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Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

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Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

I'm sorry, I'm not American, nor do I live somewhere where there is anti-jewish sentiment. Is calling a Jew "Hassidic" derogatory?

I had a similar interpretation of the wording. I’ll take your response in good faith once because I do get the impression you’re asking sincerely, but be warned that should you have further questions you’ll likely fare better taking some time to familiarize yourself with how antisemitism often proliferates:

Noting a person’s Jewish heritage or faith or membership (or that of a business’s proprietor, or some noted portion of their clientele) when their Jewishness is not directly related to the rest of the point is often a signal, like a dog whistle (which is a term often used for this kind of signal). Particularly taking such notice in reference to New York is a strong signal, and often “New York” is used as a substitute for the signal when similar connections might be expected. The first thing it signals to antisemites is identification of a target—either for immediate ridicule, harassment, some other form of abuse… or for identification which places a longer term target on them. The next thing it signals is that like minds are present.

This was all somewhat obscure for even a lot of Americans, and easy to dismiss as an honest mistake rather than an intentional signal in a comment like yours, only a few years ago. Unfortunately a lot of white supremacist movements latched on to these kinds of dog whistles in the course of an election and ultimately an administration which both directly fostered these kinds of dog whistles and indirectly invited them into the mainstream by dismissively reacting to them (and sometimes rehabilitating them on the spot as “very fine people”).

Even so, when it was so obscure, it was a way for fellow travelers to target victims and find compatriots. It’s just a lot more visible now and a lot harder to take comments like [edit: not yours, sorry!] as in good faith.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#323
Amazon has set a low bar and now there are unsafe, toxic products out there.

Including: toxic toys for children, toxic cooking utensils, toxic water filters, toxic birthday cake decorations, toxic furniture, toxic plumbing, toxic rugs, etc.

Buying on Amazon in 2022 is like walking on a minefield.

Some companies go out of their way to emulate being non-chinese. But you can tell due to the aesthetics they use, punctuation, color palette, fonts, and sometimes DNS information that they are chinese shell companies as nobody in the west uses Alibaba cloud to host their stuff.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#324

I’ll be the odd person out and say that whatever it’s faults as a company, my shopping experience on Amazon has been great. Not perfect, but nearly so. Certainly better than most other online retail channels, plus the convenience of Prime, and being a “one stop shop” certainly is super useful. I don’t know what everyone is shopping for, But I’ve bought tons of items across a wide variety of categories. I usually avoi…

Same here. The only time I had anything approaching a problem was buying a plastic shed (~$400) from a sketchy seller. It was cheaper, though not ridiculously so, than the other sellers, and I had a feeling it was some kind of scam. Needless to say, it didn't arrive after a few weeks, and a quick chat with an Amazon rep refunded my money.

On another hand, I ordered something (~$80) from Home Depot online, shipped to my house. The box arrived, without the item inside. HD phone and chat support both claimed the ship weight was correct, and that I'd need to file a dispute with my credit card to resolve it. What kind of crap service is that!? Why would they not ship another one, considering their cost is probably much less than $80 rather than lose the entire $80, product, and piss off someone who spends thousands there every year?

Amazon didn't get to be the #1 online retailer and 3rd largest company in the world by ripping people off. Clearly, they have online figured out much better than all of their large competition.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#325

Most buyers are savvy though and buy reputable brands. Search for ‘USB flash drive’ and invariably you will get cheap Chinese muck that will break within a day. Then just filter by respectable brands like SanDisk and case closed, all the cheap stuff is filtered out!

Except if you get a fake one

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#326
post #10

Pro tip: If you absolutely must buy the junk being sold by MOFFBUZW and other randomly generated drop-shipper brands, the exact same product is usually available on AliExpress for 10% the price.

In my experience, I ordered a fake USB3 capture card (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001773724519.html, check the 1-star reviews, also debunked by Marcan at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30906127), filled out comprehensive documentation of it being fake USB3 and unable to capture stable footage at 1080p60, and AliExpress sided with the seller. I had to file a chargeback to get money back for the fraudulent product. Unfortunately the product maintains a 4.8 star rating, either because of fake 5-star reviews, or because most buyers did not actually evaluate that the product is truly USB 3 or captures stable 1080p60 footage.

Is Amazon better at compensating customers or removing fraudulent product listings?

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#327
post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I'm saying is that it would take an immense amount of effort, looking at literally tens of thousands of Amazon listings, to even realize that "this is what everyone else is doing." I noticed these patterns because I personally went through the top 100 items in every leaf-node category of the Amazon store a few months back (because I treat "finding obscure solutions to problems I didn't know I had" as a hobby.) N…

Conspiracy Theory: Maybe the sellers aren’t human but actually an ML model run amok

MOFFBUZW does sound like a logo Dall-E 2 would spit out.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#328

Rock bottom prices, free delivery (with prime) + one click, no risk, no question asked refunds overweight fakes and crap. Hard to argue with that, honestly. Obviously if you want to buy genuine Rolex, or quality European made tools, Amazon is not the place.

Amazon won't refund your lost time though. Unless I'm feeling particularly generous, or have some other reason to believe it was a freak occurrence, getting shipped a bobcat and getting a 100% refund on a $1 widget is an instant negative feedback and low-scoring seller review. That $1 widget being Chinesium garbage has set back whatever was working on by at least a full day, probably more like a week, and wasted all the initial time I spent selecting the item, plus the time I spend determining that the item was indeed faulty, and it wasn't my fault obviously costs way more than a dollar.

These companies couldn't afford a "no risk no questions asked refunds" policy, since there's no way they'd ever pay for that wasted time.

I'm not asking for a genuine Rolex, but fakery is so bad at the moment that I'm not even confident I'd get a genuine Casio.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#329
After a spate of bad cables (mostly where their internal circuitry overheats) I've stopped buying most electronics on Amazon and instead use bestbuy's insignia brand.

For me it's worth $5 to not have to buy a replacement every 3 months.

Maybe just my sample but it seems these things always fail _just_ after the return window.

Re: Cheap junk flooding Amazon has brand names like MOFFBUZW

#330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what the family's religion has to do with anything, but I was curious about the spelling and put it in my search bar and it's spelled, 'Hasidic'.

I KNEW people would ask this ; it was a major aspect of the story for some reason. They kept making reference to how these "ultra orthodox jews in brooklyn" were doing some revolutionary marketing/profiteering on the interenet/amazon specifically and how they were making a fortune doing so... It was _fundamental_ to whomever wrote the piece... So I mentioned it here. Sorry I failed your "anti-semetic triggers" - FFS.

If you failed to clarify in your original post, it really does look like it's not material to the story: we don't have the context so reasonably people are going to ask why you even brought it up. No need to get so indignant about it.
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