A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing • Hacker News Board

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#141

Post by meesterdude » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 7:25 AM UTC

CliffStoll wrote: post #116

Guess I'd better say a few things. First, I deeply appreciate that so many on Hacker News have come out for this. Enough to awaken me from a sound sleep on a Tuesday evening! I don't really care that much about selling Klein bottles over Amazon - it's mainly to reach parents over the holidays. But I do wish that Amazon would do something about this kind of thing. Finally, I"m very low on stocks of glass Klein bottles…

Hold lots of respect for you and regret that this has happened to you, but thanks for bringing these specifics to light. Amazon needs to fix this - or regulators need to force them to.

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#142

Post by nullc » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 7:25 AM UTC

You mean you don't remove your blackheads with a volumeless four dimension manifold?

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#143

Post by ratww » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 7:26 AM UTC

ggm wrote: post #7

Now I'm wondering how blackhead removers work and if I want to even think about finding out.

> Now I'm wondering how blackhead removers work

The vast majority of them don't actually work, this is why those sellers rely on scams. It's almost impossible to know which ones do online.

Source: girlfriend and family experiences.

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#144

Post by CliffStoll » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 7:28 AM UTC

thanatos519 wrote: post #138

CliffStoll wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear you, Moe. Can't say that I'm a big brand. Indeed, I want to stay a small one-person shop.

Maybe that makes you incompatible with Amazon, because they are about unbounded growth for its own sake! Small is beautiful! Stay small! - from the guy who in September 2000 bought 16 klein bottles since you only charged for prime numbered bottles, and sent you his credit card number as the sum of two 16-digit numbers sent to different email addresses! I still have a beer mug and question mark; all the rest are with…

Thanatos, your obd't servant, alas, is awake far past his bed-time, so his normally rusty memory is working even worse than normal. So, sad to report, I don't remember this transaction, but it sounds exactly like what I'd do. Just to better support number theory.

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#145

Post by Nicksil » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 7:29 AM UTC

fredsir wrote: post #51

Nicksil wrote: post #11

This seems completely insane to me. How is this possible? I like Cliff Stoll and have been looking forward to my first Klein bottle purchase for some years now, so I say this without any insinuation Cliff's not telling the whole story: There's got to be more to it than this, right? Can someone really go on Amazon, effectively take over someone's storefront, and completely ransack the place this easily? Because Cliff…

Does it really? With what I’ve been reading about what is going on over at Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook, this doesn’t surprise me at all. It’s awful, but not surprising. And reading about how Amazon treats it’s employees, as has been covered on this site numerous times in the last while, it’s even less surprising. And continuing to use those services is giving a vote for those practices to keep on keeping on, and t…

To me, yes, it is surprising. But likely because I don't use Amazon, Twitter, YouTube, FaceBook, and so do not read the things you're reading (or at least as much) but I understand your point nonetheless. I skim past the numerous stories regarding how awful these companies behave and yet continue to reap massive profits. I've known Amazon was bad, but not this bad. It's a shit state of affairs.

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#146

Post by CliffStoll » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 7:32 AM UTC

seanwilson wrote: post #55

> To make their blackhead remover listing look legit, Amvoom then submitted several hundred orders over Amazon, and immediately cancelled each order. These depleted my Klein bottle inventory on Amazon - even though nothing was paid for, and nothing was shipped. In turn, this removed the "second color option" for their blackhead-remover, since Amazon felt that the Klein bottles were out of stock. Result: their black-h…

Sean, I just added a few things to my note. I'll try to copy/paste 'em here, although I suspect my sleepy fingers will goof up:

I haven't really reviewed what I'm posting here - heck I can't spellcheck at 12:30 in the morning:

Amazon, through its "Brand Registry" allows anyone with an issued trademark to take over other brands, whether or not the brand is covered by the specific goods that the trademark was issued for.

Brand Name Hijacking takes advantage of several bugs in Amazon's seller business model:

1) Amazon Brand Name Registry allows the owner of a USPTO trademark to take over listings of non-trademarked brands.

2) Amazon Brand Name Registry does not prevent a registered Amazon brand from over-reaching beyond the regulated goods and services associated with that trademark.

3) Amazon combines reviews of different item variations and colors, even though they are from completely different listings and manufacturers.

4) Amazon debits inventory even when an order is cancelled, allowing a denial of service attack to exhaust inventory in a seller's listing, at no cost to the attacker.

Effects of Brand Hijacking:

1) Shoddy or unproven products receive five-star reviews, apparently from several years.

2) Consumers, relying on Amazon star ratings, are grossly misled by the summary reviews.

3) Disreputable sellers are rewarded (at the cost of honest sellers) by large volume sales caused by high ratings.

4) Unscrupulous sellers of reviews receive money from Amazon sellers in return for inflated reviews.

5) Independent sellers on Amazon -- specifically those who have delivered extremely high customer satisfaction -- are locked out of their listings and pushed out of their long term business.

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#147

Post by jorvi » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 7:33 AM UTC

theonething wrote: post #130

gabereiser wrote: post #99

This, and other instances of this scam make me not want to buy anything off Amazon ever again. Where is Amazon in this? Why is this even a thing ? Is there no oversight at all? Amazon has now become the Alibaba of the west and it makes me sick to think the once beloved marketplace is now just scamville. I typically buy from sellers websites now and rarely buy off of Amazon but now I feel I need to completely remove A…

It's hard to give up the convenience and fast delivery (with Amazon Prime) though. In my experience, I haven't run into many problems with fraud or fake products (that I know of). I try to avoid third party sellers and only order from Amazon or the seller.

I can get pretty quick delivery from a few other companies in my country. What I can't get is the very very lenient warranty that Amazon gives. Other companies will work as hard as possible to make replacing something under warranty as painful as possible. Amazon basically goes 'sure, ok' and either refunds or sends a replacement.

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#148

Post by makeitdouble » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 7:36 AM UTC

gabereiser wrote: post #99

This, and other instances of this scam make me not want to buy anything off Amazon ever again. Where is Amazon in this? Why is this even a thing ? Is there no oversight at all? Amazon has now become the Alibaba of the west and it makes me sick to think the once beloved marketplace is now just scamville. I typically buy from sellers websites now and rarely buy off of Amazon but now I feel I need to completely remove A…

To note, buying from the sellers website can be a blessing or a curse.

It is true in sometimes unexpected ways. For instance some sellers just don't care about notifications; it might be because they usually work with professional buyers who work on a long timescale ("I need it for this quarter") and will contact the seller on a regular basis if they care.

Some sellers just don't want to deal with you. I had a "mom and pop" for who my business wasn't really a priority (well, fine), sent me random junk after misreading my order, and it was a PITA to sort the situation.

Basically, going out of Amazon (the new Alibaba as you say) is also returning to the Wild Wild West. There is no real choice than to deal with both, but god is it a pain.

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#149

Post by fxtentacle » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 7:36 AM UTC

gabereiser wrote: post #99

This, and other instances of this scam make me not want to buy anything off Amazon ever again. Where is Amazon in this? Why is this even a thing ? Is there no oversight at all? Amazon has now become the Alibaba of the west and it makes me sick to think the once beloved marketplace is now just scamville. I typically buy from sellers websites now and rarely buy off of Amazon but now I feel I need to completely remove A…

Actually, Alibaba appears to have higher standards for their product listings, because pages are never merged. So the review takeover described in this post would not be possible on Alibaba ^_^

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#150

Post by CliffStoll » Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 7:36 AM UTC

lilyball wrote: post #112

I would really love to know why "Amvoom" could declare to Amazon that they own "Acme Klein Bottle" when "Acme Klein Bottle" has nothing to do with the "Amvoom" trademark. Can they just declare they own any page that doesn't have a registered trademark?

In short, yes. If a seller (like me) has not trademarked his/her brand, and has not registered with Amazon's Brand Registry, then the listing can be hijacked. Of course, hijackers will only considers taking listings with many five-star reviews extending over several years.