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Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

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Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#151

Post by mortenjorck »

DanTheManPR wrote: post #56
gwbas1c wrote: post #45

I don't get it: I've been buying Amazon prime for about 8 years now, and I don't encounter nearly the amount of problems that everyone else reports. Yes, I've gotten a few bad items from Amazon. I've also gotten bad items from brick and mortar stores as well. (I recently had a bunch of items go bad from Trader Joe's long before their sell-by date.)

It depends on what types of things you're typically buying, there are systematic problems in a few classes of products. For example: board games and 3D printer accessories on Amazon are rampantly counterfeited, to the point that it's often difficult to get the real thing. You may actually have received a high quality counterfeit before and not realized it; for example, I used my Xbox360 hard drive for years before re…

The sophistication of counterfeit goods on Amazon is often impressive: For popular items like controllers for the Playstation 4, there are fakes that look and feel (and work) almost exactly like the real thing. The most sophisticated fake DualShock 4s come in convincing retail packaging, they pair with your console, and the only immediate tells (short of waiting a few months for various cut-rate components to fail, such as the battery) are things like the analog sticks clicking the wrong way or the silkscreening on the accessory port being the wrong opacity.

At this point, if I'm looking for a popular brand-name product, and it doesn't have some impossible-to-fake functionality (like booting iOS), I assume by default that there are fakes commingled into Amazon's inventory.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#152

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

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…

What would that look like?

“Item not as described / book clearly used / food item out of date, but probably came from a commingled bin so possibly not the result of the seller I purchased from. Full marks, five stars, perfect ten.”?

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#153

Post by ben509 »

papln wrote: post #106
Jean-Philipe wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

His auntie wouldn't exaggerate or leave out details... would she?

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#154

Post by tzs »

adrianmonk wrote: post #103
arbitrage wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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?

With the exception of infant formula, the dates on food products are not expiration dates. They are sell-by, use-by, or best-by dates.

Sell-by dates tell when the store should remove the product. If you buy the item by then, and consume it at a normal rate, it should be fine.

Use-by and best-by dates are when the item is at peak quality or flavor. It doesn't go bad right after those dates--it just isn't as good.

For items like snack bars, it is probably a sell-by date. Use-by and best-by dates are more appropriate for items that spoil fairly rapidly, or that are reasonably freshly made. A 10 pack of snack bars with a sell-by date 2 days in the future should be no problem.

Infant formula has separate labeling rules. It does give the date after which you should not use it.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#155

Post by strictnein »

brian_herman__ wrote: post #105
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...

This is still happening. Just last week:

https://twitter.com/billpollock/status/1183094406573748225

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#156

Post by shalmanese »

adrianmonk wrote: post #103
arbitrage wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Most things don't actually come with expiration dates, they come with best sold by dates which is the manufacturer's estimate that it will last at least as long after that date at a regular rate of consumption to be entirely consumed. Even then, the dates are usually pretty conservative.

Thus, even if you're receive it 2 days from that date, you should still have enough time to eat them at your leisure and still be fine.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#157

Post by r00fus »

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…

Fulfilled by Amazon is a complete mess and they should be tried for mail fraud.

Co-mingling? Sellers should be furious, and customer should boycott. Why isn't this just called fraud?

I can't trust Amazon to deliver what I ordered, period. Lesson learned.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#158

Post by froindt »

AnssiH wrote: post #142
froindt wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there additional cost to not comingle? I can't find it mentioned after some searches. I wonder, at what point would it be economical to pay the additional costs to not comingle product? Would adding "For customer assurance, we do not comingle our product with other products sold on Amazon" yield additional purchases? At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if nobody looks at your posting because it's 3-20% more e…

> Is there additional cost to not comingle? I can't find it mentioned after some searches. No direct additional cost. But then you need to apply seller-specific FBA barcodes to all your units (or pay Amazon to apply them for $0.20 per unit).

Did this change? I thought there used to be a direct additional cost to not comingle.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#159

Post by ebg13 »

brudgers wrote: post #149
ebg13 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 applie…

Skip the spider. Big table. Borg. "Merchant malfeasance analysis" is simple. Amazon is the merchant. The other view is bullshit. Well promoted bullshit. But bullshit nevertheless.

> Skip the spider. Big table.

I don't understand these expressions.

Re: Amazon is shipping expired food, customers say

#160

Post by tjpaudio »

stagger87 wrote: post #62
tjpaudio wrote: post #51

It's been my experience that nearly all items with expirations on amazon are either near the end of their shelf life or past it. Coffee, candy, supplements, whatever. It's very obviously used as a dumping ground. It's crazy to me that this isn't common knowledge by now.

I'll offer the counter anecdote. I've order thousands of food items off Amazon over several years and have had zero issues with expiration dates. I check any food item I think would cause me illness from being expired.

Expiration vs. freshness. When I buy coffee or anything at a supermarket, the expiration date is about as far into the future as you can get. When I order on amazon, it's always much shorter. Coffee is a great example. It's usually months fresher if I buy in store. Not an issue per-say but you are totally buying the end of life stuff.
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