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Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

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Re: Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

#171

Post by kennend3 »

thatguy0900 wrote: post #163
magic_hamster wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, she could just download pirated books at this point. It doesn't matter if she got it through the store or not if she's going to exploit the system to read it without paying. The author won't see any money either way, so she can drop the pretense.

I would imagine the author would rather you just pirate the book than do this. Returns on a book can't be great for recomendation algorithms.

After Amazon's fees, returning books like this COSTS authors money.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/tiktok-trend-authors....

Re: Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

#172

Post by kennend3 »

microtherion wrote: post #134
dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon tracks your returns, but if you're within their model, which is not particularly tight, you don't have anything to worry about. It's mostly targeted toward people who are egregious, and more importantly, lose Amazon money. If you return a few too many DSLRs, Apple laptops or other high end gear you'll quickly find yourself on the rocks, or decide you're going to start a drop-shipping business from your Prime a…

> she realized she could buy a book and immediately return it Doesn't this cause authors to actually lose money, so it's worse than straight up piracy for them?

Indeed it does cost them, and so you are right - they should simply pirate instead.

The CBC did a writeup on this:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/tiktok-trend-authors....

Re: Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

#173

Post by Kalium »

lreeves wrote: post #151
RobertRies wrote: post #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 auth…

The reason these drives bother with firmware that makes them look larger to the operating system is so that people buy them and don't notice it was a scam until after the return ratio. Also I don't know what the internal politics are like at Amazon but it is inexplicable that these listings are present and top of the results for probably a year by my reckoning - fake drives are easily spotted by anyone who knows what…

I would bet there's a series of seller-facing teams focused on making sure there's as little friction as possible to on-boarding and selling on Amazon.

Re: Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

#174

Post by kennend3 »

herbst wrote: post #101
RobertRies wrote: post #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 auth…

90% of Amazon.de is AliExpress with a 200-300% margin. I don't know about the other Amazons but it's definitely not only thumb drives.

This is the main reason i stopped using Amazon around 2 years ago and cancelled my prime.

Why not just go to the source (aliexpress) and save the large margin in exchange for a longer wait time?

Re: Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

#175

Post by ssl232 »

greatgib wrote: post #153

Lastly Amazon is very bad for shopping. I used to buy on Amazon when I wanted branded products with insurance. Opposite to buy on AliExpress, ebay, ... For some items. But there are 2 very big problems:. Amazon mixing the stock of all the sellers selling the same thing. So, when you want something like a USB key or SSD, sdcards, even if the listing and the seller you are looking at looks legit, you don't know where t…

> Also, the second issue I noticed is that it is now very hard to find good branded products with Amazon search.

This. It seems well known brands have almost abandoned Amazon and low end consumer electronics altogether in some categories. A couple weeks ago I wanted to get a mains extension cable (power strip) with USB-C power connector for my phone. There wasn't a single brand I recognised apart from Belkin, who seemed not to sell any with USB-C (only USB3). The brand I opted for ended up being garbage (USB socket loose, general chintzy feel to something that will handle mains voltages and stay powered-on under my bed for years - no thanks).

Re: Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

#176

Post by mmastrac »

I refused to buy an SD card for my phone off Amazon, instead paying 1.5X from Best Buy from a non-marketplace seller there. I can't risk buying easily-faked stuff from AMZN any more.

I have to assume that Best Buy isn't commingling marketplace/first-party, however.

Re: Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

#177

Post by pevey »

mmastrac wrote: post #176

I refused to buy an SD card for my phone off Amazon, instead paying 1.5X from Best Buy from a non-marketplace seller there. I can't risk buying easily-faked stuff from AMZN any more. I have to assume that Best Buy isn't commingling marketplace/first-party, however.

Agreed. The title of this article could have been, "Top EVERYTHING on Amazon are a Scam." I started buying a lot from Amazon way back when they mostly sold books and CDs. Was a Prime Member for years after that became a thing. But I canceled about a year ago. It's basically AliExpress, which is fine for certain things, but most of my shopping is now done elsewhere. Especially electronics of any sort.

Re: Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

#178

Post by fortran77 »

Auracle wrote: post #76
matheweis wrote: post #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.

I also bought some toothpaste on Amazon recently and it was the wrong kind. Their return page wouldn’t let me return it for any reason - I needed to get on chat support to get a refund. You’d think “you literally sent me the wrong item” would always be a good reason but apparently not.

I would order things like toothpaste from Walgreens.com or Target.com in the US. Not Amazon!

Re: Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

#180

Post by sneak »

kennend3 wrote: post #170
dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon tracks your returns, but if you're within their model, which is not particularly tight, you don't have anything to worry about. It's mostly targeted toward people who are egregious, and more importantly, lose Amazon money. If you return a few too many DSLRs, Apple laptops or other high end gear you'll quickly find yourself on the rocks, or decide you're going to start a drop-shipping business from your Prime a…

> Instead, she spent 2+ years returning every since book she purchased for her Kindle, well over 100, when she realized she could buy a book and immediately return it, but turn off the Kindle internet connection while she finished reading it, before it was removed. They banned her from ever doing another Kindle return but she otherwise uses her Kindle normally. Out of curiosity what goes through someones mind to thin…

> Out of curiosity what goes through someones mind to think this is remotely acceptable?

Copying data is not theft.

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