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Amazon allegedly scammed out of $370K by 22-year-old's return shipments of dirt

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Re: Amazon allegedly scammed out of $370K by 22-year-old's return shipments of dirt

#51

Post by Alex3917 »

DannyBee wrote: post #44
Alex3917 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What did this man think was going to happen? That Amazon would never open the boxes he returned? To be fair Amazon actually sells bags of dirt, so if there is just a bar code and a bag of dirt then the person opening the box might not think anything of it.

He just had the wrong scam. Buy high grade dirt, return low grade dirt. Buy high purity reagents, ...

I mean you could actually do that. They sell bags of dirt with gold flakes in it for kids to practice panning for gold, so you could buy that and take the gold out and return it.

Re: Amazon allegedly scammed out of $370K by 22-year-old's return shipments of dirt

#53

Post by mk89 »

eco wrote: post #31

I just ordered a MyQ garage door hub from Amazon Warehouse (listed as missing or damaged original packaging). When I opened it up it felt a little off. The protective film on the device had obviously been removed and reattached and nothing fit very well in the designated slots in the packaging. The device itself had faint scratches and dust on it. I decided to check the model number and sure enough, it was the previo…

Same here. TV from Amazon warehouse; no remote control. Who knows! Maybe the person needed just the 30$ remote :)

Re: Amazon allegedly scammed out of $370K by 22-year-old's return shipments of dirt

#54

Post by stefco_ »

wpietri wrote: post #29
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #8

This is so bizarrely stupid, but it does lead to some questions: 1. What did this man think was going to happen? That Amazon would never open the boxes he returned? Certainly after 370k worth I'm surprised he didn't get flagged much earlier. 2. What normally happens to Amazon returns? The article makes it sound like they are rarely opened. That seems bizarre to me. I would have thought they'd have a system for proces…

> What did this man think was going to happen? I think you're giving him too much credit. People try things. They repeat the things that work. Most thinking happens when the behavior stops working. That's why long/broken feedback loops in systems are so dangerous. E.g., a big reason the Challenger disaster happened is NASA ignoring warning signs because they had gotten away with it before. If a zillion NASA engineers…

> a zillion NASA engineers didn't really think it through when lives were on the line

The in-depth investigation following the Challenger disaster [0] actually reached a slightly different conclusion: engineers tended to estimate ~1/100 launches would end in failure, while management estimates were about 3-6 orders of magnitude lower. The engineers did think it through; it was management that failed utterly and completely in their assigned task.

Anyway, I think your point is correct, but in this case it was management who learned that they could keep ignoring engineering expertise and get away with it until it literally blew up in their faces. Anyone who's had their boss urge them to rush bad code out the door (only to get chewed out when it fails as catastrophically as they knew it would) is familiar with this.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Commission_Report

Re: Amazon allegedly scammed out of $370K by 22-year-old's return shipments of dirt

#55

Post by bArray »

My family run a business that partially operates through eBay and this kind of crap happens to them quite regularly. They get variations of:

* Returning (literal) rubbish to make up the weight

* Returning the parts when they break them trying to use them

* Returning the old parts they are replacing with the new parts they purchased

* Returning parts they didn't check before purchasing and getting a full refund (including postage), by claiming the item wasn't as described

* Claiming the parcel wasn't delivered, despite the courier company having a signature showing it was (one trick they use is to make sure the parcel is delivered to a neighbour)

The worst part? There is no method to fight this. Neither eBay, the delivery companies or PayPal will take responsibility for the costs, despite claiming they do. It doesn't matter what evidence you submit (pictures, videos, third part testimony, etc), the result is the same. The "funny" part is that some items they refuse to deliver without insurance (which has to be with them) and then when you go to claim, it's not possible.

The delivery companies are also great to deal with:

* Parcels arrive broken despite adequate packaging (for example, somebody has run over the item with a fork lift)

* Parcels get lost despite purchasing tracking - you phone them up and they have zero idea where the parcel went

As somebody who gets parcels delivered, occasionally the delivery companies will deliver the item with some tape showing that it's broken. Their advice is not to accept the item, which only works when you're actually in - but then if you are, they refuse to send the item back anyway. This is because the delivery drivers only get paid for delivered items, so it's the end-courier that gets screwed.

Anyway, my point is that somebody like Amazon who mostly acts as a trading platform these days and facilitates this crap that sellers have to put up with - I really don't feel sorry for them.

Re: Amazon allegedly scammed out of $370K by 22-year-old's return shipments of dirt

#56

Post by DanBC »

bArray wrote: post #55

My family run a business that partially operates through eBay and this kind of crap happens to them quite regularly. They get variations of: * Returning (literal) rubbish to make up the weight * Returning the parts when they break them trying to use them * Returning the old parts they are replacing with the new parts they purchased * Returning parts they didn't check before purchasing and getting a full refund (inclu…

> * Claiming the parcel wasn't delivered, despite the courier company having a signature showing it was (one trick they use is to make sure the parcel is delivered to a neighbour)

Watch out for this one though, some delivery companies are just terrible at locating the real address and will send the parcel anywhere.

Re: Amazon allegedly scammed out of $370K by 22-year-old's return shipments of dirt

#58

Post by wpietri »

stefco_ wrote: post #54
wpietri wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What did this man think was going to happen? I think you're giving him too much credit. People try things. They repeat the things that work. Most thinking happens when the behavior stops working. That's why long/broken feedback loops in systems are so dangerous. E.g., a big reason the Challenger disaster happened is NASA ignoring warning signs because they had gotten away with it before. If a zillion NASA engineers…

> a zillion NASA engineers didn't really think it through when lives were on the line The in-depth investigation following the Challenger disaster [0] actually reached a slightly different conclusion: engineers tended to estimate ~1/100 launches would end in failure, while management estimates were about 3-6 orders of magnitude lower. The engineers did think it through; it was management that failed utterly and compl…

Thanks for the correction.

But I'm not sure I agree with your diagnosis. I suppose it depends on how one thinks of engineers and software developers. Are we professionals, like doctors, with a bedrock responsibility to society and our users? Or are we just very well-paid gofers, who do whatever the bosses say?

In my view, responsibility isn't a zero-sum game. Sure, the managers failed. But the engineers also failed, and in the same way the Amazon thief did: they had reason to suspect consequences were coming, but they hung around because it was rewarding.

Re: Amazon allegedly scammed out of $370K by 22-year-old's return shipments of dirt

#59

Post by dfcmt »

eco wrote: post #31

I just ordered a MyQ garage door hub from Amazon Warehouse (listed as missing or damaged original packaging). When I opened it up it felt a little off. The protective film on the device had obviously been removed and reattached and nothing fit very well in the designated slots in the packaging. The device itself had faint scratches and dust on it. I decided to check the model number and sure enough, it was the previo…

This reminds me of a story I read once of a guy who bought a 1000€ GPU from Amazon and got a 100€ GPU instead, obviously from a return. When he got to return it to get his 1000€ back, he was told that he had sent the wrong GPU, that it had been destroyed by them (like you would shred a sheet of paper) and asking for the right card to be sent to them.

Re: Amazon allegedly scammed out of $370K by 22-year-old's return shipments of dirt

#60

Post by wpietri »

dmix wrote: post #40
wpietri wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What did this man think was going to happen? I think you're giving him too much credit. People try things. They repeat the things that work. Most thinking happens when the behavior stops working. That's why long/broken feedback loops in systems are so dangerous. E.g., a big reason the Challenger disaster happened is NASA ignoring warning signs because they had gotten away with it before. If a zillion NASA engineers…

> Theranos. How many people with advanced degrees worked there without ever catching on to how screwed they were? Tons of people inside Thernos asked questions and then eventually left when they realized there was no answer. Especially the smart guys at the top who knew the most. The book said the securty guy described an almost constant flow of people turning in their badges/fobs from getting fired by the Balwani gu…

Sure, but there were also plenty of people who didn't leave.

And honestly, I think VCs are another good example of the problem here. They are notorious for being herd animals. They celebrate "pattern matching", by which they mean repeating the behaviors that previously led them to make money. If investors were all that good at thinking things through, they wouldn't have burned $1.4 billion dollars on Theranos.

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