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I stopped after getting fake items. Yes, getting my money in return was fairly easy. But then I still needed to buy it from somewhere else and had wasted a few

I stopped after getting fake items. Yes, getting my money in return was fairly easy. But then I still needed to buy it from somewhere else and had wasted a few days. And it's quite scary, as some of these items go on/into my body. Like cosmetics, toothpaste, whatever. Or are electronics that can catch fire, like a charger. Add to that, I don't want to figure out which of 5000 different USB chargers is the best or the cheapest or not a scam. Just give me one I can trust. When I have to do that for every search, the mental load is too high and I just grab it from somewhere else.

edgyquant 4y ago
Yeah, this. All but the most trivial of items I’ve bought this year I was disappointed with. I don’t want my money back, I want the item to be what I expected.
amdolan 4y ago
I was scammed hundreds of dollars buying counterfeit microphones on amazon[0]. Amazon did not provide any way to handle this other than a generic form. The sellers refused to send my money unless I removed my reviews, which I was not going to do at all. I followed the seller's page around, and after a few weeks they renamed themselves to "Sally's Cosmetics"[1] or something, and I posted more reviews on their page. Eventually they disappeared with one of the Amazon counterfeit seller purges. How convenient for Amazon and the seller. Amazon is like eBay to me. I value my time and cash too much to get involved. [0] I know, I hadn't been on amazon in a while. I forgot not to buy music equipment (or anything not disposable) from Amazon. [1] So counterfeit sellers have sold cosmetics on Amazon, and that should be obvious from the state of the store, I guess..
- jrmg 4y ago
  Amazon wouldn’t accept a return? I don’t return a lot, but when I have it’s been really easy - no questions asked, just fill in the form then take it to the nearest Whole Foods.
  - amdolan 4y ago
    Not that I could find from looking at my past orders on amazon.com and trying to go through support. I didn't think of the Whole Foods angle, I'll look into that, thanks. At least I'll have someone to talk to about it.
    - jrmg 4y ago
      You do need to fill in a (very simple) form first - but at least for my recent orders it's fairly straightforward: in the "My Orders" list, there's a "Return or replace items" button on the right hand side, (_below_ the yellow "Get product support one). It does disappear after a while - looking at my account a month maybe?
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    I've spent more than $20k on Amazon over the years total, and the one and only time I had to return something (for a low-dollar item), they totally screwed me on it. That was the straw that broke the camel's back for me.
    - buffington 4y ago
      I'm not sure I want to know how much I've spent on Amazon, but I'm sure it's a lot. I too went years with nearly weekly purchases with no issues at all. Maybe a delivery that was later than the estimated date here and there, but that's it. In the last few months though things have become measurably worse for me. In the last three months I've had to send nearly every order back. Orders have been incomplete, or wrong (like, children's Shrek t-shirts instead of reams of copier paper). They've sent incomplete orders, or obviously not-new "new" items (with finger prints, food crumbs, wads of newspaper), or the products advertised were not even remotely what was described. It's not that surprising to see Amazon posting poor numbers. I've stopped purchasing from Amazon, buying direct from the people making the things I buy if possible. It costs more, and takes longer to arrive, but now I'm not burning time fixing Amazon's stupid problems.
  - BluePen7 4y ago
    They've gone downhill enough I've started returning a fair bit of things and it's almost always effortless. Only time it was a hassle was when a price dropped the day after my order, and they don't have price matching, so customer service suggest re-buying and returning and promised me free return shipping. That promise turned out to be worthless, and I had a helluva time trying to get them to pay for return shipping across the country for a squat rack. Thankfully, I did succeed in the end (phone support person was much better, chat people ran me around in circles). I didn't get the at-home pickup I was originally promised, but fortunately I owned a spare old pickup truck.
- andirk 4y ago
  Amazon is now a huge heaping pile and has been for years. Glad people are catching on. I have almost never had an issue with eBay, Etsy, random websites.
gptgpp 4y ago
Yep, I just ordered from them again for the first time in a while... Big mistake. My order was very simple, just a pack of head bands since when I go for runs I sweat way too much. After my run I took the head band off and my forehead was DYED the color of the band and later broke out in hives... Grimly reminded me Victorian Era arsenic-based green dyes, which leached from fabrics into people's skin and made them very sick. Amazon desperately needs content curation somehow, the experience of figuring out which headband to buy was so awful... And after all that, it caused a mild injury from god-knows-what chemicals.
- andirk 4y ago
  The product you describe has ABSOLUTELY ZERO USE CASE IN THE WORLD. It is purely a scam. Amazon is now the biggest mall where half the shit will make you break out into rainbow hives. I'm glad people are finally catching on. F that company, mostly.
- dawnerd 4y ago
  The solution is simple but the shareholders won’t like it: remove third party sellers.
  - filesystem 4y ago
    They don't even have to remove them. Just move them to a separate marketplace under the Amazon umbrella.
    - buffington 4y ago
      If Amazon had a "Prime Plus" or something that would allow me to find and order non-third-party-seller, accurately described, quality products with a robust no bullshit "whatever the cost, will go above and beyond fixing any problems in the rare event they occur" attitude, I'd be very interested. I also wouldn't mind a marketplace that is well known to be hit or miss. When I place an order on alibaba or bangood, I know exactly the risks I'm taking. That risk, weirdly, almost makes it entertaining. "Is it going to be the ball bearings I ordered, or a pair of Crocs shoe knockoffs, or a beef jerky? Place your bets!"
karmakaze 4y ago
I went through this exact thought process. Maybe I could find the perfect one and get it delivered quick at a the best price. It wasn't worth the downside risk. Instead I went to a brick-and-mortar store, got the most appropriate GaN compact charger they had in stock and couldn't be happier.
abracadaniel 4y ago
And there’s no recourse if there’s a serious problem. When people found melamine in the toothpaste at Walmart, lawsuits were filed and things were recalled. If that happens from EBANEZCR, NKAM, or PLCEM, who are real sellers I just looked up, they disappear and Amazon isn’t held liable. Then the same contaminated fake product continues to be sold under a dozen other sellers.

edgyquant 4y ago

Yeah, this. All but the most trivial of items I’ve bought this year I was disappointed with. I don’t want my money back, I want the item to be what I expected.

amdolan 4y ago

I was scammed hundreds of dollars buying counterfeit microphones on amazon[0]. Amazon did not provide any way to handle this other than a generic form. The sellers refused to send my money unless I removed my reviews, which I was not going to do at all. I followed the seller's page around, and after a few weeks they renamed themselves to "Sally's Cosmetics"[1] or something, and I posted more reviews on their page. Eventually they disappeared with one of the Amazon counterfeit seller purges. How convenient for Amazon and the seller. Amazon is like eBay to me. I value my time and cash too much to get involved. [0] I know, I hadn't been on amazon in a while. I forgot not to buy music equipment (or anything not disposable) from Amazon. [1] So counterfeit sellers have sold cosmetics on Amazon, and that should be obvious from the state of the store, I guess..

jrmg 4y ago
Amazon wouldn’t accept a return? I don’t return a lot, but when I have it’s been really easy - no questions asked, just fill in the form then take it to the nearest Whole Foods.
- amdolan 4y ago
  Not that I could find from looking at my past orders on amazon.com and trying to go through support. I didn't think of the Whole Foods angle, I'll look into that, thanks. At least I'll have someone to talk to about it.
  - jrmg 4y ago
    You do need to fill in a (very simple) form first - but at least for my recent orders it's fairly straightforward: in the "My Orders" list, there's a "Return or replace items" button on the right hand side, (_below_ the yellow "Get product support one). It does disappear after a while - looking at my account a month maybe?
- JohnFen 4y ago
  I've spent more than $20k on Amazon over the years total, and the one and only time I had to return something (for a low-dollar item), they totally screwed me on it. That was the straw that broke the camel's back for me.
  - buffington 4y ago
    I'm not sure I want to know how much I've spent on Amazon, but I'm sure it's a lot. I too went years with nearly weekly purchases with no issues at all. Maybe a delivery that was later than the estimated date here and there, but that's it. In the last few months though things have become measurably worse for me. In the last three months I've had to send nearly every order back. Orders have been incomplete, or wrong (like, children's Shrek t-shirts instead of reams of copier paper). They've sent incomplete orders, or obviously not-new "new" items (with finger prints, food crumbs, wads of newspaper), or the products advertised were not even remotely what was described. It's not that surprising to see Amazon posting poor numbers. I've stopped purchasing from Amazon, buying direct from the people making the things I buy if possible. It costs more, and takes longer to arrive, but now I'm not burning time fixing Amazon's stupid problems.
- BluePen7 4y ago
  They've gone downhill enough I've started returning a fair bit of things and it's almost always effortless. Only time it was a hassle was when a price dropped the day after my order, and they don't have price matching, so customer service suggest re-buying and returning and promised me free return shipping. That promise turned out to be worthless, and I had a helluva time trying to get them to pay for return shipping across the country for a squat rack. Thankfully, I did succeed in the end (phone support person was much better, chat people ran me around in circles). I didn't get the at-home pickup I was originally promised, but fortunately I owned a spare old pickup truck.
andirk 4y ago
Amazon is now a huge heaping pile and has been for years. Glad people are catching on. I have almost never had an issue with eBay, Etsy, random websites.

gptgpp 4y ago

Yep, I just ordered from them again for the first time in a while... Big mistake. My order was very simple, just a pack of head bands since when I go for runs I sweat way too much. After my run I took the head band off and my forehead was DYED the color of the band and later broke out in hives... Grimly reminded me Victorian Era arsenic-based green dyes, which leached from fabrics into people's skin and made them very sick. Amazon desperately needs content curation somehow, the experience of figuring out which headband to buy was so awful... And after all that, it caused a mild injury from god-knows-what chemicals.

andirk 4y ago
The product you describe has ABSOLUTELY ZERO USE CASE IN THE WORLD. It is purely a scam. Amazon is now the biggest mall where half the shit will make you break out into rainbow hives. I'm glad people are finally catching on. F that company, mostly.
dawnerd 4y ago
The solution is simple but the shareholders won’t like it: remove third party sellers.
- filesystem 4y ago
  They don't even have to remove them. Just move them to a separate marketplace under the Amazon umbrella.
  - buffington 4y ago
    If Amazon had a "Prime Plus" or something that would allow me to find and order non-third-party-seller, accurately described, quality products with a robust no bullshit "whatever the cost, will go above and beyond fixing any problems in the rare event they occur" attitude, I'd be very interested. I also wouldn't mind a marketplace that is well known to be hit or miss. When I place an order on alibaba or bangood, I know exactly the risks I'm taking. That risk, weirdly, almost makes it entertaining. "Is it going to be the ball bearings I ordered, or a pair of Crocs shoe knockoffs, or a beef jerky? Place your bets!"

karmakaze 4y ago

I went through this exact thought process. Maybe I could find the perfect one and get it delivered quick at a the best price. It wasn't worth the downside risk. Instead I went to a brick-and-mortar store, got the most appropriate GaN compact charger they had in stock and couldn't be happier.

abracadaniel 4y ago

And there’s no recourse if there’s a serious problem. When people found melamine in the toothpaste at Walmart, lawsuits were filed and things were recalled. If that happens from EBANEZCR, NKAM, or PLCEM, who are real sellers I just looked up, they disappear and Amazon isn’t held liable. Then the same contaminated fake product continues to be sold under a dozen other sellers.