I stopped ordering tech on Amazon when I got a fraud twice in a month on back-to-back orders a few years back.
First was a laptop that wouldn’t start. I looked at the bottom and the scewes were mostly stripped, and once I got them out most of the components had been removed from the boards.
Second was a Spyder color calibrator. What I got instead was a iPhone 4 screen protector with a sticker slapped on with the UPC for what I’d ordered. When I tried returning it, they gave me flack for slap-tagging a return, but I was able to escalate in that case.
@chiliedogg @themachinestops
Amazon will consistently facilitate fraud. I had sworn I would not order from them, but it seemed there was an exceptional deal on a certain type of tortilla.
There were supposed to be 12 bags of tortillas, but there were only 10.
I read there guidelines, and there is absolutely no recourse for something like this. I opened the box, now it’s mine.I had decided quite firmly I wouldn’t deal with them, and it was a serious mistake when I did.
So what exactly did you do to piss off the Amazon Returns department? Because from my experience, they are the most lenient company when it comes to returns/refunds. I’ve had stuff arrive broken, or scuffed up, or it was the wrong item, or I just plain didn’t like a product and every time I’ve been able to submit a return without having to interact with a single person.
I feel like you either have to be lying about your experience, didn’t even try to return it, or did something that got your account flagged.
Amazon Let Its Drivers’ Urine Be Sold as an Energy Drink
Drivers urinating in bottles has been reported in the past, but what wasn’t known is that some claim they also get penalized for having those urine-filled bottles in their truck when they return to the warehouse.
…
To avoid penalties, they end up discarding the bottles by the side of the road. Butler searches the roadsides near Amazon warehouses from Coventry to New York to Los Angeles and more often than not strikes liquid gold.
From there, it’s laughably straightforward for Butler to get Release listed for sale on Amazon, with very few checks and balances in place to ensure the product he’s selling is safe and legal. “Releasing the drink was surprisingly easy,” Butler told WIRED. “I thought that the food and drinks licensing would stop me from listing it, so I started it out in this Refillable Pump Dispenser category. Then the algorithm moved it into drinks.”
Isn’t that a plot in Moral Orel?
@UnderpantsWeevil
they need to be shut downNationalized and folded into the USPS. Idk about shutting down the biggest commercial retailer in the world.
@UnderpantsWeevil Nationalize is a good idea.
@UnderpantsWeevil
It would certainly take some work. Like the Army, they rely on a failure elsewhere to provide real jobs and paychecks.
Bring on the guaranteed basic income. Fuck your job.But income isn’t useful if you can’t buy stuff with it. And Amazon is the supply chain network that delivers stuff in exchange for money.
And Amazon is the supply chain network that delivers stuff in exchange for money.
Allegedly.
deleted by creator
No judgement…but why would you buy 10 bags of tortillas from Amazon?
@QuandaleDingle
I paid for 12. and it was supposed to be a good deal. why do you ask?
d’OhI’m just curious. You probably go into a hispanic food store and get them for a similar price, or better. And you know what you’re getting then. shrug
But you saw a good deal and thought they’d honor that. So it really sucks that happened. I mean, it’s tortilla! ToT
Yeah, if it’s not made by Amazon and sold by them, I typically won’t buy it. All the other stuff is just marked up stuff from AliExpress and temu.
They don’t make anything. You’re buying marked up stuff from AliExpress and temu that has an “Amazon basics” sticker on it.
I get that, but imo they do vet them and make sure it’s not absolute crap.
So they don’t have the resources to check returned goods or what? Or they simply don’t care enough?
Yup this isn’t a fraud problem. Just an Amazon problem
I buy and maintain about $20K of computer equipment a year for my lab. We learned around 2020 Amazon is a nest of scammers, from the suppliers to the delivery people.
There has been a significant resurgence of local computer supply retail because millions have been ripped off and only now buy in person.
Yeah, I got burned on some hard drives in like 2018 and won’t use them again. They took no action when I reported the issue with the seller. Thankfully I have a microcenter close enough that I can source most of what I need there.
My local retail supplier has seen revenues double in the last 4 years. But, they are under constant threat of scam by buyers.
It’s not just sellers, buyers return swapped items all the time.
So check the items before accepting the return? Sellers are responsible for what they sell.
It’s sickening how little Amazon seem to give a fuck about this. They could easily tighten up their vetting of sellers, but heaven fucking forbid they only report a $50,000,000,000 profit this year instead of $50,003,000,000.
They’ve invested extensively in automating their supply chain to the point that humans aren’t looking inside these boxes anymore. And as customer support is increasingly replaced with AI, the ability to flag and report businesses for fraud has erodes even as the businesses themselves have grown more sophisticated in duping Amazon anti-fraud systems.
The quest to remove every actual thinking human from the inside of your business results in humans outside of your business exploiting the blind spots to the hilt.
CEOs are probably hedging on LLMs adapting faster to scammers then video versa, however unless they make a fundamental breakthrough like what transformers did, adding more parameters to the model ain’t gonna do it.
We are reaching a convergence of accuracy, and once a critical mass of investors realize it, this whole thing implodes. Demand for AI tech will plummet, and all these asshole companies will have to backpedal. Maybe not Amazon, but the small cap companies fo sure
It is like a cat and mouse game between scammer prevention and scammers.
And just like with piracy, the scammers will always be one step ahead of the corporations. Because Amazon may have some giant nerds working in it, but the sheer amount of nerds outside of Amazon will bypass them easily.
Scam software will never replace scam artists.
CEOs are probably hedging on LLMs adapting faster to scammers then video versa
Racing towards the Singularity, a thing that is definitely real and exists and is achievable in our lifetimes.
We are reaching a convergence of accuracy, and once a critical mass of investors realize it, this whole thing implodes.
Industrial dinosaurs have a way of sticking around in strict defiance of market forces. The O&G industry is a great example. They’ve been able to outrun more efficient and cost-effective methods of production and application of energy for decades, in large part thanks to lobbyist-lead state investments in long-term infrastructure and buying out / shutting down of competitors.
I do think the AI boom is facing bigger headwinds than the automotive or airline industries, in large part due to their bloated balance sheets and highly speculative asset prices. But in the same way the big 2008-era investment banks were saved by a multi-trillion dollar bailout from the Fed and the Treasury, I have no doubt Silicon Valley is simply Too Big To Fail in the long run.
Don’t buy expensive shit off Amazon. They don’t do anything to prevent fraud.
We caught a driver on camera take a picture of a $2000 PC on a doorstep, then move it back into his truck. Took a month to resolve with Amazon. If you have to deal with these clowns, use the local pickup option from a locker.
My headlight connector got a little melty, just enough to get loose and stop working, just wore out I suppose.
I bought one on Amazon, along with new bulbs, installed it, and within an hour the new connector had catastrophically melted and shorted out enough to blow the fuse.
I should’ve known, the wire felt cheap, copper clad aluminum. But I thought it would be fine, it’s just a headlight 🤷♂️
Now I’ve got a replacement from the local auto parts. So far so good.
This is a problem with all auto parts, even from NAPA supplying to garages. Mechanics are going broke replacing defective “new” parts.
Makes sense. I work at a different type of repair shop, we just had a brand new $400 battery go up in smoke on first power up. Ridiculous.
Did you receive refunds or do amazon and scammers got away with it?
They got away with it. I bought the part months ago after bodging a fix on the stock connector. By time the bodge failed, the return window closed. It was $5 so unfortunately not worth my time fighting it.
Oh god yeah, so many LED grow lamps and LED drivers that melted or burned out well below their rated amperage. Leaves one to wonder if an entire house is worth saving $10.
Buying electronics from Amazon is really rolling the dice. I’ve received so many inadvertent open box returns… it’s just a matter of time before you get burned.
Newegg is also shit and so is bestbuy. I don’t have a microcenter near me. What else is there? I guess buying direct. Is there anything I’m missing?
Best buy resellers are worse than eBay.
B&H is a great source for electronics, computer parts, and photography.
Depends on what you’re buying. Wiredzone and Provantage are solid for enterprise/workstation gear, and for anything storage or camera related B&H is my go-to.
I have long read reports of amazon reselling used or opened & returned pc-components. We really need a more trustworthy source of pc-components that isn’t a regional micro center store.
In the UK we’re super lucky to have Scan, in-store if you’re in the North West or online otherwise, but for the US I guess it’s too big for a single good store to cover nationwide, then when you get too big you inevitably lose the quality that helped you grow
Buying from a reputable operation spares you from a lot of this. Amazon is all hot garbage across the board.
It wasn’t technology, but i ordered a new mad lib style book for my kid from Amazon. The book arrived with cellophane around it and a nice label that clearly said new. Once opened, it was very obvious the book was used, since the last kid had already filled out the whole damn thing including his name and address inside the cover.
I’m not mad at the kid, although his parents are probably bad people for returning the book at that point. I am livid that Amazon didn’t flip to any random page in the book too determine if the book was used or not.
Fuck Amazon.
Actually that cellophane was brand new, as the label indicated.
Iirc correctly, Amazon actually doesn’t resell their returns. At least not through their storefront.
They have “return auctions” where returns are put onto a pallet and then people bid on them to purchase. Apparently this is cheaper than having a workflow for their returns, checking them to make sure they are resellable, and then stocking them back into their warehouse.
I don’t care if it was actually a store front. I blame Amazon for not doing oversight of its supply chain. So, it’s their fault, or it’s their fault.
So are all these people who say they are buying from Amazon actually buying from 3rd party sellers on Amazon? I’m always confused by these stories with used items being delivered.
The principal issue is this, Amazon commingles stock. This means that there is one box for a particular SKU. If a seller sends product to Amazon for fulfillment it gets dumped into the bin with everyone else’s.
This means that if a seller sends counterfeit or poor products to Amazon it gets mixed in with the real ones from other sellers or Amazon’s own stock. This causes major problems as you can see.
Yup, this is the real answer. Verified vendors’ stock isn’t kept separate from the shitty scammers’ stock. Vendor has 10 good memory cards in stock, and a scammer has 5 fakes? The bin will have all 15 cards… So buying from the vendor doesn’t guarantee you get a real memory card, because the counterfeits are in the same bin.
Every professional photographer knows that good SD cards are Sandisk branded and come from B&H Photo Supply… While bad SD cards are Sandisk branded and come from Amazon.
And somebody buying from the scammer could get a legitimate card, thus allowing the scammer to blend in.
I bought a 3 pack of Corsair LL120 RGB case fans directly from Amazon-dot-com (as the seller) before and got a 3 pack of someone’s old case fans instead (the old swapperoo). So Amazon told me to just keep them after I sent them many photos of the box and the LPN sticker on it, and they sent me another. Take a guess what was in that box? Yup, more swapperoos. But this was back in 2016-2017 so they may have changed up how they handle returns since then, or how they isolate their own products from 3rd party ‘FBA’ sellers
Many years ago it used to be very obvious when you were buying from Amazon vs 3rd party sellers. Today the only difference is a small bit of text that says “Shipped and sold by Amazon”. The fact that you can even get prime shipping on items from third party sellers makes it so that people often don’t realize.
the problem is they mingle stock from every source into one pile with no discernable way to identify what came from where.
Its all the same, you search for something on Amazon, find it, and buy. Not obvious if it is a 3rd party seller or no. It feels like all the same thing.
You can see on the right side of the screen who the seller is though? It is annoying there isn’t a proper filter but you can kind of use the qualified for free shipping filter to filter out third parties.
As I understand it, if any seller is using Amazon fulfillment centers, the product you’re given is picked out of the same box regardless of the named seller. That makes it impossible to buy confidently from Amazon based on the reputation of the seller, and makes Amazon themselves an unreputable seller.
Customers shouldn’t have to be uber careful all the time, these are dark ui patterns.
Caveat emptor
You can. I can. But how many people do, and how many just flick through on their phone and click “Buy now” without really looking?
Basically if you filter by “prime delivery” you’re sure it comes from amazon
You can be sure it comes out of an Amazon warehouse. And that’s not the same thing.
Although frankly, it should be. I don’t know how they’ve got this cushy position where they take items from others, store them, and then ship them out for enormous fees without taking on any retailer responsibility.
I got something recently that was “free shipping for prime customers,” but when I had to return it, it turns out that it was different and returns were not free.
It does say “sold and shipped from amazon” in the listings, as opposed to “sold by random Chinese company”.
You don’t know that Amazon is a marketplace? So is Walmart and Target. Com for example. You can open a store on any of these platforms and sell while using them for advertisement, warehousing, and shipping. You are responsible for fees and sales etc, but they handle everything else. Yes, they have their own products as well, but most their sales come from vendors on their platform.
Amazon sold me a defective planer that had sawdust in it. Ibwas apparently the second to return it under warranty.
Amazon Warehouse I believe is open box and returns. It also gets confusing that marketplace sellers are mostly outside of Amazon’s control
Yeah this stuff is why i never buy tech from Amazon, you never know if you’re gonna get a counterfeit item
Recommendations?
Newegg has been shit for a decade now (new owners fucked it to hell) and I don’t have a Microcenter closer than a 2-hour drive.
How did Newegg survive the outing from Gamers Nexus?
Anywhere that has an actual supply chain instead of website that’s just a front for individual resellers. Places like best buy, or if you could get shipped from microcenter.
Supporting giant evil DOES sometimes get you free stuff… I know folks who have accidentally been shipped multiple of what they’re ordering (in two cases, the items were quite expensive) and when they’ve brought it up, they were told to keep the extras.
Maybe not worth the evil, but hey, free stuff is cool.
Pretty much any of the retailers have this happen. They’re isn’t anything special about ordering from a different site or even picking it up ina brick and mortar store.
“… from Amazon”
Well there’s your problem.
Is amazon not a good supplier anymore? I still order stuff from them occasionally and always get what I need.
There is very little quality control. Amazon mixes supply from different sellers, so bad actors often supply garbage into legitimate listings.
No. They do nothing to vet the sellers or product they are shipping.
Amazon is a platform for different kinds of vendors. Of course there’s the scam artists who do the bait-and-switch.
16 GB DDR2 + 16 GB DDR3 makes 32GB DDR5, right?
32 GBGB DDDDRR5 actually. Much better!
32 GB² DDR²5
I ordered 2x32GB DDR5 on Amazon two years ago and received 1x32 and 1x8 in the same package.
Luckily they replaced it for me completely, still wild. Can only imagine it’s going to get worse.
Its amazon, just return it. That’s really the only good thing about amazon anymore, easy returns.
amazon has been getting less generous with the returns for years now.
Especially if you have more than a few returns per year.
Not really anymore for me. A few times this past year they snuck in the return shipping cost at about $10-$15 USD. The page showed the cost refunded then added back. I don’t know but it fooled me.
With this hardware shortage insanity, I won’t be surprised if they get more aggressive with return shipping fees.
Return shipping fees? I’m guessing you live somewhere rural? Here we just drop it at a local store.
Except in the UK for some reason where you can email and message them for months and pay your own damn return shipping and get fucked about and never recieve a refund.
They tried to fuck me on a return once and after a month of it sitting in limbo i filed and won a dispute though my card provider instead.
Matter of fact i think it was over ram too, but it was over a year ago.
Oh man, that sucks. Sorry, I wrongly assumed amazon returns worked the same everywhere
This is my theory. The kind of stuff I buy there is all electronics manufactured in china/Asia anyway. I could buy it direct or from ali express, but Amazon shipping is hella cheap and fast and they actually do returns quickly and correctly.
This isn’t exclusive to Amazon. I had it happen with friends build back in the Newegg days.
Newegg is still a thing, you just need to check the “Sold by Newegg” filter.
Oh it is, but is so enshittified nobody goes there anymore.
The bad prices are what keep me away. Though, I can’t say I’ve looked at stuff sold by third parties. Why would I do that when Amazon, ebay, and Craigslist exist?
the exploding power supplies forced into bundles are what keep me away. cant return the catastrophically failed PSU without returning everything else, either. total scam.
Newegg is a fucking open septic pit.
Fred sold it off to some chinese acquisition company and its almost a fucking scam now at this point.
I had it happen to me at MicroCenter. Got a mechanical keyboard, in a seemingly-new box. No return sticker on it. Opened it up, and the damned thing was missing like six keys and absolutely covered in gamer chud. Someone very obviously bought it, put their old keyboard in the box, and “returned” it. And whoever took the return didn’t bother checking, or mark it as an open box.
We’d need to know exactly how far back because NewEgg has for years been just like Amazon: a listing service for junky third party sellers.
Evga still made GPUs back then.
You can order friends on newegg?
Yea, but only open box or refurb. Not new.
I bought ram from Amazon some time ago and somebody had done a sticker swap and returned. The ram sticks in the package matched the box according to all the stickers but the kit registered in software was a lower end set with different part/serial numbers than the stickers/box. The funny part was when I bought it the price difference was only like $5 but about a year or so earlier it was closer to an $80 difference.
