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Amazon allegedly resells damaged books

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Re: Amazon allegedly resells damaged books

#41

Post by Dylan16807 »

ajross wrote: post #35
morsch wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going by the bsky thread posted elsewhere, he's using Kindle Direct Publishing, so he is getting them from his publisher, Amazon. And the books he returned were author copies, sold to him at print cost. https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G7BBN68RYX5UMDZF

Then why did he lay this trap? Again, this wasn't an accidental discovery, he knew or suspected he could get this publicity by going to war against his "publisher". I'll be honest, everything about this screams "bad faith" to me. Amazon didn't do anything that any other company wouldn't have done. Arguably-slightly-flawed-but-still-fine returned junk goes on the shelves of every store in the world. This is the only g…

What's bad faith about not wanting a defective product to be sold with your name on it?

He clearly didn't think it was "still fine" to be sold as "new".

Re: Amazon allegedly resells damaged books

#42

Post by OJFord »

hunter2_ wrote: post #12
OJFord wrote: post #5

The way this is said makes it seem like they're expecting to be paid twice for two orders, one returned. I assume what's being left implicit is that they're actually not paid for the 'KDP printing order' if it ends up returned? So then when someone else orders and receives that one and doesn't return it, there's a printed copy that was never paid out for?

> The way this is said makes it seem like they're expecting to be paid twice for two orders, one returned. Are you referring to the Dec 30 tweet text, the Dec 28 tweet text, or the paper note in the Dec 28 tweet's photo?

Yes. The four tweets (not counting one from someone else) and photo of the note that I can see without clicking 'show more replies' and logging in.

Re: Amazon allegedly resells damaged books

#43

Post by scrapcode »

bombcar wrote: post #22
gumby wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That statement jumped out at me too, but I'm not sure what to think about it. I also hate to say anything that might seem sympathetic to Amazon, a company I consider somewhat unethical. These two statements below should be uncontroversial: 1. If Amazon prints a defective book and rejects it in QC then Amazon should get no revenue nor should the author. It should be recycled. Another copy should be printed and shipped…

Amazon "checks" them hardly at all. I ordered a warehouse item (and I recognize this risk) for a Chicco stroller holder and received a Chicco box with a broken Gracco stroller in it. That's not very checked. And there's not much I can do but return it (they don't even have a "you got scammed, idiots" option to tell them to check again).

My luck they would check it upon return and pin me for some kind of fraud.

Re: Amazon allegedly resells damaged books

#44

Post by joabaldwin »

Author from original post here! For clarification, this is not a new thing, but something I learned to do from this post: https://bsky.app/profile/kristadb1.bsky.social/post/3kb4wbix...

In her case, she ordered author copies (that gives you no royalties, of course) and got the same copies sold again to herself as author copies.

In my case, I also ordered author copies, but they were resold to a normal customer after I returned them.

From an order of 50 author copies, I returned 14. Packaging was fine, so it wasn’t a problem with how they bumped up during shipping. They were misprinted, or had folded covers (they tear easily after a fold, really bad), some were printed beyond the bleed area (that’s what bleed is for, you can’t be printing beyond it), and a few were printed slightly off angle. One particularly bad copy was even cut an inch smaller than it should’ve been, trimming every single page and cover, text and all.

So yeah, that’s why I returned them. But I do give you that some of those defects would go completely unseen by someone at a warehouse. You flip through the book, all pages seem to be there, but how is a person there supposed to know what the margins of the book look like? But most errors would not pass a regular printing press QC, particularly the damaged covers.

Also, Amazon both prints and distributes these books, so QC is in their hands from the start.

Re: Amazon allegedly resells damaged books

#46

Post by alpaca128 »

buro9 wrote: post #24
sparky_z wrote: post #9

Before getting pitchforks out, I'd like to see what this person considered "damaged". If - and I know this is a big if - but if it's something extremely minor, such that almost anyone would consider it to be in "like new" condition, then frankly that would be a case of Amazon doing the right thing, rather than pulping a perfectly good book and printing a new one. The fact that this person is apparently not providing…

I received a book that had been written all over, full of notes and scribbles... it was sold as "new". I complained, and they sent another. That too was scribbled all over, notes on every page. The book wasn't that expensive, I was a bit annoyed, but it's a rounding error to me, so I just ordered another thinking no way would this happen again, and because I did need it quicker than I cared to go through the service…

And that's just the immediately visible problems. In some product categories it's difficult to find a single product where the description doesn't outright lie about features or quality, and the only way to tell is the price.

Louis Rossmann recently tested some of the highest-rated fuses sold on Amazon. It took over 8A to blow a 2A fuse.

By now I only order there if I can't find a more local alternative, the only remaining area where Amazon is still ahead (or rather, not behind) are delivery times.

Re: Amazon allegedly resells damaged books

#47

Post by Astronaut3315 »

pcurve wrote: post #19

Recently Amazon has been sending me items that were clearly returned and poorly repackaged or damaged in the last year. This isn’t something I encountered or noticed prior to 2023. Their screening policy for returned items may have changed.

I purchased four used, like new smart plugs from Amazon Warehouse Deals a few days ago. Two were the wrong model in the right box and were very clearly used. One even had a scorch mark on it. I’ve had similar experiences with other Amazon purchases in the last few years.

Re: Amazon allegedly resells damaged books

#48

Post by ajross »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #41
ajross wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why did he lay this trap? Again, this wasn't an accidental discovery, he knew or suspected he could get this publicity by going to war against his "publisher". I'll be honest, everything about this screams "bad faith" to me. Amazon didn't do anything that any other company wouldn't have done. Arguably-slightly-flawed-but-still-fine returned junk goes on the shelves of every store in the world. This is the only g…

What's bad faith about not wanting a defective product to be sold with your name on it? He clearly didn't think it was "still fine" to be sold as "new".

> What's bad faith about not wanting a defective product to be sold with your name on it?

Come on... If he was upset about the publishing quality he would have tweeted about that when he got the books, letting his fans know he was upset about it. He planted metaphorical bombs in these books and returned them! You know as well as I do he was looking for outrage, not book quality.

Re: Amazon allegedly resells damaged books

#49

Post by Dylan16807 »

ajross wrote: post #48
Dylan16807 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's bad faith about not wanting a defective product to be sold with your name on it? He clearly didn't think it was "still fine" to be sold as "new".

> What's bad faith about not wanting a defective product to be sold with your name on it? Come on... If he was upset about the publishing quality he would have tweeted about that when he got the books, letting his fans know he was upset about it. He planted metaphorical bombs in these books and returned them! You know as well as I do he was looking for outrage, not book quality.

They're both problems, the initial print and sending it back out. I don't see what's wrong with doing a test for the latter. "metaphorical bomb" sounds ridiculous to me. It's a metaphorical tracking beacon.

Re: Amazon allegedly resells damaged books

#50

Post by jxf »

sparky_z wrote: post #15
lepus wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's implied that he gets paid 0 times for either the return or the resold book. There's more discussion on Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/joabaldwin.com/post/3khrp64a5pw22

But is that any time a book is returned and resold, or is it just for a few "author's copies" that (I would guess) weren't eligible to receive a royalty in the first place?

He's saying that he got some author's copies from Amazon, some of which he returned for being damaged. Rather than scrap those, Amazon resold the damaged copies as new. This robbed the author of a sale.
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