Amazon, Amid Crackdown on Seller Scams, Fires Employees Over Data Leak • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon, Amid Crackdown on Seller Scams, Fires Employees Over Data Leak

#71

Post by LeftTurnSignal » Tue, Dec 11, 2018, 6:00 PM UTC

antjanus wrote: post #36

rootusrootus wrote: post #13

As proof that I am clearly not qualified to run a nearly trillion-dollar company, I offer this advice to Amazon -- ditch the marketplace. No more third party sellers. I have been a reliable Amazon Prime consumer for years, but I have begun making purchases elsewhere because I can not even trust "Ships from and sold by Amazon" any more. At the very least, quite intermingling stock. And at this point you're going to ha…

I had the same issue. And ordering the same product (even from the same "seller") is hit or miss. It's a weird story but I ordered a kids plate from Amazon. I ordered 2 that were totally fine but when I ordered a 3rd one, it was completely different quality, seemed to be a different material, and had a weird smell to it. It was "Prime" but almost immediately, you could tell it was a different product. This has happen…

> I wouldn't buy an HDD from Amazon for instance due to their crazy shipping shit

I stopped buying anything electronic from Amazon because one power to USB adapter burned up, tripped a circuit breaker, and it broke my fridge. Luckily, that was the only other thing I had plugged into that circuit at the time.

Another big issue was my friend bought an Apple power adapter that started smoking after a few hours of it being plugged into the wall.

Scary stuff, especially when you consider anything that goes on or in your body could be counterfeit too.

Re: Amazon, Amid Crackdown on Seller Scams, Fires Employees Over Data Leak

#72

Post by godzillabrennus » Tue, Dec 11, 2018, 6:02 PM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #31

strictnein wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the prices on some of the stuff is just weird, with a lot of the Amazon provided stuff now stuck behind Amazon Prime Pantry. I used to order a lot of our daily household stuff from Amazon: cleaners, dish soap, detergent, etc. So much of that stuff now is priced just horribly. $4 for a bottle from Amazon, but it's just from Prime Pantry so you have to order a bunch of stuff or be stuck with a high shipping cost. I…

Perhaps I spent too much of my youth watching supermarket-themed game shows, but I'm very much in tune with how much things should cost in supermarkets, and how they vary from chain to chain and region to region. It was for that reason I started buying my household stuff at Amazon — because I could save a buck or two, per item, which adds up. Then — as you pointed out — stuff got weird. Amazon's prices became consist…

For the longest time I would have added to your list of things not to buy on Amazon anything claiming to be OEM Apple products.

It was likely they were fakes and if they provide electrical power they may be a fire hazard.

Amazon seemed to realize how big of a problem this was (or Apple took them aside and made it a problem for them) because they just announced they are taking action: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bjexb5/amazon-is-...

Re: Amazon, Amid Crackdown on Seller Scams, Fires Employees Over Data Leak

#73

Post by fbelzile » Tue, Dec 11, 2018, 6:03 PM UTC

rchaud wrote: post #24

One of the first things I remember about moving to a rich country was the absence of knockoff products sold in retail stores. It seemed amazing to me that companies would deal only with authorized distributors. These days, I feel like I'm in a twilight zone where 'wealth creation' is happening by putting a fresh face on 3rd-world country business models. First it was Uber with the "hire a random guy off the street to…

> Now it's Amazon selling bootleg crap at scale. What's their excuse? Some variant of "move fast, break things", no doubt.

Competing with Alibaba. Amazon seems to have decided to increase product variety (through increasing foreign based stores) at the cost of losing quality control.

Re: Amazon, Amid Crackdown on Seller Scams, Fires Employees Over Data Leak

#74

Post by xkjkls » Tue, Dec 11, 2018, 6:04 PM UTC

rootusrootus wrote: post #13

As proof that I am clearly not qualified to run a nearly trillion-dollar company, I offer this advice to Amazon -- ditch the marketplace. No more third party sellers. I have been a reliable Amazon Prime consumer for years, but I have begun making purchases elsewhere because I can not even trust "Ships from and sold by Amazon" any more. At the very least, quite intermingling stock. And at this point you're going to ha…

The data they get from what is popular on marketplace justifies its existence alone. Without marketplace, Amazon would be in the dark about what products they should even begin stocking.

Re: Amazon, Amid Crackdown on Seller Scams, Fires Employees Over Data Leak

#75

Post by scarface74 » Tue, Dec 11, 2018, 6:05 PM UTC

legohead wrote: post #64

If there is an alternate news source can you please not use WSJ? It is paywalled pretty hard.

For any article, replace the wsj with fullwsj in the url. It will redirect you to a non paywall link through Facebook.

If don’t have to have a FB account.

Re: Amazon, Amid Crackdown on Seller Scams, Fires Employees Over Data Leak

#76

Post by roymurdock » Tue, Dec 11, 2018, 6:06 PM UTC

cookingrobot wrote: post #61

rchaud wrote: post #24

One of the first things I remember about moving to a rich country was the absence of knockoff products sold in retail stores. It seemed amazing to me that companies would deal only with authorized distributors. These days, I feel like I'm in a twilight zone where 'wealth creation' is happening by putting a fresh face on 3rd-world country business models. First it was Uber with the "hire a random guy off the street to…

Some of that seems right, but I don’t agree with the Uber example. Ride sharing has been a much more convenient and reliable service than taxis, and with less fraud (broken meters or credit card machines) and less discrimination (actually willing to drive me to the neighborhood I want). And with Uber I have a record of who drove me where. This seems pretty different from being picked up by a random person on the stre…

problem with uber from a customer perspective is if you are a single woman taking a ride, the drivers are not full time cab employees that can possibly be fired/lose their cab medallion/permits. some women i know are considering switching to licensed cabs due to the harassment they get from uber drivers with no good mechanism to report and avoid those drivers aside from never traveling alone. as a guy, i've only had good experiences (except for the opaque surge pricing which always feels extortionate)

Re: Amazon, Amid Crackdown on Seller Scams, Fires Employees Over Data Leak

#77

Post by trevyn » Tue, Dec 11, 2018, 6:08 PM UTC

rchaud wrote: post #24

One of the first things I remember about moving to a rich country was the absence of knockoff products sold in retail stores. It seemed amazing to me that companies would deal only with authorized distributors. These days, I feel like I'm in a twilight zone where 'wealth creation' is happening by putting a fresh face on 3rd-world country business models. First it was Uber with the "hire a random guy off the street to…

Uber/Fiverr/Upwork automate the trust aspect, so I can be assured decent service or I’ll get a refund and the provider’s reputation will be dinged. Outright scams are hard to pull off in this environment.

Amazon... I can only speculate what’s going on there. Maybe the resulting price pressure turns the screws on suppliers? And honestly I’ve never gotten a branded product from them that I thought was fake.

This could just be a fulfillment optimization; there are obvious cost savings and efficiencies from commingling, and maybe they’re working on a solution now.

Re: Amazon, Amid Crackdown on Seller Scams, Fires Employees Over Data Leak

#78

Post by nindalf » Tue, Dec 11, 2018, 6:10 PM UTC

decebalus1 wrote: post #58

TeMPOraL wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> cost savings/increased efficiency is the name of the game I'd say "socializing losses, privatizing gains" is the name of the game. Those popular disruptive startups dump plenty of externalities on everyone around them. Don't think for a moment that anyone there is increasing efficiency for the sake of increasing efficiency globally; it's just disrupting the society and hoping money pours through the cracks.

> "socializing losses, privatizing gains" Never seen this formulated as such but I really like it. I was reading a book which tangentially dealt with that [0]. It changed my perspective on how new businesses are increasingly externalizing their costs to the consumers. [0] https://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Work-Unpaid-Unseen-Jobs/dp/161...

I'm not sure why it isn't more common to see that on HN. On reddit, it's reliably one of the top comments in such threads.

Re: Amazon, Amid Crackdown on Seller Scams, Fires Employees Over Data Leak

#79

Post by elliottcarlson » Tue, Dec 11, 2018, 6:12 PM UTC

gnicholas wrote: post #42

anonymouzz wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! A short note what is under the link would get more clicks/be more usable. Otherwise you're asking too much trust.

On HN, it is well known what an Outline link is for, especially on WSJ articles.

It was actually new to me.

Re: Amazon, Amid Crackdown on Seller Scams, Fires Employees Over Data Leak

#80

Post by mrec » Tue, Dec 11, 2018, 6:13 PM UTC

decebalus1 wrote: post #58

TeMPOraL wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> cost savings/increased efficiency is the name of the game I'd say "socializing losses, privatizing gains" is the name of the game. Those popular disruptive startups dump plenty of externalities on everyone around them. Don't think for a moment that anyone there is increasing efficiency for the sake of increasing efficiency globally; it's just disrupting the society and hoping money pours through the cracks.

> "socializing losses, privatizing gains" Never seen this formulated as such but I really like it. I was reading a book which tangentially dealt with that [0]. It changed my perspective on how new businesses are increasingly externalizing their costs to the consumers. [0] https://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Work-Unpaid-Unseen-Jobs/dp/161...

I'm surprised you've never seen it before, it's been pretty common for a long, long time.