Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA Appellate Court • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA Appellate Court

#181

Post by myself248 » Sun, Aug 16, 2020, 12:25 PM UTC

imglorp wrote: post #159

ChuckMcM wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is laid out in the judgement[1]. In California, if you are an integral part between the manufacturer and the consumer, especially if you are the one that "owns the relationship" you are on the hook for strict liability. [1] Starting from Page 17 -- https://cases.justia.com/california/court-of-appeal/2020-d07...

Then maybe this return policy will only apply to buyers in CA?

Now I'm wondering if I can establish personal nexus in CA sufficient to qualify for such protections, while continuing to reside in place without all the Californians...

Re: Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA Appellate Court

#182

Post by myself248 » Sun, Aug 16, 2020, 12:27 PM UTC

crooked-v wrote: post #94

kadoban wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That starts to be somewhat comparable, but still doesn't feel much like Amazon. Amazon isn't separate blocks of space, and merchants don't really rent their own areas. On a website that'd look like amazon.com/mycrapcompanystore/ or something. As a customer I just go to amazon and search for what I want. They choose what specific items I should see, in what order, and I am barely aware of who actually sent the item to…

Ebay is a good contrast here, as while it has the same general search-for-a-thing idea, it makes it very clear that you're buying this one specific item from this one specific merchant.

And I'd argue that's a far superior model. I go to eBay for a lot of items that I suspect may be graymarket but I'm willing to risk it, specifically BECAUSE I know exactly which seller sold me the thing, and I can go back on them if it's bad, and eBay has pretty good protections for buyers.

I could buy the same goods on Amazon but have none of the traceability or protections.

Re: Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA Appellate Court

#183

Post by myself248 » Sun, Aug 16, 2020, 12:29 PM UTC

Stratoscope wrote: post #147

stickfigure wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not correct. There are plenty of subdivided retail marketplaces (with a single cashier) that sell new products. There's one here where I live in Winters (just north of SF), and I found them frequently in the midwest when I lived there. Merchants rent small blocks of space from the establishment; what they put on the shelves is really up to them. Yes, this is commonly secondhand goods. But not always. The shop…

You must be talking about Winters Collective? I didn't know about it before, so I tracked it down and it sounds like such a nice place! I used to drive up and down 505 all the time visiting family in Oregon. It's been a while, but a stop in Winters will be in store for my next trip. "a unique collection of vendors who work in partnership to market as a group and showcase the goods of several small businesses in one c…

We have a thing like that in Michigan called Gibraltar Trade Center. At least, parts of GTC operate that way. There are also individual booths with individual cashiers.

It's a great place to get a hepatitis tattoo, scam "6,000,000-watt" car stereo amplifier, or dubious candles that all smell like crayons plus whatever they claim to smell like. And these days, covid too.

Re: Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA Appellate Court

#184

Post by nkrisc » Sun, Aug 16, 2020, 12:37 PM UTC

yomly wrote: post #153

x0x0 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"duracell" cr2032s -- those little pancake batteries for your car keyfob -- that die within 4 months. Which is weird, because the duracells at my hardware store last like 5 years.

When you buy these fakes from Amazon are they sold by Amazon? Or are they 3P sellers? Or is the problem that FBA sellers are infecting legitimate "sold by Amazon" inventory?

If you bought it on Amazon.com and your credit card was charged by Amazon.com, you bought it from Amazon. Consumers shouldn't be concerned with what supplier Amazon gets their inventory from.

Re: Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA Appellate Court

#185

Post by ianai » Sun, Aug 16, 2020, 12:38 PM UTC

myself248 wrote: post #178

yomly wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I left Amazon the fastest growing team in the country was the antifraud team and they already had like 2 floors of agents working on it. But I also heard that issues which hadn't occured 3 times in a row were dropped on the floor because of Amazon's scale. This was quite a few years ago now, I can only imagine Amazon is spending more money on the problem now vs then. not to defend Amazon, but maybe the scale of…

Somehow Home Depot sells a lot of things and none of them appear graymarket or fraudulent. This problem exists because Amazon wanted it to exist. They chose to do business in a way that avoids traditional checks and balances. The scale of the problem is entirely on them.

Agree. I think the regulation should include “if your platform is too large for you to police then you and your platform must be broken up into smaller, manageable parts”

Re: Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA Appellate Court

#186

Post by 0x00000000 » Sun, Aug 16, 2020, 12:46 PM UTC

donatj wrote: post #121

elasticventures wrote: post #21

eBay is not same-same, it's much more marketplace-esque. eBay does not use a consolidated product listing, much more like a bulletin board each sellers products being sold under it's own URL. Amazon consolidates the listing for all sellers into a single product and uses their own ranking algorithms to determine which seller is in the "buy box" (which accounts for 97% of the items sales velocity). Amazon treats the en…

> they anonymize the emails and don't allow sellers to send follow-messages to clients Are you sure about that, I get emails from 3rd party sellers pressuring me to review the items all the time.

They are abusing the “more information required to complete your order” messages. I report them when they do it.

Re: Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA Appellate Court

#187

Post by maurys » Sun, Aug 16, 2020, 12:47 PM UTC

I hear a lot of complaints about counterfeits in Amazon in the US.

But not as many back here in India. I've bought electronics, chairs, phones and appliances without too much hassle. Always with fulfilled by Amazon though.

I'm curious if the problem is more prevalent in different locations.

Re: Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA Appellate Court

#188

Post by mumblemumble » Sun, Aug 16, 2020, 12:50 PM UTC

yomly wrote: post #152

heavyset_go wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't even report that the reason for your return is that you suspect or know that the item you received is counterfeit during the return process. If Amazon cared about a problem this big, they would collect metrics from customers on it.

When I left Amazon the fastest growing team in the country was the antifraud team and they already had like 2 floors of agents working on it. But I also heard that issues which hadn't occured 3 times in a row were dropped on the floor because of Amazon's scale. This was quite a few years ago now, I can only imagine Amazon is spending more money on the problem now vs then. not to defend Amazon, but maybe the scale of…

My guess is that, in this case, "too big" actually means "above the fraud team on the org chart." They could presumably pull the rug out from under fraudsters, at relatively little cost. Perhaps by making some policy changes that alter the cost/benefit tradeoff for fraud, or that limit the blast radius so that it doesn't render he entire platform untrustworthy. But I'm guessing the changes in question would be tantamount to an attack on some executive's golden calf.

I could hazard a few specific ideas in Amazon's case, but really I'm just extrapolating from the fact that I've seen that this is how it generally works at any sufficiently large company.

Re: Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA Appellate Court

#189

Post by wl » Sun, Aug 16, 2020, 12:51 PM UTC

joe_momma wrote: post #115

I only buy books from Amazon, who knew they were still only good at one thing.

They're not even good at that. They seem to have forgotten how to package books so they won't get damaged in transit. Ordering books from Amazon is a last resort for me these days.

Re: Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA Appellate Court

#190

Post by bsanr2 » Sun, Aug 16, 2020, 12:55 PM UTC

I'm currently dealing with a situation as an Amazon seller where I think the buyer is trying to scam me (claiming I sent the product wrong/late, hoping they can manipulate the return process to both get a refund and keep the product because of Amazon's notoriously customer-biased policies). I wonder how this plays in.