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Amazon Caught Selling Counterfeits of Publisher’s Computer Books–Again

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Re: Amazon Caught Selling Counterfeits of Publisher’s Computer Books–Again

#161

Post by toomuchtodo »

RileyJames wrote: post #145
DoreenMichele wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walmart's website will tell you if it's available in their local store. You can also order online and pick up at the store without a delivery fee. You can also return or exchange items at a different Walmart if you keep your receipt.

Actually that’s cool, in the US they have these features. The Canadian Wal-Mart website was impossible in this regard, but in the US you can search only in store, today and within xx miles. Appreciate it.

Home Depot and Target support this as well (Home Depot will even tell you the aisle and bin the item is in from their mobile app). Target inventory can be delayed up to 24 hours, so call ahead in case the quantity shown in store is low single digits.

Re: Amazon Caught Selling Counterfeits of Publisher’s Computer Books–Again

#162

Post by m463 »

blueadept111 wrote: post #71

I knew this would blow up. Sadly, Amazon/createspace (now called KDP) apparenty has no mechanism or will to ban users who abuse the system. I am a KDP author myself, with three titles under my belt in the nature/regional category. About three months ago I noticed flagrant copyright infringement of a well-known author in my field. The title had a one star rating, because a number of people had left negative reviews po…

There are so many glaring problems.

I don't know why you can't just highlight text in a kindle book and say:

  [x] typo
  [x] mispelling
  [x] grammatical error
  [x] garbage characters
  [x] plagiarized
  [x] missing section separator
  [x] other [______________]
maybe the REAL issue is that all of these are post-sales problems

Re: Amazon Caught Selling Counterfeits of Publisher’s Computer Books–Again

#163

Post by yellowapple »

ckastner wrote: post #4

The counterfeit and review manipulation issues have rendered Amazon unpleasant enough for me that buying local is something I've started to enjoy again. I trust the merchant to have performed some kind of vetting for merchandise sold on premise, and the price is often good or (interestingly enough) even better than on Amazon. Often enough local is still more expensive, but it beats browsing Amazon for an hour, siftin…

Unfortunately, there's a lot of stuff that simply can't be bought local (even in major cities, let alone small towns). The Internet is necessary in these cases.

The good news is that there are plenty of smaller online stores that tend to be a bit more specialized, and as long as they accept something reasonably secure like PayPal or Bitcoin, I'm a lot less nervous about shopping on those sites instead.

Re: Amazon Caught Selling Counterfeits of Publisher’s Computer Books–Again

#164

Post by yellowapple »

crowbahr wrote: post #74
ckastner wrote: post #4

The counterfeit and review manipulation issues have rendered Amazon unpleasant enough for me that buying local is something I've started to enjoy again. I trust the merchant to have performed some kind of vetting for merchandise sold on premise, and the price is often good or (interestingly enough) even better than on Amazon. Often enough local is still more expensive, but it beats browsing Amazon for an hour, siftin…

I purchased some wire cutters a year or two ago from Amazon and they were fine for the speaker wire I was cutting... Until this year when I tried to cut a guitar string with them and found a perfect guitar gauged hole in my snips every time I tried to cut. I was irate, having paid $10 for these. So I go online to leave a review and warn people off... only to find that the seller "no longer existed". They absolutely d…

Guitar strings (or at least the ones I usually buy) tend to be a lot harder/tougher than your typical electrical wire (electrical wire usually ain't designed to be stretched to high tension and strummed/plucked repeatedly). Not that surprising that a $10 tool would have issues with them.

Re: Amazon Caught Selling Counterfeits of Publisher’s Computer Books–Again

#165

Post by yellowapple »

coldpie wrote: post #50
ckastner wrote: post #4

The counterfeit and review manipulation issues have rendered Amazon unpleasant enough for me that buying local is something I've started to enjoy again. I trust the merchant to have performed some kind of vetting for merchandise sold on premise, and the price is often good or (interestingly enough) even better than on Amazon. Often enough local is still more expensive, but it beats browsing Amazon for an hour, siftin…

The third party seller stuff has really killed my faith in Amazon. If I wanted to have to read reviews for the entity selling the good and have some expectation of getting a counterfeit/broken good, I would go to eBay. I used to go to Amazon because I could trust them, but that trust is lonnng gone. These days I'm shopping more and more locally, because I can actually see the thing I'm buying. Side note: I'm sad to s…

From the other side of the equation: my grandpa runs the Amazon storefront for a charity for which he volunteers (said charity sells donated books in support of the local library system). He sells the big-ticket stuff on Amazon (usually at a fraction of the lowest price, which still brings in plenty of money given the acquisition cost is effectively zero), and anything not valuable enough to break even on shipping (or otherwise doesn't get sold on Amazon) gets sold in a physical storefront next to one of the libraries (big-ticket books being sold individually, and the other books being sold in bulk by the customer filling a plastic shopping bag full of books at a flat rate).

One of the weird things about Amazon is that it doesn't give you an easy way to provide photos for the item you yourself are selling (e.g. your used copy of a book), and if your item is similar enough to an existing item (e.g. same UPC or ISBN or whatever), Amazon will railroad you toward using the existing listing (but will still put you in the "new and used" list).

In other words: the same Amazon quirks that seem to benefit counterfeiters also seem to benefit my grandpa's charity, so I guess I should be grateful and appreciative when I get a knockoff at my doorstep.

Re: Amazon Caught Selling Counterfeits of Publisher’s Computer Books–Again

#166

Post by DanBC »

joshu wrote: post #108
crowbahr wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I purchased some wire cutters a year or two ago from Amazon and they were fine for the speaker wire I was cutting... Until this year when I tried to cut a guitar string with them and found a perfect guitar gauged hole in my snips every time I tried to cut. I was irate, having paid $10 for these. So I go online to leave a review and warn people off... only to find that the seller "no longer existed". They absolutely d…

inexpensive wire snips are usually only good for cutting copper wire, though. they aren't made of hardened steel, which is necessary for cutting the steel guitar strings.

Yes. Here's a photo of my Lindstrom cutters (good, but for copper) and they show the diameter wire they're rated for. And these were not $10 snips.

http://imgur.com/a/Zk3LBCE

Re: Amazon Caught Selling Counterfeits of Publisher’s Computer Books–Again

#167

Post by DanBC »

crowbahr wrote: post #114
joshu wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

inexpensive wire snips are usually only good for cutting copper wire, though. they aren't made of hardened steel, which is necessary for cutting the steel guitar strings.

$10 is not inexpensive for wire snips though. Which is my complaint.

I worked in electronic sub-contract manufacturing for over ten years. We built products for coal mining, and test equipment for aerospace, and products for a variety of domestic and commercial uses. All of this involved use of a wide range of hand tools.

A few people have told you that wire cutters come in two forms: hardened and not hardened, and that if you wish to cut steel you should buy cutters that are rated for steel. The price does not tell you this information. The data sheet for the tool does.

Here's a pair of snips that cost over £50. I'd be displeased if you borrowed mine and used them to cut guitar wire. https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/cable-cutters/0614766/

One thing you can't see in the images is that these cutters tell you what wire you can cut on them: https://imgur.com/a/Zk3LBCE

If you want to cut steel you need snips that specifically say they can cut steel. These don't have to be expensive: Here are some for £7. https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/cable-cutters/0732820/

Re: Amazon Caught Selling Counterfeits of Publisher’s Computer Books–Again

#168

Post by pheeney »

ryandrake wrote: post #160
pheeney wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I am an amazon affiliate and use other amazon services as my business. The bridge has been burned for me as a consumer to continue shopping with them personally or with my business, but it's too risky to upset the beast if that somehow triggers an impact to my livelihood on the other end. I would love nothing more than to phase Amazon out of my life along with Google but that is increasingly difficult to do.…

I didn't consider the case where you're not just a consumer. Will they kill your (presumably totally separate and isolated) business account due to a charge-back on your consumer account? How do they even know it's the same person? Even if so, I'd argue if your business is so utterly dependent on a single company's service, that's a huge risk and you ought to be be taking steps to diversify or self-host some things.…

I don't know what Amazon will do now or at any point in the future if I were to do a charge-back or any else they don't agree with. I imagine they could easily link my accounts together. Payee names, IPs, logging out of one account into the next in the same session. Any other meta data like phone, search history, etc. It sounds like a reach right now but the fact is there is no way to know what they do and its the unknown that causes a problem.

I am well aware of the need to diversify. It is something I am actively working towards but there is no path from here to there overnight.

I still partly agree with your consumer stand point. Even if you rule out the business aspect Amazon is pretty entrenched in may ways from purely a consumer standpoint. If I personally don't care what happens to my account, what about my family? Will their kindles stop working, prime video, audible, whole foods, etc? They share some of the prime benefits so they would be affected as well.

Re: Amazon Caught Selling Counterfeits of Publisher’s Computer Books–Again

#169

Post by crowbahr »

yellowapple wrote: post #164
crowbahr wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I purchased some wire cutters a year or two ago from Amazon and they were fine for the speaker wire I was cutting... Until this year when I tried to cut a guitar string with them and found a perfect guitar gauged hole in my snips every time I tried to cut. I was irate, having paid $10 for these. So I go online to leave a review and warn people off... only to find that the seller "no longer existed". They absolutely d…

Guitar strings (or at least the ones I usually buy) tend to be a lot harder/tougher than your typical electrical wire (electrical wire usually ain't designed to be stretched to high tension and strummed/plucked repeatedly). Not that surprising that a $10 tool would have issues with them.

The $5 Stanley snips I bought later have no problem.

It was just me getting ripped off.

Re: Amazon Caught Selling Counterfeits of Publisher’s Computer Books–Again

#170

Post by ikeboy »

alexforster wrote: post #21
ckastner wrote: post #4

The counterfeit and review manipulation issues have rendered Amazon unpleasant enough for me that buying local is something I've started to enjoy again. I trust the merchant to have performed some kind of vetting for merchandise sold on premise, and the price is often good or (interestingly enough) even better than on Amazon. Often enough local is still more expensive, but it beats browsing Amazon for an hour, siftin…

My last two Amazon purchases ended up being counterfit, even after spending a ton of time trying to avoid counterfits. I'm still going to use my fake electric toothbrush heads and fake Apple 5W USB charger, but I'm not using Amazon anymore.

Amazon now only allows authorized Apple sellers on any Apple products so shouldn't be an issue there
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