14 ms·
Klein Bottle Amazon Brand Hijacking (2021)
- pinewurst 1y ago(2021)
- tentacleuno 1y agoPast discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27684807 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27684807
- godelski 1y agoThis stuff seems to keep happening and the problem seems to be that it is ungovernable. How is someone supposed to fight this if they are not half as famous as Cliff?
- kevin_thibedeau 1y agoTake them to small claims court for each violation.
- bmitc 1y agoSmall claims is such a huge headache, though. It's far more expensive for anyone person than the company.
- hippich 1y agoFirst time - when you learning all the details - may be. But it wasn't that bad. I represented myself vs insurance company with the lawyer. I did not get full claim amount, and could do better, but I got more than what insurance wanted to settle for.
- hsbauauvhabzb 1y agoI’m not sure it’s wise to fuck with the legal department of a trillion dollar company even if you’re in the right.
- labster 1y agoBezos is thankfully not Elon, he won’t seek vengeance on you for literal nickels and dimes.
- hsbauauvhabzb 1y agoNo, but making an example of you isn’t a bad business move.
- npodbielski 1y agoMaybe he just do not advertise how vicious he is on twitter. It does not mean that he is not vicious. Probably is, like every other rich person. You are not getting rich by being kind.
- grues-dinner 1y ago"Don't fight back when we fuck you or we'll ruin you". The bigger the company, the heavier the penalties for fuckery should be. They should be the ones to live in fear, not the "little people".
- hsbauauvhabzb 1y agoWhile I agree with you, good luck lobbying for that one.
- ceejayoz 1y agoTake who to small claims court? Amazon?
- kevin_thibedeau 1y agoYes. They no-show and you get a default judgement.
- ceejayoz 1y agoWhy would they no-show? They're far more likely to throw a couple hundred bucks at a local lawyer to show up.
- dreamcompiler 1y agoIn some jurisdictions lawyers are not allowed in small claims court.
- ceejayoz 1y agoIn many of those, the defendant can say "but I want one", and have it removed to real court.
- Aurornis 1y agoUsing your infinite time and money for legal representation to run a large number of legal cases in parallel?
- Waterluvian 1y agoTime and money, sure. But small claims in many (most? all?) regions are specifically designed to not require a lawyer. I think in some you specifically can’t bring one.
- hobs 1y agoIn most yeah, you need a special dispensation, and you probably just want normal civil court stuff then - its kinda the point of small claims to not need all the extra stuff.
- justin66 1y agoPlease cite a single example of that ever solving this problem.
- hippich 1y agoIanal, but afaik small claims are for purely money claims. I.e. you have to prove to judge/jury exact amount of your loss. It works well in case of fighting over debt. But more abstract damages are likely outside courts jurisdiction... On the other hand... It is cheap to try and see what happens, as long as expectations are right.
- MikeTheGreat 1y agoI don't remember why I looked this up in Washington state, USA a while back (bad work by a plumber, I think) but here in WA I think there's also a rule/law that you can only take individuals to small claims court. There's also a dollar limit ($4,000? Maybe 15 years ago?). But yeah, by law you can't drag companies into small claims court. It's meant to settle minor things like your neighbor accidentally backing into (and damaging) your fence, etc.
- WillPostForFood 1y ago10k limit in WA, and you definitely can sue businesses/corps in small claims.
- rendaw 1y agoThat's the "This is the hill I die on" approach. From all the lawyers (family) I've talked to, this is such a massively large money and time sink, regardless of outcome, that you should never do it, even if it means fraud goes unchecked.
- devnullbrain 1y agoEven small claims?
- rendaw 1y agoRight, that's what I was told... I'd love to have a lawyer chime in and say "Go for it, it's easy and it improves accountability" though. Like if it only took a day and $100 it'd probably be worth it to me, regardless of the outcome.
- leviathant 1y agoI took a business to small claims over a $1500 invoice they decided they weren't going to pay. It took a year before I was in court, the judge decided in my favor, and I had to schedule a sheriff's sale because the bully I was dealing with refused to acknowledge that they lost. I did get paid in the end, and there was the satisfaction of sticking it to a bully, but financially, it was not worth the effort.
- account42 1y ago*for the first violation after which they refuse to do business with you.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- dleslie 1y agoMy prime subscription expires this week. Perhaps the correct response to this systemic incompetence is to simply no longer give them money.
- godelski 1y agoI dropped mine because frankly, you don't get much from it anymore. Pricing is often identical and frankly, you can just go to the store's site and 99% of the time get the same price
- bluGill 1y agoLook for other suppliers. For everything I'm interested in I can find some small shop that has real reviews and advice. it takes a little effort to find them but they know their product and so it is worth finding them-
- godelski 1y agoI do mostly but off Amazon but that doesn't mean I don't understand that until more people do this these brands still have to be on amazon. You're kinda missing the point
- squigz 1y agoWhat is the point? How do you think people should fight back against this?
- ascii_wave 1y agoLegislation, imo
- bluGill 1y agoLegislation is sometimes the only answer, but there are many unintended consequences to every attempt and so I consider it a last resort to be used carefully only when you must.
- CliffStoll 1y agoFame, alas, is of little use when you're a tiny seller. Indeed, Amazon's brand registry and seller interaction systems are built to minimize human interactions.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- godelski 1y agoI'm sorry they did this to you. But you're famous in my book. Not just because the bottles either!
- sytelus 1y agoAmazon remains totally complacent of these issues which are now professionally hacked by China based providers day in and out. Tons of vitamins are now fake and downright harmful. A lot of books, even small scale ones, are also fake and very low quality. I tried to move my purchases to Walmart and surprisingly, even after 25 years, they haven’t got act together. Walmart even haven’t recognized that they should jump on this problem by prominently showing authentic brand logo or something. I also tried to move all my books purchasing to B&N and again, surprisingly, they haven’t learned any real lesson in past 25 years. Their website is clunky, they charge $7 delivery fee, they can’t even deliver to my nearest their own shop for free! Amazon is definitely riding on this utterly deficient competitors and that’s why they get to be so complacent.
- kevin_thibedeau 1y agoWalmart.com is a rebranded Jet.com. They've only owned it for 9 years.
- bmitc 1y agoAnd they have the same problems because they allow third party sellers. So far, Target seems it hasn't gone done this rode yet.
- Rebelgecko 1y agoAs long as they don't commingle inventory it's relatively easy to avoid (not sure if that's the case or not, but seems like most of the 3rd party sellers do their own shipping) FWIW my main annoyance with Walmarts website is that it's not clear if you package is coming via shipping service like FedEx, who has access to my apartment complex, or just some dude in his car who needs to call me while I'm at work to be buzzed in
- Spooky23 1y agoWalmart is Walmart. They hire the cheapest people possible and treat them like shit. I get stuff from Walmart all of the time from their delivery drivers. The catch: I’ve never ordered anything from Walmart.
- AnotherGoodName 1y agoI honestly think sites like stockx where they open the package and verify before shipping it forward will overtake amazon despite the increased costs. Absolutely not invested in stockx in any way, just an opinion that was formed as follows; Amazon was built on trust. I bought a book from them in the early days. It didn’t arrive after 2 weeks and they said ‘we believe you’ and they shipped me the book again at no charge. A week later i got 2 books, the first was lost in transit. Contacted amazon and they and no problem keep both and give one to a friend. I and many others were loyal to amazon after these experiences, paying more due to the lack of hassle and high trust. They became the default online bookstore thanks to this trust. It wasn’t even worth price comparisons, you looked on amazon and bought it there knowing you’d get the product you paid for. That’s now gone. They have fallen to ebay levels of trust at this point. You’re likely to be shipped a box of rocks rather than what you wanted at this point. People are willing to pay more for trust and the lack of hassle it represents. I want to buy a hard cover book that’s well printed. If i keep getting poor photocopies on tissue paper the trust is gone. I'll happy pay more to buy from a site where that never happens. I won’t even bother with price shopping when one site is a good chance of a scam and the other isn’t. In fact i’m pretty sure that’s where amazons dominance as the default online store came from and i’m shocked at how little care they have for this fact.
- Aurornis 1y ago> They have fallen to ebay levels of trust at this point. You’re likely to be shipped a box of rocks rather than what you wanted at this point. Between eBay and Amazon over the years I’ve done thousands of transactions, including probably 100 as a seller on eBay. The way people on HN talk about these companies, you’d think I would have been victim to endless amounts of fraud. In reality, both companies have handled the rare issues that came up just fine for me and the vast majority of transactions were perfectly fine. The HN comment section version of Amazon is pure hyperbole at this point. I’m aware that there are problems and some people haven’t been as lucky, but do you honestly believe you’re more likely to get a box of rocks than the product you ordered? Or that people will pay large fees to have average products verified before shipping when Amazon takes returns all the time? This is just silly.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- burnt-resistor 1y agoCliff is awesome. The care and effort he shows rivals most Etsy sellers. (I have a Klein mug and gifted several more.)
- prepend 1y agoI loved all the extras he puts in with his orders. I imagine him as someone who just sits around hacking all day, writing up long essays in between fulfilling orders.
- CliffStoll 1y agoThanks, Resistor-burner! I have fun with every Klein bottle order. When someone buys a Klein bottle, I celebrate by walking through our backyard garden, looking for new blossoms. I usually take a few photos and send these to my customer-friend. This micro business puts me in touch with fascinating people (I've met kids in elementary school, grad students, Nobel laureates, even a delightful nut who made a 4-meter tall wooden Klein bottle for Burning Man). The kind of people you find here on Hacker News. PS - with reference to your HN identity -- from my ham radio days of long ago, I once experimentally determined that a 1/2 watt, 600 ohm Ohmite resistor would burn up when inserted in a 120V outlet. Hmmm: 24 watts into a half-watt resistor? Yep, filled the room with that acrid smell... Don't try this at home.
- alister 1y agoIn case there are readers who don't know who Clifford Stoll is, he's the author of The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage, that was practically required reading if you were a programmer or hacker in the early 1990s. I didn't understand how hijacking worked on Amazon until I read this lucid explanation. Clearly he's still a great writer. He's on Hacker News as CliffStoll. This makes me wonder how Hacker News deals with someone registering a famous person's name if they are not that person? I'm guessing that it's not a big problem here on HN because there's nothing being sold.
- davidw 1y agoThe first time I lived in Italy, back in the mid nineties, with expensive phone service and no home internet connection... I had a copy of that book and I think I read it like 10 times.
- mrlatinos 1y agoHis NOVA episode on the same subject is worth a watch as well https://youtu.be/Xe5AE-qYan8 https://youtu.be/Xe5AE-qYan8 I think most younger readers will be familiar through his videos on the Numberphile YouTube channel.
- ednite 1y agoWow! One of my all time favorite books and authors and the reason I got into this field. Thanks for that info.
- dunham 1y agoI think that was the book that I read on my Palm Pilot. But it's been a while. I had the klein stein at one point, but got rid of it when downsizing. It was hard to clean, so not practical for drinking, and not as pretty on the shelf as a classic klein bottle. I'd recommend one of those if you're thinking of getting one.
- stn8188 1y agoThis is amazing. I was literally reading the 3rd chapter of the book "Machine Beauty" in bed, saw the baby Clifford Stoll mentioned and looked it up because it sounded familiar. Of course I've seen the beautiful glass bottles here on HN before, so I went back to my book. After putting it down and hopping on HN, of course I see an article referencing this exact topic! Such a small world.
- curtisszmania 1y ago[dead]
- ugh123 1y agoIf some dev from Amazon reading this on HN doesn't raise this to a high level asap, you're all useless /s No but seriously, that's Cliff Stoll they're messin with.
- nxpnsv 1y agoThey did, 4 years ago, by responding to that post, it is in the last part of the text.
- BrenBarn 1y agoThe cause is the same, the solution is the same: when companies become so big and capture so much market share that they no longer are responsive to the needs of their customers, it's time for them to be destroyed. Amazon should be dismantled into dozens or even hundreds of small companies and all its assets distributed among them.
- catmanjan 1y agoIf customers cared they'd swap to a competitor
- ijustlovemath 1y agoThere are no viable competitors because nobody is big enough to take on Amazon. Anyone with aspirations to will inevitably just get undercut and run out of business.
- xyst 1y agoThere exists some people, notably me, that refuse to use AMZN due to this type of shit they allow on their platform. I got hooked on them during college because I got tired of getting shafted by the local university bookstore. Used to be tax free as well since they were e-commerce related. But state comptrollers later closed that loop hole since they realized how much revenue they were losing. Then some time in 2020-2021 learned about the abuses to their workers, awful working conditions, near impossible quotas. Then came the merchant abuse stories of AMZN using the purchasing data to push out their own white label items, advertising/ranking merchants below those items (sometimes even cheaper to undercut them). Then as a consumer, the quality of the items ordered from AMZN has dropped significantly. Free shipping. Free returns. 1-day shipping/same day shipping. It’s all a gimmick and you pay for it in one way or another. All of those factors have caused me to move my money away from AMZN completely. Yes I realize warehouse division is nearly subsidized by AWS division. In the long run, it won’t matter unless there is a significant What did I do: Easy, purchase directly from manufacturer where possible. Shop local for similar items. Still try to avoid big box stores as much as possible. For example, using mcmaster.com in place of big orange/blue. Sure I pay for shipping but I end up buying in bulk to offset it anyways. Sure it takes 3-4 days to arrive. I likely won’t get free return shipping, but so far have never had to return items. ("Free returns” at most big box stores are now factored into the cost of items these days. So you pay for it even if you don’t use it) But in the end, I am getting quality products. I think I can only recall a couple of cases where item did break under normal condition (dog harness). But they were happy to replace at no cost. No need to return defective item.
- ggm 1y agoIt's for reasons like this people ask "what happened to regulatory oversight" because at this point, entities who occupy this much of the space appear to be essentially unregulated. It's trading under false premises. It's misleading conduct. It's oligopoly. The sherman laws were designed for this surely? I could say the same about appeals to google, apple, anyone for account recovery too.
- b00ty4breakfast 1y agoif these comments are any indication, our inability to handle mild inconvenience and a lifetime of consumerist conditioning are the real reasons amazon can continue to get away with being cartoonishly awful. I get it, there's a lot of crap in life and sometimes it seems like it's just not worth the hassle to make something a bit unpleasant for the sake of your principles when there's crap at work and the mortgage is due and timmy is failing english class again but they will not stop unless being shitty starts hurting their business and we cannot count on the captured regulators to do that on our behalf.
- sneak 1y agoThis frames it as a failing of consumers. It’s not that we don’t have an inability to deal with small inconveniences; we haven’t the time and resources to compete with those who are faster because they tolerate monopolies and anticompetitive actors.
- b00ty4breakfast 1y agoall it takes is not shopping at amazon. now, obviously, if by some awful twist of fate, amazon is the only place to buy your life-preserving medications or whatever (God forbid things ever get that dystopian in my lifetime) then my advice is silly and you should ignore it. but if someone needs some household good or even some foodstuff that only amazon has or that amazon sells cheaper than the other places, then it's time to suck it up and not get your (the general you, not you personally) favorite brand of rocky road ice-cream bars or that brand of soap that you love. I reckon in the first world, there is nothing that amazon sells that we can't simply skip or get somewhere else that would leave anybody in danger of death or serious injury. I know it's tre chic to wallow in helplessness wrt certain things these days but we aren't yet completely without recourse even if we aren't going to buy our way into an entirely new order any time soon.
- sneak 1y agoIt’s not a matter of chic. Amazon has more things, delivered faster, than anyone else in most markets. If you don’t use them, you waste huge amounts of time that you would otherwise save. They have completely replaced all other retail for me. Reverting that would cost me 3-5 hours a week.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- fermigier 1y agoThe "Acme Klein Bottle Wine Bottle" is incredible. It strongly reminds me of Jacques Carelman's "Catalogue d'objets introuvables" (1969) [translated as "Catalog of fantastic things", 1971 by Ballantine Books in New York]. As wikipedia states: > Carelman is best known for his Catalog of fantastic things (Catalogue d'objets introuvables) also known as Catalogue of Unfindable Objects, made in 1969 as a parody of the catalog of the French mail order company Manufrance. This work has been translated into 19 languages (including Korean, Hebrew and Finnish). Among these imaginary objects are, for instance, a "Kangaroo gun" whose "barrel is extensively studied ... to give the bullet a sinusoidal trajectory which follows the animal in its leaps", or a disposable "Plaster anvil ... (sold by the dozen) to be discarded after use, allowing you to make substantial savings." The most famous item in this catalog was Carelman's "Coffeepot for Masochists", a coffeepot with a backwards facing spout that would scald the user. This design became a symbol for the critique of everyday things and was featured on the cover of Don Norman's book on the topic, The Design of Everyday Things. (I didn't make the connection with Don Norman's book, another, more serious, classic).
- dudeinjapan 1y agoLooks like those Chinese scammers turned that Klein Bottle store… …inside out. wail sound, puts on sunglasses
- kennyadam 1y agoReddit-tier trash comment. Can we please just not turn every online discussion into a melange of puns, memes, pop-culture references and AI slop?
- neuroelectron 1y agoI opened up a ticket to get it resolved and after 6 months it was closed because there's no logs available to confirm the issue.
- ilamont 1y agoBrand hijacking got to be so bad with so many sellers complaining that Amazon finally did something about it ... kind of. Quoting an Amazon employee in the Seller Central forum: If you have experienced an incorrect change in the brand name of an ASIN, please exhaust these self-service options below first: - Create a case to Seller Support - Public Notice Form if you are not registered in Brand Registry - Report Abuse - Report a Violation (if you are registered in Brand Registry) For a normal company, one would expect that a single report using any of these methods would be enough to launch an investigation and right the wrong. Nope. I don't know if it's Amazon's poorly designed automated seller support, or overwhelmed support staff unable to deal with the problem, but regardless the burden is on sellers to "exhaust" all of these options before posting a semi-public plea for help on the Seller Central forums. This apparently will trigger an actual investigation (https://sellercentral.amazon.com/seller-forums/discussions/t/6b80a9e0-ecc6-46a2-9b38-c2deb15ae823 https://sellercentral.amazon.com/seller-forums/discussions/t...).
- smarklefunf 1y agowhoever would do this to cliff stoll is the actual devil
- iaw 1y agoIf you haven't bought a Klein Bottle from Cliff I strongly encourage you to do so. He is a treasure.
- CliffStoll 1y ago//(blush)//
- ColinWright 1y agoThere may be some youngsters who don't know who Cliff Stoll is. He wrote "The Cuckoo's Egg" which is a riveting tale, capable of entertaining nerds and non-nerds alike. He sells glass Klein Bottles, huge, medium, tiny, earrings, and more. He's given a TED talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gj8IA6xOpSk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gj8IA6xOpSk He's brilliant, bonkers, and wonderful company. I spent a fantastic morning with him early last year (2024) and it was brilliant fun. I will for many, many years treasure my signed Klein Bottle and my signed copy of "The Cuckoo's Egg". Thanks Cliff
- nhecker 1y agoReading his book as a kid was what got me into computers and networks. After some years I finally got a few of his bottles as gifts for my various mentors along the way (plus one for my desk as well.) He's a special human. I didn't know about the TED Talk; thanks, I'll check that out!
- CliffStoll 1y agoYou're welcome, Colin! Across the decades, I appreciate the smiles and advice from Hacker News. How'd I ever reach 75 years old?
- ColinWright 1y agoYou're only 10 years older than me, and I'm hoping to be as active and engaged as you are for a long time to come ... you are a fantastic role model, especially with your interaction with, and inspiration of, the younger generation. Long may it continue, and I hope to take you up on your invitation to visit again.
- CliffStoll 1y agoCliff Stoll here. The brand hijacking on Amazon USA was fixed. But Amazon Canada listing is still held by Amvoom. I'm unable to sell Klein bottles in Canada. sigh If anyone knows how to fix this, please send email to me! Many thanks, -Cliff
- MattSayar 1y agoHey Cliff, just curious: how were you made aware that this post on HN is trending?
- CliffStoll 1y agoHi Matt, All of a sudden, I got three or four Klein bottle orders. That's a lot for an hour! One of the orders (thank you Bryan in Johnstown) mentioned Hacker News. And, well, here I am.
- elwell 1y ago> That's a lot for an hour! If you still handcraft each personally, that's keine kleine Klein problem.
- rtkwe 1y agoHe hasn't for quite a while afaik, way too time intensive to build by hand so he (at least last I saw 10 years ago) had a big batch made by a glass blowing company.
- CliffStoll 1y agoYep, I no longer make regular Klein bottles. I'm a so-so glassblower. (Indeed, most glass workers would consider me a good physicist. Physicists would say that I'm a good computer jock. Computer people think that I know a lot about math. Mathematicians feel that I'm a good glassblower. Keep 'em all guessing.
- hilsdev 1y agoAnother idiotic policy by Amazon to motivate me to use small sellers even when available on the Amazon storefront