Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

californiaglobe.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 386 posts

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

#191

Post by Alex3917 »

an_opabinia wrote: post #64
ashtonkem wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More specifically, the responsibility for chasing down the manufacturer for a refund is shifted onto the retailer, not the consumer.

Has Amazon systemically refuses refunds for people who try to return counterfeit goods? It definitely doesn’t care if you don’t even notice. But they do the returns if you ask. The former is what needs to change.

> But they do the returns if you ask.

Only if you notice within the return window. They wouldn't refund our purchase of The Wire box set (when DVDs were still a thing) unless we got it "authenticated" as being a counterfeit by HBO, and even then they were extremely difficult about it.

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

#192

Post by [deleted] »

flavor8 wrote: post #169
xoxoy wrote: post #60

Shopping on Amazon has become unbearable for like 95% of categories these days. The experience is like rummaging through some shady tourist market with a dozen stall owners trying to scam you. The pricing is all whack with lots of counterfeits that have gamed the ranking and review systems. It’s just not worth trying to filter and find things that are actually competitively priced and sold directly by Amazon. Have no…

Here's an example for anybody who doubts this; go search for: a) an Oximeter b) a medical thermometer c) a blood pressure cuff These are all fairly relevant devices. Spend 10 minutes really researching the categories, and actually read the reviews (in particular the 5* and the 1* reviews). Can you find a combination fo devices that you're actually confident buying? It shouldn't be this hard.

[deleted]

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

#193

Post by ss64 »

sinatra wrote: post #173

This is a good place to ask this question: Lately, we’re trying to buy products on Amazon only if it says, “Sold by Amazon.com.” Is that a good way to ensure that the product is not counterfeit? The assumption is that if Amazon is selling something directly, it would be getting it directly from the real manufacturer.

Your assumption is wrong - FBA means that 'Sold by Amazon' will often be supplied by a third party, so you have to dig through all the offers to see if any are FBA.

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

#194

Post by ciabattabread »

sinatra wrote: post #173

This is a good place to ask this question: Lately, we’re trying to buy products on Amazon only if it says, “Sold by Amazon.com.” Is that a good way to ensure that the product is not counterfeit? The assumption is that if Amazon is selling something directly, it would be getting it directly from the real manufacturer.

Unfortunately, Amazon commingles their own items with the third-party sellers.

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

#195

Post by cdubzzz »

epanchin wrote: post #151
xoxoy wrote: post #60

Shopping on Amazon has become unbearable for like 95% of categories these days. The experience is like rummaging through some shady tourist market with a dozen stall owners trying to scam you. The pricing is all whack with lots of counterfeits that have gamed the ranking and review systems. It’s just not worth trying to filter and find things that are actually competitively priced and sold directly by Amazon. Have no…

I now use amazon to buy Anker products and that's it. I recently was shopping for a heart rate monitor - the Wahoo TICKR X was out of stock everywhere except Amazon. I couldn't get over the feeling that it was in stock only because it was fake, so ordered a Garmin from a bike store instead. There is no store I trust less.

Why not just buy directly from Anker? https://www.anker.com/store

Generally that is what I try to do for anything I want to buy — get it from the producer directly. Sometimes it is prohibitive in some way (e.g. shipping time or cost) or more expensive but most of the time the experience is perfectly fine and I can be totally confident in what I will be getting.

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

#196

Post by coffeefirst »

amelius wrote: post #145
leoc wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Repeating myself: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19199343 > The classic "control fraud" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_fraud strategy is to incentivise your subordinates to maximise revenues while "neglecting" to check that they aren't engaging in fraud to do it. Then you can protest your innocence when the fraud comes to light.

Would control fraud work in a company as big as Amazon? If you're that big, then there's a huge probability of a whistleblower or unhappy ex-employee exposing you.

Absolutely. The bigger you are the easier it is to claim plausible deniability for each of the "isolated" incidents. If the executives will even meet the people who they've put in this position, it's easier to lose or just never hear the complaints and red flags.

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

#197

Post by mrob »

ss64 wrote: post #134
foepys wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does blockchain help here? The database would be extremely large - too large to hold for any ordinary computer system. The basic problem is solveable without blockchain by simply registering products by their serial number on the brand's website, which a lot of brands actually already do for higher priced products.

Then the scammers would just copy the serial numbers, you would have to link every number with a customer name

You don't need to link it to any customer details. The way it usually works is the website records every serial number checked, and warns you if somebody has already checked that serial number. For additional assurance the serial number can also be concealed with tamper-evident packaging, e.g. scratch-off paint.

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

#198

Post by ip26 »

saddlerustle wrote: post #175
flavor8 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's an example for anybody who doubts this; go search for: a) an Oximeter b) a medical thermometer c) a blood pressure cuff These are all fairly relevant devices. Spend 10 minutes really researching the categories, and actually read the reviews (in particular the 5* and the 1* reviews). Can you find a combination fo devices that you're actually confident buying? It shouldn't be this hard.

The reason for this is the reputable products are all sold out. The usual response would be to increase prices to keep them in stock, but currently amazon bans sellers who do that because of price gouging laws, and so sellers list their stock on other platforms instead.

No, I've bought oximeters on Amazon in years past and there was no General Electric, Sony, Samsung... It was all knockoff no-name low quality.

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

#199

Post by Alex3917 »

flavor8 wrote: post #169
xoxoy wrote: post #60

Shopping on Amazon has become unbearable for like 95% of categories these days. The experience is like rummaging through some shady tourist market with a dozen stall owners trying to scam you. The pricing is all whack with lots of counterfeits that have gamed the ranking and review systems. It’s just not worth trying to filter and find things that are actually competitively priced and sold directly by Amazon. Have no…

Here's an example for anybody who doubts this; go search for: a) an Oximeter b) a medical thermometer c) a blood pressure cuff These are all fairly relevant devices. Spend 10 minutes really researching the categories, and actually read the reviews (in particular the 5* and the 1* reviews). Can you find a combination fo devices that you're actually confident buying? It shouldn't be this hard.

To be fair pretty much all thermometers sold everywhere are fake, it's not just Amazon. You really need to look at Consumer Reports or Wirecutter if you want a real one, and who knows if you can even get one right now anyway.

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

#200

Post by dutch3000 »

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…

if these companies can’t handle the scale, then maybe they need to reduce their scope. “it’s hard to find a solution” doesn’t cut it anymore. either amazon and these giant tech companies find solutions (privacy, graphic content, insert big scale tech problem) to these problems or they suffer the consequences of liability. or they reduce the scope of the service.
Post reply on HN