Walmart Sells Fake 30TB Hard Drive That's Two Small SD Cards • Hacker News Board

Re: Walmart Sells Fake 30TB Hard Drive That's Two Small SD Cards

#141

Post by vorpalhex » Tue, Aug 30, 2022, 6:50 PM UTC

hotpotamus wrote: post #60

samwillis wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I find particularly annoying is that these online “marketplaces” are not curated - they literally sell anything, probably drop shipped. It used to be that you would shop at a branded store, and there was a level of expectation that they had curated their collection so that it was of a quality that matched the stores brand. Some of their wares may be under their own branding, but they would sell other bands too t…

Yep, I relatively recently learned about Aliexpress and it seems like most American retailers are just a local cache for them. But if I can order sketchy Chinese knick-knacks directly and skip the markup at the cost of a bit more waiting time, I'd just as soon do that. I've also found the Chinese customer service speaks English just fine and have been great whenever I've had to deal with them.

Yeah oddly enough buying from Aliexpress gets you better support (and sometimes newer revisions) of products than the middlemen! A lot of the aliexpress sellers are also willing to do custom orders if you ask nicely.

This is a case of the middlemen removing value instead of adding it.

Re: Walmart Sells Fake 30TB Hard Drive That's Two Small SD Cards

#142

Post by walrus01 » Tue, Aug 30, 2022, 6:50 PM UTC

nobody9999 wrote: post #138

walrus01 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sure, and people can draw their own conclusions about a "marketplace" allowing morally reprehensible products on it, and whether to purchase from them in the future.

>sure, and people can draw their own conclusions about a "marketplace" allowing morally reprehensible products on it, and whether to purchase from them in the future. How can a piece of dyed cloth be "morally reprehensible"? I don't think books should be banned, nor should flags. If that's how folks want to express themselves, then so be it. That doesn't mean I need to be chummy with people who hold views in accord w…

that's quite a screed you wrote there. you must feel very strongly about it. amazon has made the choice to exclude ISIS flags, and exact copies of nazi flags, so it's curious why one is allowed and not the other.

your position seems to be from the free-market/libertarian angle that people can print and publish anything they want, sure, okay, whatever... the logical conclusion of this in the free market is that amazon as a private entity is also able to pick and choose what products they choose to sell and associate with their brand name.

Re: Walmart Sells Fake 30TB Hard Drive That's Two Small SD Cards

#143

Post by kube-system » Tue, Aug 30, 2022, 6:51 PM UTC

haliskerbas wrote: post #105

hotpotamus wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, I relatively recently learned about Aliexpress and it seems like most American retailers are just a local cache for them. But if I can order sketchy Chinese knick-knacks directly and skip the markup at the cost of a bit more waiting time, I'd just as soon do that. I've also found the Chinese customer service speaks English just fine and have been great whenever I've had to deal with them.

Is it actually sketchy then? You get the product and good customer service it sounds like. All Knick knacks are Chinese. Most common goods will be a rebrand of something similar, especially if you buy from Amazon.

That depends on what the item is. Chinese goods that are sold on the shelves of western retailers have passed some scrutiny by buyers of those respective retailers, and, a retailer in your country will be held to account for any legal requirements of selling said products.

Things that are drop shipped haven't passed any third party scrutiny and nobody involved in the sales process is held to your local legal requirements. They can ship you an unsafe product that may burn your house down or poison your children, and your local legal processes have no power to make you whole again, nor any affect to discourage sellers from cutting those corners for profit.

Re: Walmart Sells Fake 30TB Hard Drive That's Two Small SD Cards

#144

Post by space_fountain » Tue, Aug 30, 2022, 6:53 PM UTC

elliekelly wrote: post #113

inasio wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a story in the news this week about an undercover Russian spy that had a jewelry shop/brand in Italy [0], one funny detail about the story is that the jewelry was actually sourced from Aliexpress [0] https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/1563060250269589505

This thread is wild. It's shocking they'd issue consecutively numbered passports to spies. Using random numbers seems like it would have huge benefits for essentially no cost.

I'd bet it's a case of sending in batch requests. The office coming up with fake identities sends them all it to the passport office at once and then the passport office proceeds to use their normal processes to issue passports and that processes generates sequential numbers in this case because they are processed one after another. Obviously easy to fix, but also seems pretty easy to happen without anyone realizing

Re: Walmart Sells Fake 30TB Hard Drive That's Two Small SD Cards

#145

Post by vorpalhex » Tue, Aug 30, 2022, 6:53 PM UTC

nobody9999 wrote: post #128

I try to keep abreast of SSD prices, as I've been looking to swap out the spinning rust on my ESXi server with SSDs, but the prices are still a bit too high for my taste, and that hasn't changed much over the past few years. Which is why I was really surprised to see this both on Vice and ArsTechnica[0]. A quick web search for "4TB external SSD" shows prices in the USD$400-600 range. So 30TB for ~USD$40 seems too goo…

Yet despite the scam being obvious, Walmart still listed it.

Re: Walmart Sells Fake 30TB Hard Drive That's Two Small SD Cards

#146

Post by jrockway » Tue, Aug 30, 2022, 6:54 PM UTC

patrickthebold wrote: post #122

samwillis wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I find particularly annoying is that these online “marketplaces” are not curated - they literally sell anything, probably drop shipped. It used to be that you would shop at a branded store, and there was a level of expectation that they had curated their collection so that it was of a quality that matched the stores brand. Some of their wares may be under their own branding, but they would sell other bands too t…

I'll throw out my startup idea: A heavily curated amazon, with ~1 option per product type, sold at a premium, prioritizing things that are constructed well/last a long time. Obviously you can't do everything at once, and people want choice in things like fashion. A kitchen store would be great. One toaster, one oven, one coffee grinder.

This is basically McMaster-Carr.

For things that aren't fasteners or drill bits, people kind of like having something different than their friends. ("Oh hey I have the same table! Oh, and pots and pans! Oh, and wall art! Wait, your house looks exactly like mine.")

Re: Walmart Sells Fake 30TB Hard Drive That's Two Small SD Cards

#147

Post by _jal » Tue, Aug 30, 2022, 6:57 PM UTC

cogman10 wrote: post #71

hotpotamus wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, I relatively recently learned about Aliexpress and it seems like most American retailers are just a local cache for them. But if I can order sketchy Chinese knick-knacks directly and skip the markup at the cost of a bit more waiting time, I'd just as soon do that. I've also found the Chinese customer service speaks English just fine and have been great whenever I've had to deal with them.

It's gotten really bad, particularly on amazon. Search for anything and you are likely to find the same item with 50 different brand names but all essentially the same garbage from aliexpress/wish. For example, here's a search for "bike trainer" [1] [1] https://www.amazon.com/s?k=bike+trainer&crid=KCCRWTVZHHQ7&sp...

I dropped Amazon (again) a while back. I'd gone back to using them during the plague, and got lazy. What jolted me back was multiple delivery failures in a row followed by a shitty "give me my money back" experience.

Right now, Amazon combines the honesty of flea markets with the reliability of a stoned teenager.

I'm back to shopping at physical stores, and am enjoying it, at least at the moment. And when ordering things, I try to go direct or find retailers who care about their reputations.

Re: Walmart Sells Fake 30TB Hard Drive That's Two Small SD Cards

#148

Post by wmeredith » Tue, Aug 30, 2022, 6:59 PM UTC

kbos87 wrote: post #8

The marketplace-ization (is there a word for that?) of every retailer feels so short sighted. I’ll throw out an example I’ve noticed lately - furniture manufacturers. Search for any item on Crate & Barrel or West Elm’s website and you’ll first see a handful of exclusive pieces that are clearly built for the brand. Keep scrolling and the search results gradually become a bunch of generic third party items that you can…

It's a race to get middlemen profits. The problem is without curation, the middlemen provide no value other than their brand name and reputation, but those also suffer because of the lack of curation. The short sightedness is real.

Re: Walmart Sells Fake 30TB Hard Drive That's Two Small SD Cards

#149

Post by wmeredith » Tue, Aug 30, 2022, 7:00 PM UTC

mcronce wrote: post #31

kbos87 wrote: post #8

The marketplace-ization (is there a word for that?) of every retailer feels so short sighted. I’ll throw out an example I’ve noticed lately - furniture manufacturers. Search for any item on Crate & Barrel or West Elm’s website and you’ll first see a handful of exclusive pieces that are clearly built for the brand. Keep scrolling and the search results gradually become a bunch of generic third party items that you can…

> I get it, Crate & Barrel sees this as an opportunity to monetize their brand without having to do all that much. Unfortunately it leaves me with a lot less trust for a brand that used to represent a quality and reputation. It's essentially converting reputation to cash

There's a term for this in marketing. It's called cashing out brand equity. You take a hit to your rep, but you get some liquidity out of the brand by cutting corners on your product/service. Venture capital firms are infamous for using this as a business model. They take over a company that is struggling and they cash out the brand equity and every other kind of equity until nothing is left.

Re: Walmart Sells Fake 30TB Hard Drive That's Two Small SD Cards

#150

Post by tcbawo » Tue, Aug 30, 2022, 7:02 PM UTC

kbos87 wrote: post #8

The marketplace-ization (is there a word for that?) of every retailer feels so short sighted. I’ll throw out an example I’ve noticed lately - furniture manufacturers. Search for any item on Crate & Barrel or West Elm’s website and you’ll first see a handful of exclusive pieces that are clearly built for the brand. Keep scrolling and the search results gradually become a bunch of generic third party items that you can…

This is one reason why I enjoy shopping at Costco: they stand by the products they sell. They tend to offer mid-range products with good value for the price. So far, I’ve been able to trust that they’re not going to sell me defective or misleading merchandise.