TB exist, but they're close to or are multiple thousands of dollars. A 10TB offering wouldn't be unreasonable to exist. Just not at this price.
    - coder543 4y ago
      "Similar sizes" are not "the same size", obviously. I've never found any manufacturer that actually makes 10TB SSDs. Whether it is "unreasonable" or not is entirely irrelevant when they don't exist. The price is an obvious clue to anyone who knows anything about storage, as you mention. But, choosing to use 10TB for the size in a scam seems like an odd choice. I have to imagine the scam would work equally well with a size that actually exists, but the current size should make it trivial for Amazon to filter out these listings, so it's odd that they aren't even tackling the low-hanging fruit.
      - kube-system 4y ago
        Well, nothing exists until it does. There are oddball products out of China that are real. I suspect 10TB is a very good choice, as it is a round figure that may have broad general appeal to people, and it also dissuades people who understand the importance of powers-of-two in storage sizes -- if you're scamming people, it's better to filter for those who don't know better, rather than for people who know better.

daneel_w 4y ago

Surely one can trust a "mobble sdud state" portable drive of 10TB capacity for £79.

foobarbecue 4y ago

I saw a "16TB SSD" for $70, figured it was a scam, but was curious so I bought it. It turned out to be a metal box with a 60GB SD card inside (although actually, I couldn't even get the card to work properly when I took it out). The SD card was on a carrier board that made it present as 16TB, although I couldn't create any partitions on it. I posted a review saying it was a scam and the product disappeared quickly. I got approved for a return, but it said "seller will send you a return label within 5 days." They didn't. I got on chat support and got a full refund without having to return the product.

ajross 4y ago
> I saw a "16TB SSD" for $70, figured it was a scam, but was curious so I bought it. Just so folks are aware: this kind of behavior doesn't constitute a good faith purchase. If you suspect something is wrong, you aren't allowed to push the risk management off onto a retailer just because they aren't as clued in as you are. It's the same principle that says you can't take advantage of mislabeled prices or leaked discount codes. In this case, where it's just one item and the poster was probably willing to eat the cost, it's a no-harm-no-foul thing and it was good customer service of Amazon to refund the price. But in general this is a game people shouldn't be playing. (Edit: and as expected everyone wants to argue based on who the bad guy is supposed to be and not what I actually said. Amazon may be bad. This is still fraud if you do this expecting to get refunds if you can't use the item. Don't do that.)
- SOLAR_FIELDS 4y ago
  Isn’t it Amazon’s job to do due diligence that sellers aren’t committing outright fraud on their platform? I’m not sure what you mean by “allowed”, but I would have zero problem doing exactly the same to Amazon ethically given they actively, on purpose, create this problem in the first place. Doing something like this is the only way to effect any sort of change anyway. It’s not like regulators are particularly interested in solving this problem. And clearly neither is Amazon. So maybe enough returns where they have to eat the cost will actually motivate them to enact some change.

dylan604 4y ago

Q: What makes Amazon Marketplace any different from the local flea markets that have been havens for selling stolen goods? A: You're not going to get caught selling stolen goods via Amazon. At least the local flea markets would occasionally have police stroll through looking for merch and could act upon it then and there if found. Amazon took being a fence to a whole new level that criminals are laughing all the way to the bank from the whole experience.

lazyant 4y ago

This is another example of a scam in Amazon https://www.amazon.ca/Portable-Reusable-Ultrasonic-Cleaning-Professional/dp/B0BNMGWL29/ https://www.amazon.ca/Portable-Reusable-Ultrasonic-Cleaning-... , the best seller product in its category and it's not anything ultrasonic but a little vibrating motor. The 5-star ratings where for a different product (I don't see them now so at least they fixed that but still allow the scam).

gibolt 4y ago

Looking forward to the first legit 10TB 'scam' that puts 10 1TB micro SD cards into a case. A manufacturer could probably do it for under $1k

gibolt 4y ago

Has anyone found a hard drive scam with multiple levels of fake storage? 10TB drive, containing a 1TB SSD, with a 256gb SD card, that is actually a 16gb micro SD card. It has to exist

Gigachad 4y ago
What would be the point? You would just increase the cost without making it any more convincing.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

zabzonk 4y ago

if it looks like a scam, and looks like it costs much less than it should, then it is a scam - if you fall for it, that is your problem

ROTMetro 4y ago
Actually no, we have laws about these things. It's just that we don't enforce them once a company because large enough, because reasons. Does a woman deserve to be assaulted for walking alone after a certain time of night? You can avoid the situation, but the responsibility is absolutely not on you.
- zabzonk 4y ago
  Who is this "we"? and of course the rule whenever you by something is "buyer beware" i cannot believe you would think otherwise
  - arp242 4y ago
    > Who is this "we"? Almost every jurisdiction on the planet. Selling something that you claim does A while in fact it empathically does not do A is illegal almost everywhere. This isn't some sort of vague subjective claim or obvious exaggeration, but a very specific objective claim. "Use this deodorant and you will get laid more often" is something no reasonable person takes literally, so it's allowed. "This drive can store 10TB" is a very specific claim, and if it can only store 64GB then it's deception. There's mountains of jurisdiction on this, in many different jurisdictions around the world. Exact details differ, but it usually comes down to something like the above.
  - ROTMetro 4y ago
    In the case of the original article the UK, but I meant pretty much every society. Are you claiming that the UK regulations titled 'The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations' don't exist?

cm2187 4y ago

This is not the first time this makes it to the HN front page. Either no one at amazon reads HN, or they seem to be comfortable having their customers scammed. I find the former highly unlikely.

cogman10 4y ago
Anyone that's done software knows what's going on here. Scams earn amazon money. No manager or executive will prioritize addressing this issue because it'll hurt revenue. Can't be damaging those OKRs, that's where your bonuses come from. The only solution to this is new regulations and enforcement. That's the only way an amazon exec looks at this and says "Oh, if we don't fix this we'll be out billions!"
- octacat 4y ago
  idk, if it does not hurt revenue. I cannot trust their reviews anymore, so I don't shop there for a long long time. And prices are the same as everywhere anyway.
georgemcbay 4y ago
Amazon has turned a blind eye to all manner of scams for YEARS. The one I ran into personally is the one where a seller takes a product that sells by the case and they take the retail cases and split them up into units that aren't meant for resale. In my case it was Hartz Delectables Bisque cat treats. These come in small cases of 12 pouches per case. The sellers will buy those cases, split them up into individual pouches, and then sell each pouch for SLIGHTLY less (eg. 11 dollars instead of 12) than the normal price of a full case of 12. The real retail cases you buy of this product have wording on them specifically saying they are meant for sale as a single unit and not to break them up, so presumably the manufacturer is aware of this sort of thing happening, but Amazon still allows marketplace users to run this fraud years after I first reported it to them (and stopped using them for any cat food related product and switched to Chewy). If you read the fine print below the fold the sellers list a valid size in ounces, which maybe gives them some legal protection, but given both the out of band pricing and the fact that Amazon often jams all of the listings of a single product type into one big listing that you sometimes can't make heads or tails of who is actually selling the exact version you are buying (as long as they are Fulfilled by Amazon) its super easy to miss this until after you've fallen victim to it. After running into this years ago I made Amazon very aware of what had occurred but the scam listings are still up on the site (AFAICT exactly the same listing since Amazon almost tauntingly informs me that I purchased this product in the past when I view the suspect listing), still wildly overpriced, with a bunch of reviews that talk about the scam but give it a 4 or 5 star review because I guess the people reviewing it didn't feel like trashing the product. My review is 1 star. The product is fine, but I'm perfectly fine with 1 starring a review of a fraud listing for a good product because best case scenario that happening repeatedly maybe pushes the real OEM into getting on Amazon's case about their policies, wish more people would do the same honestly.

boomboomsubban 4y ago

A previous post looking into these scam drives https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34409772 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34409772

imwillofficial 4y ago

Can somebody pull the andon cord on these? (Is that still a thing?)

ROTMetro 4y ago

Imagine a local store pulling the 'we're too big to stop blatant fraud in our store'. Funny the double standard large corporations get for the blatant breaking of laws in their stores versus mom and pops.

adenozine 4y ago

I’ve personally come to assume that 1/3 of everything on Amazon is fake. Is there any reputable auditing or investigation where I could read more about the evidence? Amazon seems pretty clearly to not be motivated to fix the fraud problem. Economy of scale and all that.

brianmcc 4y ago

I'm UK based. Pretty much stopped buying anything of importance from Amazon these days. Argos fills most of my online shopping needs now and often I can even just drive 10 mins to collect my stuff! Occasionally I do pause to consider just how spectacularly Amazon has blown it for general online shopping.

hmaxwell 4y ago

why spend $70 on a 10tb drive when you can spend $15 on a 16tb drive, https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804901971131.html https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804901971131.html you get screwed either way may as well go all out

c3534l 4y ago

When I tried to report a seller for a similar scam, I was told by an amazon representative that consumers can't report fraudulent sellers, only other sellers on amazon and only if they infringe on their brand. Fraud is not on its own a reportable offense. There's no button that says "report fraud." Amazon doesn't care and won't fix it.

NKosmatos 4y ago

Oh come on now, they’re shipped by Amazon and the order is processed by Amazon, but the seller is some random Chinese guy. Do your research when buying something, read the fine print, don’t buy from random people and use your common sense. Amazon doesn’t care and don’t have the workforce to go through all these fake listings. If you think you’re going to buy a 10TB SSD for ~80$ then good luck with your life :-)

scotty79 4y ago
If Amazon gets a share of the sale it should be responsible. If it gets fixed payment for participation in the market then it shouldn't be.
d23 4y ago
They’re very clearly turning a blind eye to the problem. There’s no way to report scams, and if you attempt to leave reviews on scam listings they’ll be rejected.
octacat 4y ago
> don’t have the workforce to go through all these fake listings Oh, so maybe not firing workforce is a good idea? So, someone could go and check the listings of SSDs (very common scam). And what's about less obvious fakes? Like an SD card with a different speed after some point?

kgbcia 4y ago

Way to many scams on Amazon. I was looking for a cellphone and decided to walk into a store than buy some Chinese phone with spyware.

simonblack 4y ago

Luckily the prices quoted for these SSDs are ridiculously low. "When it sounds too good to be true, it is." What would be far more dangerous is if the prices quoted were close enough to real prices to be credible, but low enough to be attractive. Example: Not $70 for 16 TB, but $1500 (say) for 16TB, which is roughly half-price. With Amazon, I generally buy readily-available branded items for a lower than usual price. Or else I buy that item from a known and trusted supplier.

Nifty3929 4y ago

Would we be willing to pay a lot more money for a storefront that curates their vendors and vendors products? Some of us would, but empirical evidence suggests that most won’t. This is the function that traditional specialty retailers like appliance stores and such used to do well. But most are forced to compete only on price now because otherwise people walk in, talk to an educated salesperson, touch and feel the item, find the one they want, and then buy it from the lowest priced competitor. If you want some level of curation and accountability for your SSDs, try Best Buy.

theshrike79 4y ago

Amazon is 100% just a front-end for AliExpress drop-shippers nowadays. Don't buy anything unless it's an "official" store for a brand, even the "fulfilled by Amazon" tag doesn't mean crap anymore.

joaofiliperocha 4y ago

no shit Sherlock ...

efreemanerica 4y ago

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efreemanerica 4y ago

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fmajid 4y ago

It's long past time KYC (Know Your Customer) laws were passed on marketplaces like Amazon, with liability. If the financial industry can deal with it, so can they.

kugutsumen 4y ago

ChatGPT to the rescue Urgent Request for Action on Fraudulent Products on Amazon Dear Jeff Bezos, I am writing to express my concern about the increasing prevalence of scams and fraudulent items being sold on Amazon. It appears that these vendors have been operating for some time without any consequences and have consistently deceived customers with recycled reviews. As a consumer, I am deeply troubled by this lack of action from Amazon. Not only does this violate consumer protection laws, but it also undermines the trust and confidence that customers have in your platform. This issue is not just limited to the 16TB SSD incident, as other examples such as the ultrasonic cleaning product that was actually a vibrating motor have been reported as well. I understand the difficulties in policing a platform of this size, but I believe that it is imperative for Amazon to take more decisive steps to eliminate these scams and protect the interests of its customers. The comments of other customers reflect a similar sentiment, with some even opting to stop purchasing important items from Amazon due to this issue. I hope that you will take the necessary steps to address this problem and ensure that Amazon remains a trusted and reliable platform for customers. Sincerely, [Your Name]