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I Fell Victim to a $1,500 Used Camera Lens Scam on Amazon

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Re: I Fell Victim to a $1,500 Used Camera Lens Scam on Amazon

#201

Post by [deleted] »

inetknght wrote: post #190
ransom1538 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh. No. If I were a federal officer I would just contact amazon and find out where the money went. Paypal or Bank account - game over. Contact whatever bank he picks it up from get security camera details, address info, on and on. I would also grab all the ips, entered in info and the prints from the box. I bet he would be in my office by lunch. Plea dealed to 5 years by monday.

Put your money where your mouth is. Go provide your legal services to article's author. I expect to see an article on Monday, from you, which bemoans exactly how easy it is to track thieves like this. Show us the face of the accused, too.

[deleted]

Re: I Fell Victim to a $1,500 Used Camera Lens Scam on Amazon

#202

Post by [deleted] »

inetknght wrote: post #190
ransom1538 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh. No. If I were a federal officer I would just contact amazon and find out where the money went. Paypal or Bank account - game over. Contact whatever bank he picks it up from get security camera details, address info, on and on. I would also grab all the ips, entered in info and the prints from the box. I bet he would be in my office by lunch. Plea dealed to 5 years by monday.

Put your money where your mouth is. Go provide your legal services to article's author. I expect to see an article on Monday, from you, which bemoans exactly how easy it is to track thieves like this. Show us the face of the accused, too.

[deleted]

Re: I Fell Victim to a $1,500 Used Camera Lens Scam on Amazon

#203

Post by leggomylibro »

noncoml wrote: post #118
mikeash wrote: post #26

I'm wondering more and more why Amazon hosts third-party sellers at all. They dilute the Amazon brand to a tremendous degree. It used to be that buying from Amazon meant a certain level of quality and service. Now there are really two Amazons: the old one, and a new one that's basically a shitty version of eBay. I have to go out of my way to avoid these crappy third-party sellers when I'm searching for stuff on Amazo…

This 100 times. I never buy from third-party sellers in Amazon, but I am having such a hard time explaining to friends and family how to do the same. They keep buying from third-party sellers and keep wondering how it is not "Amazon". I wish there was an option to set it once and never see third-party seller items again.

I buy from third-party sellers all the time for hobby equipment/parts. Yes, they mostly resell bulk container-ship-specials from East Asia. But that's fine for hobbying around - sometimes you don't want to pay a lot for a bunch of M3 screws/nuts and you don't mind a poor shear strength and heads that easily strip. You know what you're getting, and the two-day shipping is very nice when you don't want to wait for an agent to collect your RMB orders, chuck as much extra weight as they can, and drop it in the international post. Things like:

- Small screwdrivers/hex keys

- Breadboards

- Hookup/jumper wires

- Perfboards and copper-clad FR4.

- Bulk discretes like resistors/capacitors/buttons/potentiometers/LEDs. Especially buttons.

- Springs

- Bolts, nuts, spacers, etc.

- Common microchips (a bit risky, but these days at the IC level, knock-offs are often sold as their own similarly-named brand at a steep discount. You're usually fine if you pay the prevailing price and don't scrounge for a suspiciously-good price. Issues like the famous FTDI bricks are rare, so again, okay for hobby work.)

- Active elements (ceramic heating elements, piezos, peltier modules, small DC/stepper motors, pumps, etc.)

These are fairly specialty items, but there is still enough of a demand for several players to take advantage of arbitrage with shipping and bulk discounts. The quality is bland and rarely outstanding, but it is fairly consistent. While I wouldn't use most of the stuff in a critical product, I still have a lot of hobbying to do and frankly I can't afford high-quality parts/equipment for all of my projects.

If Amazon banned third-party sellers, they would not bother stocking most of these niche items. I would have to go somewhere else; ebay, or making strategically-timed Taobao orders to minimize international shipping costs and the weeks of waiting. Companies like Adafruit, Seeed, Shapeways, Tindie, Etsy, and Sparkfun would probably step in with their own centralized 'hobby marketplace' offerings that Amazon's current customers would hop to.

That said, I do agree that they should at least make a search option to filter them out.

Re: I Fell Victim to a $1,500 Used Camera Lens Scam on Amazon

#204

Post by powercf »

haburka wrote: post #192
softwarefounder wrote: post #12

I like how this list is zero-indexed.

Liking zero indexed lists is such a dumb programmer meme. Lists are for humans to read and therefore should use the natural numbers, which start at one. Arrays are zero indexed because the first item of the array starts with zero offset.

> Lists are for humans to read and therefore should use the natural numbers, which start at one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peano_axioms#Formulation

To address the content of your post: I agree, but humans aren't purely logical devices created by Dr. Noonien Soong, and we do enjoy playing with things and joking about.

Re: I Fell Victim to a $1,500 Used Camera Lens Scam on Amazon

#205

Post by martin-adams »

How would this have played out if it was sent to the correct address, signed for but just had baking mats in there instead of the Lens? Would Amazon side with the seller still?

If not, why didn't the buyer just claim the items in the package was not as described?

Re: I Fell Victim to a $1,500 Used Camera Lens Scam on Amazon

#206

Post by cortesoft »

pier25 wrote: post #92
mikeash wrote: post #26

I'm wondering more and more why Amazon hosts third-party sellers at all. They dilute the Amazon brand to a tremendous degree. It used to be that buying from Amazon meant a certain level of quality and service. Now there are really two Amazons: the old one, and a new one that's basically a shitty version of eBay. I have to go out of my way to avoid these crappy third-party sellers when I'm searching for stuff on Amazo…

Amazon Mexico opened a few years back and my experience has been mostly negative precisely because most of the products are sold by third parties. I just avoid amazon.mx and buy at amazon.com. Even when buying at amazon.com I only buy products sold or handled by Amazon. I've also run into problems with scams, shipping, etc, with third parties.

I had someone set up an amazon.mx account using my credentials somehow.... they ordered a bunch of online books, include a $1200 textbook. I have no idea how they were able to do it.

I was able to get them to reverse all the charges pretty quickly, but I still get messages from amazon mexico saying i should buy stuff, and for a while amazon.com would ask me if i wanted to go to amazon mexico when i logged in.

I have only been to Mexico a few times in my life, and my spanish is really bad. I have no idea how it all happened, since they didn't seem to be able to (or didn't) change any settings that would lock me out of my account.

Re: I Fell Victim to a $1,500 Used Camera Lens Scam on Amazon

#207

Post by ransom1538 »

inetknght wrote: post #190
ransom1538 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh. No. If I were a federal officer I would just contact amazon and find out where the money went. Paypal or Bank account - game over. Contact whatever bank he picks it up from get security camera details, address info, on and on. I would also grab all the ips, entered in info and the prints from the box. I bet he would be in my office by lunch. Plea dealed to 5 years by monday.

Put your money where your mouth is. Go provide your legal services to article's author. I expect to see an article on Monday, from you, which bemoans exactly how easy it is to track thieves like this. Show us the face of the accused, too.

So become a federal officer by monday? I need an extension.

Re: I Fell Victim to a $1,500 Used Camera Lens Scam on Amazon

#208

Post by SXX »

noncoml wrote: post #118
mikeash wrote: post #26

I'm wondering more and more why Amazon hosts third-party sellers at all. They dilute the Amazon brand to a tremendous degree. It used to be that buying from Amazon meant a certain level of quality and service. Now there are really two Amazons: the old one, and a new one that's basically a shitty version of eBay. I have to go out of my way to avoid these crappy third-party sellers when I'm searching for stuff on Amazo…

This 100 times. I never buy from third-party sellers in Amazon, but I am having such a hard time explaining to friends and family how to do the same. They keep buying from third-party sellers and keep wondering how it is not "Amazon". I wish there was an option to set it once and never see third-party seller items again.

> I never buy from third-party sellers in Amazon

Does it actually make any sense now? Wasn't it confirmed many times that Amazon just ship it to you from closest warehouse even if it's item by 3rd party seller?

Re: I Fell Victim to a $1,500 Used Camera Lens Scam on Amazon

#209

Post by nwellnhof »

mikeash wrote: post #26

I'm wondering more and more why Amazon hosts third-party sellers at all. They dilute the Amazon brand to a tremendous degree. It used to be that buying from Amazon meant a certain level of quality and service. Now there are really two Amazons: the old one, and a new one that's basically a shitty version of eBay. I have to go out of my way to avoid these crappy third-party sellers when I'm searching for stuff on Amazo…

> It is really worth it for Amazon to have them? I struggle to see how.

I think the main reason is that it gives Amazon huge amounts of market data essentially for free. For example, they can easily identify best-selling new products even if they're not sold directly by Amazon. If you're successful selling stuff on Amazon, it's only a matter of time until Amazon will compete with you and possibly destroy your business.

Re: I Fell Victim to a $1,500 Used Camera Lens Scam on Amazon

#210

Post by ryandrake »

simcop2387 wrote: post #40
DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why he wouldn't get a credit-card chargeback authorized - he has clear evidence of fraud on the party of the seller, and evidence of the middle-man's (Amazon's) unwillingness to investigate further. As Amazon is accepting the credit-card payment they will eat the chargeback - if they do ever dispute this then elevate it to a small-claims court case and the judge will easily side with the customer.

One potential problem with that is that Amazon can retaliate by closing the users's account if they didn't agree with the charge-back even if they're unsuccessful at fighting it. That can be really difficult to deal with if you're also using AWS for hosting or other things.

Whenever I see comments about how "Company XYZ deleted my account after I issued a charge-back!" I ask: Why would one want to continue doing business with a company that made you issue a charge-back? Charge-back is pretty much the nuclear option of last resort when you have exhausted all avenues of redress. You're basically doing it to get your money back and "salt the earth" as you leave. I've done a few charge-backs in my life, and not once, ever, under any circumstances would want to do business with those companies again.
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