Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#101

Post by lotsofpulp » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 3:13 PM UTC

not_a_cop75 wrote: post #98

lotsofpulp wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds to me like amazon takes a 15% or 20% cut of the transaction, and the customer gets to do all the work of vetting sellers? I’d rather pay more and support a reputable manufacturer or vendor directly.

Amazon is the equivocal of the retail end. Any sufficient and provable complaint to Amazon will result in a refund.

I don’t want a refund, I want to support companies that use the right processes to save me time, but companies that choose to commingle to save the company a penny and cost me time are not worth supporting.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#102

Post by dpark » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 3:13 PM UTC

serial_dev wrote: post #100

dpark wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In other words, Amazon knows about the sellers who ship expired goods yet lets them continue to operate. It has the data and it still fails to take one of the easiest steps to address the problem, removing bad actors from the marketplace I have anecdata contrary to this. We used to buy gluten free bread from Amazon because of my son’s gluten allergy. It was a pain to buy locally so we would buy 4 loaves at a time f…

Your anecdote is a good example that they don't listen. How many times did you complain before they took action? It looks like you had to complain multiple times which most people will not do (they complain once and try to not order from that seller).

I believe my wife complained to a human twice.

Most people probably complain zero times. Posting negative reviews of a product is a poor way to give feedback about a bad seller.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#103

Post by adrianmonk » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 3:19 PM UTC

arbitrage wrote: post #73

rietta wrote: post #22

This happened to us. My wife orders a lot of dog treats and human snacks on subscribe and save. They sent a package of nearly expired nut snack bars. Wife contacted customer service and they just sent another of the same. My wife is meticulous about checking sale by and it is a fight to keep her from throwing out recently expired foods. But I hadn't known a store to ship an expired product before this.

> They sent a package of nearly expired nut snack bars. So, they sent you an unexpired product, that you ordered? Outrageous.

How close the expiration date is matters.

Let's say the snack bars come in a package of 10 and the expiration date is 2 days from now. Do you want to be forced choose between eat 5 bars a day or throwing some of them out?

If the alternative is to buy them from some other source that will give you a package that doesn't expire for 2 months (for the same price, all other things being equal, etc.), then that is indeed a more attractive offer.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#104

Post by m23khan » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 3:29 PM UTC

Frankly speaking, the amount of steps a customer has to go through to ensure quality from Amazon -- check out reviews for buyers, cross check prices to ensure you are not getting ripped off, check out estimated delivery times, and then as the article (and comments here) state, be on look out for expiration date -- for me at least, it makes sense to use Amazon only for books.

Everything else, even living in the First World large Global City (Toronto), I find it easier to just go out to stores to do quick check and buy with piece of mind.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#105

Post by brian_herman__ » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 3:32 PM UTC

m23khan wrote: post #104

Frankly speaking, the amount of steps a customer has to go through to ensure quality from Amazon -- check out reviews for buyers, cross check prices to ensure you are not getting ripped off, check out estimated delivery times, and then as the article (and comments here) state, be on look out for expiration date -- for me at least, it makes sense to use Amazon only for books. Everything else, even living in the First…

Sometimes amazon even sells fake books! https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/02/amazo...

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#106

Post by papln » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 3:34 PM UTC

Jean-Philipe wrote: post #68

ilamont wrote: post #13

A data analytics firm that specializes in the Amazon Marketplace recently analyzed the site’s 100 best-selling food products for CNBC and found that at least 40% of sellers had more than five customer complaints about expired goods. In other words, Amazon knows about the sellers who ship expired goods yet lets them continue to operate. It has the data and it still fails to take one of the easiest steps to address the…

Funny thing, my auntie once got banned for life from Amazon. She used to sell used books on Amazon (as "used", obviously) until she got one single complaint from a client. Even though the complaint was without basis, she offered him full refund while letting him keep the book. Still, she got banned by Amazon. They even banned the account of her husband, with no explanation and no possibility for recourse. She cannot…

How do you know that story is true? Amazon is full of sellers with many complaints published on the site.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#107

Post by ebg13 » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 3:34 PM UTC

brudgers wrote: post #80

dspillett wrote: post #34

A key problem with the complaints is that customer reviews don't† take into account the effect of commingling. The expired food might have come from a different seller initially, but you were sent it because of Amazon's supply line optimisations. Amazon will know but when you write your review or read someone else's, you won't. Same problem as counterfeit goods and commingling though iirc there are more control in pl…

Commingling isn't a problem with the complaints. Commingling reflects a deliberate profit motivated decision at the highest level of Amazon's management. Amazon executives have evaluated the health risks of commingling food. The safety risks of commingling electronics. They've calculated it more profitable to lawyer up when bad things happen.

> Commingling isn't a problem with the complaints.

I think they mean that commingling necessarily eliminates the viability of merchant malfeasance analysis in reading reviews, not that the complainers did anything wrong. Just that you can't trust the products from even the most trustworthy shop because someone _else_ might be trying to cheat the marketplace. The review system applies to products, but mostly it applies to individual product _specimens_. And if you don't know whether bad specimens came disproportionately from a particular merchant, then the real value of reviews has been diminished.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#108

Post by papln » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 3:37 PM UTC

dpark wrote: post #99

ilamont wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear stories like that, and then I see my own experience with serial cheaters allowed to keep selling and racking up negative ratings. I am wondering if Amazon gave up enforcement, or just changed its practices/loosened the rules.

I hear stories like that and question innocence of the protestor. I know sometimes people get screwed over for no reason but I’m also aware of numerous cases where someone loudly protests the unfairness of being blocked for a single unintentional infraction and upon further review it turns out they had a history of abuse, sometimes with a secondary account that they assumed BigCo was too stupid to link to their “real…

There's a cottage industry of this in HN, where someone posts a blog complainings about BigCo destroying their small business, getting hundreds of upvotes and comments, and then it turns out, every time, that oops their software developement was outsourced to a developer who is a known serial spammer or scammer, and it's "not fair" because mom&pop can't know that they hired a criminal so BigCo shouldn't blame them.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#109

Post by jimmyvalmer » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 3:38 PM UTC

m23khan wrote: post #104

Frankly speaking, the amount of steps a customer has to go through to ensure quality from Amazon -- check out reviews for buyers, cross check prices to ensure you are not getting ripped off, check out estimated delivery times, and then as the article (and comments here) state, be on look out for expiration date -- for me at least, it makes sense to use Amazon only for books. Everything else, even living in the First…

> piece of mind

... said Bruce Dickinson!

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#110

Post by adrianmonk » Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 3:38 PM UTC

dspillett wrote: post #34

A key problem with the complaints is that customer reviews don't† take into account the effect of commingling. The expired food might have come from a different seller initially, but you were sent it because of Amazon's supply line optimisations. Amazon will know but when you write your review or read someone else's, you won't. Same problem as counterfeit goods and commingling though iirc there are more control in pl…

Commingling is bad, but does commingling mean they can't trace it back to which seller sent it to them for FBA?

If they can, they can penalize that seller, not the other seller (who won the sale).

I'm assuming Amazon has a unique id for every individual item in their warehouses. I'm not sure this is the case, but it seems likely given how their warehouses are organized and the location of stuff is very mixed up and only known to computers. (It would also be sufficient if they have unique ids for lots. If one seller sends 10 identical perishable items and Amazon groups those on a shelf together, they can still trace it back to the right seller.)