Amazon destroys $1.5m of sellers inventory – now homeless • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon destroys $1.5m of sellers inventory – now homeless

#231

Post by throw_m239339 » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 1:05 PM UTC

thrownaway954 wrote: post #229

you know that whole, "never put all your eggs in one basket" saying... that's exactly what this dude did and he got burned. while the situation sucks and amazon is a jerk for allowing this to happen... i don't feel bad for him. any business man knows not to do this, it's rule one in everything you do. it places you in the position where you aren't in charge meaning you don't have the upper hand. hard lesson for this…

The issue has Amazon has taken over most of the ecommerce market. And it doesn't even make sense anymore for many to have their own ecommerce website. They are swallowing everything, except for recognizable brands. That's why brand recognition is so important even if you're small. pol But yes, Amazon "efficiency" and policies mostly favourable to the buyer killed the majority of the competition. They are even killing Ebay.

Re: Amazon destroys $1.5m of sellers inventory – now homeless

#232

Post by Closi » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 1:05 PM UTC

robryan wrote: post #145

hevelvarik wrote: post #7

This is a case for the courts. The article is completely one sided, and there’s no way to know whether or not some or much or most of the merchandise was counterfeit. He does admit to ignoring up to 11 notices that his inventory would be destroyed if left unclaimed. He mentions conflicting dates for the notices but we’ve no way of knowing to make of that. I don’t know what to say other that I read the piece with some…

Sounds like the inventory is fine. The issue with fake claims on Amazon is that they don’t seem to be percentage based, so whether you sell 1000 items or 100k items the 4 fake claims might still get you suspended. They will also reject invoices based on them not being in the exact format they are expecting. So a completely legitimate invoice that is missing an address/ phone number/ has a different entity could be re…

Yep, I know a company that sold over $1m in sales, and their account got banned overnight because someone asked if they sold custom products on a message on Amazon, and a company support rep replied that they could but not on Amazon and directed them to their eBay site.

They got insta-banned and delisted because Amazon does automatic scans of messages, and the Amazon AI determined that directing users away from Amazon was a severe ToS breach.

1 message out of the thousands that they send mentioned eBay, and suddenly that's automatic delisting with no way to appeal.

Re: Amazon destroys $1.5m of sellers inventory – now homeless

#233

Post by Lazare » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 1:06 PM UTC

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #117

hevelvarik wrote: post #7

This is a case for the courts. The article is completely one sided, and there’s no way to know whether or not some or much or most of the merchandise was counterfeit. He does admit to ignoring up to 11 notices that his inventory would be destroyed if left unclaimed. He mentions conflicting dates for the notices but we’ve no way of knowing to make of that. I don’t know what to say other that I read the piece with some…

For such a one-sided article, I came down rather on the other side. A dozen warnings that he needed to claim his stuff before it was destroyed. The evidence of authenticity was illegible. At least four customers complained that the merchandise was not authentic. If he had paid to have his stuff returned, he'd only be out the cost of shipping whatever hadn't been sold. And this is just what I learned from an article f…

> At least four customers complained that the merchandise was not authentic.

According to the article, one customer said the item didn't fit, and wondered if it might be a knock-off, but they didn't outright claim it was. And the other three complained about packaging. Depending on how you score it that's ZERO customers complaining, or maybe one at most.

> The evidence of authenticity was illegible. [...] And this is just what I learned from an article from HIS point of view.

That was Amazon's claim; he claimed he sent in the correct, authentic, legible invoices, and they were rejected out of hand because Amazon refused to accept invoices dated in the year the merchandise was purchased, and instead wanted invoices dated in a different incorrect year.

> If he had paid to have his stuff returned

He claimed he tried at one point and the web portal rejected it.

Obviously, I don't know who's right here, and some of his claims are a bit confusing. And he does admit to ignoring some notices. Still, if you're evaluating his story as he presents it, taking his claims at face value, then: His evidence was not illegible, no (or at most one) customer alleged fake items, and he did make an effort to retrieve the merchandise.

Re: Amazon destroys $1.5m of sellers inventory – now homeless

#234

Post by treeman79 » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 1:15 PM UTC

varispeed wrote: post #216

AussieWog93 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to give another perspective, I run a couple of small businesses with my wife and we handle support ourselves. This is an absolute pleasure for our USB oscilloscope business - intelligent, reasonable customers ask for help with a problem they have, we help them solve it and both parties move on with our lives. Our other business - dealing in retro video games, is an absolute nightmare. Almost all support question…

I think the main problem is the stigma of using the mental health services, lack of access to therapists and generally useful things like mindfulness, some basic CBT principles are not being taught in schools. Many people view companies customer support as their "safe space" where they can vent their frustrations and problems and these days a valuable customer service operator needs to have training in psychotherapy,…

Some people create busy work.

With someone who will keep everyone busy with meaningless work at all times. Took years of painful effort for her to accept “no” without a complete meltdown.

On the flip side she will let her bosses do the same. 20 hour days, 7 days a week. She kept at it until she ended up in the hospital. I had to threaten to destroy her work computer for her to finally back it down to 18 hours a day six days a week.

Some personality types are just strange.

Re: Amazon destroys $1.5m of sellers inventory – now homeless

#235

Post by thedufer » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 1:16 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #187

DoreenMichele wrote: post #78

Yeah, you know, when people keep saying "You aren't as far from being homeless as you imagine you are" this is what they mean. Just because your life has not come unraveled overnight doesn't mean it can't for reasons beyond your control having nothing to do with personal virtues or lack thereof. We really need to get universal health care in the US, among other things, to limit how far people can fall when something…

I don't understand why people like you keep ranting about "universal healthcare" when obviously about 50% of your country so strongly opposes it that I think it's sooner that hell freezes than US getting social healthcare. Instead, why don't you propose alternative solutions? E.g. in Switzerland, it's illegal for your healthcare to be paid by the company, and also it's obligatory to have healthcare insurance (probabl…

> I don't understand why people like you keep ranting about "universal healthcare" when obviously about 50% of your country so strongly opposes it that I think it's sooner that hell freezes than US getting social healthcare.

Maybe you mean something different than what I think of when I hear "universal healthcare" - could you share some data on that? The proposed Medicare For All policy, for example, is supported by around 70% of the US, including a (admittedly thin) majority of Republicans[1]. The problem isn't popular support, it's getting politicians to do what their constituents want.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-elec...

Re: Amazon destroys $1.5m of sellers inventory – now homeless

#236

Post by treeman79 » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 1:21 PM UTC

jonhohle wrote: post #197

edude03 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really curious what sort of support the retro video game business needs. My (clearly naive) assumption is that it would be as simple as sending them the cartridge and telling them to have a great day, but if you're meeting so many seemingly unpleasant people it seems to be a lot more than that. Could you share more about the sort of issues you face?

I trade in games as well and like any collectible, often sell items that are rare and expensive. As an individual doing this for a hobby, my margins are usually small, so selling an $400 console for $50 or so profit can go south pretty quickly if there is a dispute. Because buyers are often collectors as well, they sometimes have unrealistic expectations for the condition of 25-30 year old hardware. A seller once had…

My Dad dealt in coins for decades. Crazy thin margins.

So many times people came in with a “20,000” collection they assembled. Basically client spent years of buying 3x over actual value as an “investment”

They were always disappointed with the actual value.

At some point I calculated his hourly earnings at around a dollar an hour.

But kept him happy.

Re: Amazon destroys $1.5m of sellers inventory – now homeless

#237

Post by jariel » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 1:22 PM UTC

ThePhysicist wrote: post #128

After reading the article I'm still a bit doubtful about the claims of the seller. I'm not saying that Amazon is in the right here or that he's lying about the merchandise being genuine, but some aspects of the story seem rather sketchy. He seems to have been in contact with Amazon for several months, and still he says he was unable to ask them to send his merchandise back to him? If he really ordered his merchandise…

Nothing sketchy here at all.

You seem to think that Amazon has reasonable processes for dealing with people? No, it's Kafka.

The complaints from a few people are easy: "I didn't like this, looks suspicious" is a very easy thing for a few customers to do.

Then the complaint and it's done.

These kinds of things can even happen in the regular court systems.

I don't know who's right and who's wrong but his claims are within reason.

Re: Amazon destroys $1.5m of sellers inventory – now homeless

#238

Post by sitkack » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 1:23 PM UTC

jonhohle wrote: post #197

edude03 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really curious what sort of support the retro video game business needs. My (clearly naive) assumption is that it would be as simple as sending them the cartridge and telling them to have a great day, but if you're meeting so many seemingly unpleasant people it seems to be a lot more than that. Could you share more about the sort of issues you face?

I trade in games as well and like any collectible, often sell items that are rare and expensive. As an individual doing this for a hobby, my margins are usually small, so selling an $400 console for $50 or so profit can go south pretty quickly if there is a dispute. Because buyers are often collectors as well, they sometimes have unrealistic expectations for the condition of 25-30 year old hardware. A seller once had…

Thank you for your cultural service.

Re: Amazon destroys $1.5m of sellers inventory – now homeless

#239

Post by NoOneNew » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 1:25 PM UTC

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #117

hevelvarik wrote: post #7

This is a case for the courts. The article is completely one sided, and there’s no way to know whether or not some or much or most of the merchandise was counterfeit. He does admit to ignoring up to 11 notices that his inventory would be destroyed if left unclaimed. He mentions conflicting dates for the notices but we’ve no way of knowing to make of that. I don’t know what to say other that I read the piece with some…

For such a one-sided article, I came down rather on the other side. A dozen warnings that he needed to claim his stuff before it was destroyed. The evidence of authenticity was illegible. At least four customers complained that the merchandise was not authentic. If he had paid to have his stuff returned, he'd only be out the cost of shipping whatever hadn't been sold. And this is just what I learned from an article f…

I'm in the same boat. I'm one of the first to pitchfork against Amazon... but this feels like we're not getting enough info to have a fair opinion. But even the article makes it seem like the guy had lots of opportunities to fix this issue, but screwed it up. Now, did he bumble it because it's a bureaucratic nightmare maze? Is he lazy and doesn't do stuff on time or correctly? Was it all actually knock-offs and he's full of shit?

I can tell you this, no one from HN can solve this mystery from their chairs. So, as much as I don't like any FAANG, this isn't clear cut against Amazon.

Re: Amazon destroys $1.5m of sellers inventory – now homeless

#240

Post by LoSboccacc » Wed, Oct 28, 2020, 1:33 PM UTC

isthatsoup wrote: post #194

LoSboccacc wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

often fakes (in fashion at least) are just overquota items produced from the same sweatshop that produce the legit items, which the sweatshops sell on the side to earn that dollar more per month. brands thus moved to control counterfeit pursuing anything that isn't coming off their sales chain end to end, even if the fake is virtually identical to the legit product.

No they aren't, that's just what people manufacturing fakes have managed to convince people is the case. (Somehow, it doesn't stand up to any scrutiny)

https://corrierefiorentino.corriere.it/firenze/notizie/crona...

> Mediante alcune aziende dell’hinterland fiorentino, pratese e dell’empolese - le stesse che producono quelle che poi diventano le vere borse firmate - il gruppo provvedeva a tutte le fasi produttive e commerciali

your turn.