Live data from Hacker News

Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

kurtisknodel.com

31–40 of 250 posts

Re: Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

#31
I think there's one thing that should be clarified from the article. "Sponsored" does not mean that the product is "sponsored by Amazon" as italicized in the article. It means the seller paid money to be at the top of the search query.

Perhaps it is a healthy dose of old aged jadedness, but I have a habit of trying to avoid Sponsored items.

Re: Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

#32
While I agree this is a problem - one which I have been the victim of as well - Amazon accepts the return with no questions and/or charges. This, of course, is not a great consolidation, especially for a novice who doesn't understand or encounters it too late. But I strongly disagree with "Amazon runs little to no risk selling the fraudulent products, but still makes money off of them." In the next paragraph the author outlines how they've lost trust in Amazon and will not be buying electronics. Erosion of trust is absolutely a massive risk, and one that eBay is also arguably pretty publicly recovering from. I suspect Amazon would prefer not to have fake drives and the costs associated with returns and erosion of trust for the infinitesimal rounding error that makes up the extra revenue they get from fake $20 thumb drives. I'm far from an Amazon fanboy, but I think the problem is more complex than Amazon turning a blind eye because they're making $10k extra profit a year from phony thumb drives. As an outsider, it seems like a difficult tradeoff of not creating incredible hurdles to list products, versus counterfeits getting through.

In my case, the phony thumb drive I bought was delisted before I got home from the walk to the mailbox, literally.

Re: Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

#33

While I agree this is a problem - one which I have been the victim of as well - Amazon accepts the return with no questions and/or charges. This, of course, is not a great consolidation, especially for a novice who doesn't understand or encounters it too late. But I strongly disagree with "Amazon runs little to no risk selling the fraudulent products, but still makes money off of them." In the next paragraph the auth…

> Amazon accepts the return with no questions and/or charges

But remember that Amazon keeps what's basically a social credit score on you that drops every time you return something, and then they permanently ban you (including from non-retail things like AWS and Prime Video) if it ever gets too low.

Re: Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

#34
A related problem I’ve encountered on Amazon is wrong quantity of items; ex, order three 8 packs and instead get three singles. Their return policy doesn’t have the ability to correct for this as far as I’ve been able to find.

Re: Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

#35

While I agree this is a problem - one which I have been the victim of as well - Amazon accepts the return with no questions and/or charges. This, of course, is not a great consolidation, especially for a novice who doesn't understand or encounters it too late. But I strongly disagree with "Amazon runs little to no risk selling the fraudulent products, but still makes money off of them." In the next paragraph the auth…

> Amazon accepts the return with no questions and/or charges But remember that Amazon keeps what's basically a social credit score on you that drops every time you return something, and then they permanently ban you (including from non-retail things like AWS and Prime Video) if it ever gets too low.

I did not know the consequences were so draconian. However, I would imagine returning faulty or fake products will not trigger a score decrease.

Re: Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

#36

While I agree this is a problem - one which I have been the victim of as well - Amazon accepts the return with no questions and/or charges. This, of course, is not a great consolidation, especially for a novice who doesn't understand or encounters it too late. But I strongly disagree with "Amazon runs little to no risk selling the fraudulent products, but still makes money off of them." In the next paragraph the auth…

> Amazon accepts the return with no questions and/or charges But remember that Amazon keeps what's basically a social credit score on you that drops every time you return something, and then they permanently ban you (including from non-retail things like AWS and Prime Video) if it ever gets too low.

Also, it's extra work involved in returning something that shouldn't have been delivered in the first place. Just a waste of time, resources, and what not.

Re: Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

#39
post #20

In the future if you want to avoid counterfeit/scams try: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/

When I was learning photojournalism, I loved B&H service and prices so much.

I've recently started adding B&H to where I shop for electronics, alongside Amazon and a local brick&mortar (Microcenter). I no longer check Newegg much, though recently they did have the best price on a particular 1U chassis that I wanted. I'd welcome more direct-to-consumer sales from the brands themselves.

I hate buying USB or SD flash devices, because of all the counterfeits of brand names, and I'll never buy one of those spammy-semirandom-named products.

Post reply on HN