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Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

atg.wa.gov

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Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

#191

Post by bb88 »

quintushoratius wrote: post #174
encryptluks2 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately if you really need genuine products you simply cannot buy things off Amazon anymore. That is a very generalized statement. I have bought hundreds products shipped and sold by Amazon and never had an issue with authenticity. I'm sure it happens, but I'm willing to guess it is pretty rare and Amazon has always been quick to refund products that are shipped and sold by Amazon.

My own experience of counterfeits includes, of all things, water filters. The packaging was perfect, but the filters literally wouldn't fit without modification. I gave up after the third time and went back to buying from brick-and-mortar, and haven't had a problem since. Between my experience and reports from others, I'd say that you've been extraordinarily lucky.

There's a philips respironics CPAP face mask shipped in a ziploc bag with a philips respironics sticker on it.

Other gear (filters, nose cusions, tubing) looks more or less authentically packaged correctly.

Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

#192

Post by Supermancho »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #175
Supermancho wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is there any big corp that doesn’t do “never use these words” training? As I stated I've never seen it, in the context of anti-trust. If your company has to have that in literature, they are already skirting and it's just a matter of time.

All the companies are buying pretty much the same training units from the same set of providers. If you haven't experienced personally at the American office in the big corp you claim to work out, I'm not sure what to tell you.

> If you haven't experienced personally at the American office in the big corp you claim to work out, I'm not sure what to tell you.

It's disingenuous to continue to move the goalpost out to a more general scenario than what birthed the thread. Re-read the specific issue at hand. You can go to the companies mentioned and there is no anti-trust training, for developers (of any level) that covers what phrases or words you can say. Whatever "generalized training" you are handwaving about does not contradict that fact. GL with whatever.

Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

#193

Post by bytelines »

DannyBee wrote: post #185
organsnyder wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "don't use terms like 'market share' in internal communications" Sounds like the training was teaching you how to avoid leaving an audit trail rather than how to prevent illegal activity.

Can we please kill this trope? it is because humans use terms colloquially rather than with the utmost precision, and then it gets held up as if the person meant the exact precise legal concept. This is true always, which is why the advice this person got is also commonly given in lots of forms. For example, doctors are often trained in being careful in what they write down for the same reason. The audit trail is alw…

> This is true always, which is why the advice this person got is also commonly given in lots of forms. For example, doctors are often trained in being careful in what they write down for the same reason.

Alternative take: it is indeed for the same reason - to avoid incriminating yourself. You carry assumption that the behavior is not incriminating.

Doctors do commit in malpractice. Companies do engage in monopolistic behavior.

If such training were strictly to avoid illegal behavior, wouldn't it be better to train people in what the precise legal concept is, so that they can comply with the law? Or is behaving within the law a secondary concern.

In this case Amazon quite literally got caught by the AG of Washington state for breaking the exact laws their training tells them they shouldn't talk about. Why are you defending this?

Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

#194

Post by xmcqdpt2 »

Supermancho wrote: post #21
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All big corps require you to take this kind of training.

> All big corps require you to take this kind of training. I've worked at a couple "big corps" as an internal developer. JPMC, BestBuy, Experian, etc. Never encountered it. I suspect it's only for those companies in danger (or with a history of being charged with) breeching anti-trust.

JPMC didn't have antitrust in the onboarding stuff? I find that difficult to believe. The bank I work for tells employees to never discuss products or prices with competitors without going through compliance. It's not really emphasized (it's one bullet point amongst many) but it's there.

I just checked and it's in the JPMC code of conduct on page 4,

https://www.jpmorganchase.com/content/dam/jpmc/jpmorgan-chas...

Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

#195

Post by sp332 »

nickcox wrote: post #186
coryrc wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not GP, but I just ordered from a reputable seller online. They're closed for several weeks because the warehouse staff is out due to COVID. Who knows when I'll get the several hundred dollars of stuff I ordered. I'd already have it if I had ordered from Amazon.

> I'd already have it if I had ordered from Amazon. Because Amazon force their staff to keep working?

Source https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/two-amazon-warehou...

Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

#196

Post by judge2020 »

addaon wrote: post #114
dannyw wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be specific, Amazon co-mingles inventory between Amazon, Sold by Amazon, and its third party sellers that are Fulfilled by Amazon. It doesn't matter who you buy from. The picker at the warehouse picks from the same box, the actual product could come from any seller, even if it's "Sold by Amazon". Who you purchase from is purely an accounting thing, unless they manage their own stock and is not part of Prime. If yo…

They don't co-mingle inventory on everything, it varies from product to product (although the majority are indeed co-mingled). While there's no visible way to tell if a product is co-mingled, Amazon support is able to look it up. Whenever I'm buying an item that I would be unhappy with a counterfeit (so anything expensive, electronic, or that goes in my mouth or body) I contact Amazon support by live chat and ask the…

My understanding is that the support is exactly why you'd buy Sold By Amazon - for others, the 3p seller might be the one to negotiate returns, while SBA is returnable no-questions-asked within the due date they list.

Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

#197

Post by jbotdev »

One consequence of this I haven’t seen mentioned yet: price matching at competing retailers may no longer work.

I often end up purchasing items at local stores, which tend to have higher prices, but happily price match to items “Shipped and Sold by Amazon”. I can see how it can be hard to abide by pricing from any random third-party seller, but evidently even the “Sold by Amazon” items were third-party anyway.

Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

#198

Post by kortilla »

lesuorac wrote: post #113
kortilla wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about? A huge chunk of sexual harassment training is about stuff that is perfectly acceptable in non-work environments (asking someone on a date, flirting, etc). If sexual harassment training was just obvious stuff that needs counseling to fix (e.g. harassing people after having advances declined), then corporations likely wouldn’t need sexual harassment training at all. It’s mandatory precisely…

> If sexual harassment training was just obvious stuff that needs counseling to fix (e.g. harassing people after having advances declined), then corporations likely wouldn’t need sexual harassment training at all. [Citation Needed] I'm pretty sure don't take the team out to a strip club as a work outing is always on the training because people keep taking the team out to a strip club.

Are you suggesting that people who go to a strip club need counseling?

Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

#199

Post by NavinF »

bilbo0s wrote: post #156
snowwrestler wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just buy from somewhere else? I don’t understand why you would put this level of effort into shopping at a place you don’t trust.

Well, I think people do trust amazon, they don't trust all the other companies on amazon. But unless I'm misunderstanding, this move means that people can't buy from amazon any longer. They have to buy everything from all the other vendors on amazon. The problem being, of course, that these other sellers may or may not scam you. (I'm not 100% about that interpretation of this move, but that's what it sounds like? Law…

Oh Amazon has been selling garbage for years, but only for “commodity” items that the average user can’t test for quality.

Example: All coin cells (regardless of brand/seller) on Amazon are fake. These cells last 2-4 months (long enough that most people won’t bother to contact support) when the same model from an electronics distributor like Mouser lasts ~8 years as advertised.

> people may want to limit online shopping only to small ticket items

Oddly enough, I’ve had much better luck with big ticket items on Amazon since they’re much harder to fake and because they get special treatment (brand registration) from Amazon. But for small stuff Amazon is just AliExpress with faster shipping.

Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

#200

Post by kyleee »

quintushoratius wrote: post #174
encryptluks2 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately if you really need genuine products you simply cannot buy things off Amazon anymore. That is a very generalized statement. I have bought hundreds products shipped and sold by Amazon and never had an issue with authenticity. I'm sure it happens, but I'm willing to guess it is pretty rare and Amazon has always been quick to refund products that are shipped and sold by Amazon.

My own experience of counterfeits includes, of all things, water filters. The packaging was perfect, but the filters literally wouldn't fit without modification. I gave up after the third time and went back to buying from brick-and-mortar, and haven't had a problem since. Between my experience and reports from others, I'd say that you've been extraordinarily lucky.

lucky and/or possibly unaware
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