Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam • Hacker News Board

Re: Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

#211

Post by 8ytecoder » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 4:49 PM UTC

hoppyhoppy2 wrote: post #193

PeterStuer wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon does SKU aggregation in their warehouses for all the sellers that use Amazon fulfillment. Every delivery of that SKU, by whomever, gets thrown into the same pile from witch they pick whenever someone orders said SKU through whoever is selling that stuff on Amazon. This means that the product you receive from seller X was probably not delivered to the warehouse by seller X, but would be part of a batch delivere…

It wasn't always that way; it was a conscious change they made to save money, which they decided was more important than being able to do better quality control when counterfeit products are discovered from a certain seller. I just think it's important to point out it's how they chose to do it, presumably knowing the potential downsides, rather than some impossibility of warehouse operations.

And precisely why they are losing my business. It’s hilarious isn’t it. Unless it’s deeply discounted, I prefer reputable sites like Costco, Apple direct and B&H for my expensive purchases.

Sure they have a good return policy but who wants to deal with it or assume they’ll always honor it.

Re: Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

#212

Post by scarface74 » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 4:53 PM UTC

eyelidlessness wrote: post #205

scarface74 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have refused to give Amazon any business of my own for several years because their directly-operated logistics business is morally disgusting to me. Realistically they run many businesses So where do you buy your electronics from? Guess how the people who are making those are treated? Or is that okay since they are in another country?

Nope, it’s not okay and I’ll readily admit I’m a hypocrite. Because, as you imply, there’s no ethical alternative. And I could go on about the ways I try to minimize my impact with electronics too, but that isn’t and wasn’t the point. I’m not sure what your point is. That I should buy from Amazon because factory workers in other countries are treated poorly? What would that do for those workers?

That you’re clutching your pearls because Amazon has factory workers who make $20/hour while your ethical standards don’t extend to people in developing countries who are making a subsistence living manufacturing your electronics.

Re: Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

#213

Post by derefr » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 4:54 PM UTC

NavinF wrote: post #80

wombat-man wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of stores online ship free now in order to compete with Amazon. Also if you're ordering more than $25 you get free, but slightly slower shipping. I see no reason to have Prime.

>I see no reason to have Prime. Every item arriving 1 day early is worth $140/yr for most people. I've paid a lot more for a lot less (looks at Digi-Key order history) Also Amazon Fresh (free 6 hour shipping in my location) is extremely convenient. A lot of sites charge $60 per order for the same service (overnight delivery)

Sadly, there’s no Amazon Fresh in Canada. Even though, oddly, we do have Whole Foods here (where most Amazon Fresh products ship from)… but our Whole Foods don’t do delivery either. Whole Foods products don’t show up on Amazon.ca for sale; nor even does Whole Foods in Canada even have a website that you can online shop for pickup on. It’s weirdly backward given that it’s exactly the same store.

Re: Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

#214

Post by RajT88 » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 5:06 PM UTC

bombcar wrote: post #141

RajT88 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is easier to detect with thumb drives. A fake (say) Gucci handbag is made with less premium materials, but only savvy consumers would notice once it arrived. You would not necessarily know from the product details on Amazon, but may have a clue based on price. Whereas 1tb thumb drives have been sold for years now on Amazon and Wish and what-have-you but only recently did real 1TB thumb drives come into existence.…

Assuming Best Buy hasn’t been plagued yet - https://www.bestbuy.com/site/sku/6421485.p?skuId=6421485

Yep. I was aware there were drives sub-$200. To be perfectly technical, 1.3 hundred dollars is still "hundreds" of dollars in English. And the fake drives aren't generally more than 40 dollars.

Re: Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

#215

Post by Sakos » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 5:13 PM UTC

iLoveOncall wrote: post #126

jaclaz wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excuse me, but do you believe this is "normal"? I mean, if you returned 287/602=48% of the items you ordered, either there is something wrong in what you order or - more likely - your supplier (Amazon) is not reliable. On the other side, if 48% of items (particularly if low value ones) are returned, the costs of shipping/returning/handling must be enormous.

> I mean, if you returned 287/602=48% of the items you ordered, either there is something wrong in what you order or - more likely - your supplier (Amazon) is not reliable. In a case like this, there is a problem with the customer, that's it. I have 300ish orders per year, and not even 5% returns.

In what way is there a problem? He hasn't been penalized, so it seems like he's profitable enough to let it go. Why are you trying to police his behavior for Amazon?

Re: Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

#216

Post by Sakos » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 5:15 PM UTC

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.

It has become quite awful. I was looking for gloves the other week and I ended up buying them at Decathlon because the selection at Amazon was so terrible and untrustworthy.

Re: Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

#217

Post by vineyardmike » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 5:17 PM UTC

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…

> they've lost trust in Amazon and will not be buying electronics. Erosion of trust is absolutely a massive risk

They should do something about it if they care. They’re turning into a flea market and it seems their business plan (which doesn’t matter because AWS makes all the money) is to run out the clock and hope they put everyone out of business first.

They should stop allowing listing changes that completely change the product. They should allow specific vendors (probably at some cost) evade the SKU binning that co-mingles counterfeits with genuine products.

Fuck, they should issue a statement acknowledging the problem and tell us they’re trying to fix it before we abandon them.

That said, I had to buy an SD card recently and with all these scam products I went with the Amazon basics version since they’re the only seller of AB. Funny how that works…

Re: Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

#218

Post by fasthands9 » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 5:26 PM UTC

jaclaz wrote: post #116

fasthands9 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not believe this is normal consumer behavior. The previous commenter claimed Amazon had a social score system that penalized people for concerns and you should be worried about making returns on things like USB drives. My point is that if someone like me can return almost half their items and Amazon doesn't care at all - then it's extremely unlikely the people are being banned from Amazon services for returning…

Yep, I understood your point, and it is good to know that this presumed social score system is not particularly strict, but I asked out of curiosity on the reasons why you have such a high (IMHO) return rate. As well another question is what is actually doing (or not doing) Amazon about the USB sticks/drives issues, the return rate of that should be something like 90% assuming that 5% of buyers fail to realize that t…

The reason I return a lot is predicated on their being no penalty and the fact I live a couple blocks from a UPS return location which is easy.

Say its Wednesday night and I'm starting to design a project I'm doing over the weekend but I'm not done yet - and realize I will need 8mm shafts but not sure the length of my design. I just buy 3 or 4 versions of the product with the approximate length I may need and then end up just using the one my final design calls for and returning the others.

Re: Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

#219

Post by fasthands9 » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 5:27 PM UTC

iLoveOncall wrote: post #126

jaclaz wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excuse me, but do you believe this is "normal"? I mean, if you returned 287/602=48% of the items you ordered, either there is something wrong in what you order or - more likely - your supplier (Amazon) is not reliable. On the other side, if 48% of items (particularly if low value ones) are returned, the costs of shipping/returning/handling must be enormous.

> I mean, if you returned 287/602=48% of the items you ordered, either there is something wrong in what you order or - more likely - your supplier (Amazon) is not reliable. In a case like this, there is a problem with the customer, that's it. I have 300ish orders per year, and not even 5% returns.

They have never said what I am doing is wrong or bad. I would think best case scenario from them I don't return that many items, but realistically if I wasn't allowed to return that many items I simply wouldn't buy from them as much. Lowe's, which I buy from a lot too, has a similar no questions asked return policy.

Re: Top USB Drives on Amazon are a Scam

#220

Post by blagie » Sat, Oct 08, 2022, 5:37 PM UTC

kennend3 wrote: post #183

sneak wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Out of curiosity what goes through someones mind to think this is remotely acceptable? Copying data is not theft.

They did not "copy data". they purchased something, returned it for a refund and then kept it by turning off the kindle's wifi. This clearly is retail fraud.

Lots of things are fraud. Most of them are not theft.

The greatest ThinkSpeak the media industry pulled was to redefine copyright, contract, and license violations as "theft" and "piracy."

Saying something is not theft/harassment/abuse/murder/etc. isn't the same as saying it's okay. Precise language matters.

It's not possible for someone to steal my chair or my wallet without harming me. Actual theft usually is not a victimless crime, by definition. In contrast, most of the people I've seen engage in copyright violation are too poor to buy what they're copying. Virtually everyone I know starts paying when they get real jobs. How do I feel about a broke high school student breaking my license? It's complicated, but much less bad than about someone stealing my phone.