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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

#331

Post by sumedh »

ajross wrote: post #9
davidu wrote: post #2

It seems like the Amazon reps weren't paying attention to the detail, or the seller was also supplying fraudulent evidence of delivery. This blog post will likely get it resolved for the buyer, though it shouldn't have to be this way.

I'm more sympathetic to Amazon here than most. Scams are hard to detect. They set up a shipping confirmation process that's worked fine for them for almost two decades now. It has a hole (it only checks the town and has no closed loop to verify that the shipper shipped to the right address in that town), but none of the existing employees actually know that it has a hole. They get a report about a missing shipment, c…

> They get a report about a missing shipment, check their process, and it says it was received. Case closed.

How about checking the actual address and checking the weight of the item on the package.

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

#332

Post by _asummers »

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.

My recollection is that arrays are zero indexed because time shared compilers were too slow to do the arithmetic shift in the compilation phase. I can't find a good citation offhand though.

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

#333

Post by Veratyr »

manmal wrote: post #290
Veratyr wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might not get the money back but might also get the sender 20 years prison and/or a fine: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1341

I would, irrationally, feel bad about sending someone to prison for 20y just because they stole some cash from me.

If it was just myself, I'd agree with you but I seriously doubt someone who knows Amazon's procedures this well did it only once. It's not unreasonable to assume this person is running scams like this full time. If they're running scams full time and making enough to earn enough money to live by, they're stealing a full living worth of money from law-abiding citizens, a full life someone else should have.

That's why I wouldn't have a problem with someone like this getting 20y.

But the 20y is also a maximum and it's unlikely they'd be sentenced that harshly.

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

#334

Post by emodendroket »

fma wrote: post #328
emodendroket wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a similar effect is at work with Costco memberships.

Nope, you must be thinking about hotdogs. Hotdogs are a loss leader for Costco. Memberships make them money. "The most important factor about membership fees is that they go straight to the company's bottom lines. Costco operates its warehouses on essentially a breakeven basis, making its profits on memberships instead of merchandise. " https://www.fool.com/investing/2016/08/18/what-do-membership...

Not that they lose money (they hardly give you anything besides the right to shop at the store) but that they cause people to buy more than they otherwise would because they feel like they've made an investment and would otherwise be wasting the money they spent on the membership.

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

#335

Post by ChuckMcM »

incompatible wrote: post #330
ChuckMcM wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup that seems like it, everything needed to prove that the transaction was fraudulent on the seller's part is included here by third party sources. Amazon completely blew it.

So it seems that as a buyer, if you receive the wrong item, or the item is delivered to the wrong address, Amazon will do nothing. I'm not sure why the seller went to the trouble of sending to a different address, but didn't bother to bulk up the mass.

Technically, this also comes under Mail Fraud which is a federal crime[1]. This suggests that our author should contact both the FBI and the postmaster of their town because someone is using the Mail Service to commit their fraud. And as the latest rounds of advertisments from the Post Office state, "When you use the mail to do your business, it becomes our business."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_and_wire_fraud

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

#336

Post by Hollow3d »

Long time lurker here. Amazon has let a lot of shady business in lately. Abuses on all sides.

Even my local USPS abuses the system for the 2 day delivery. (They marked a packages as incorrect address, and than, not available to sign... I called them, the woman said the were too heavy, so I now get it on day 3..). Now I know about the free months of prime, but I would have to get USPS to confess to Amazon what they told me. And I'm not as dedicated as the author.

And the preditory tactics they allow sellers to implement are crazy. I paid to return a dead on arrival ipod, and I had to send multiple emails to confirm I was getting my money back. (Seller stated they needed RMA or no refund, seller never provided RMA after 3 emails. Never even sent an RMA after all that, Amazon just ended agreeing to refund after multiple calls). Seller is still active with same terrible return policy.

Good article, I feel less crazy now. Hopefully more of these stories circulate.

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

#337

Post by MRSallee »

I don't understand why the scammer bothered to ship to an alternate address -- if Amazon is just confirming that the package was delivered and signed for, wouldn't that also occur if delivered to the buyer's address? The buyer would sign for the package before opening it and realizing the camera lens wasn't inside. (The weight difference could be made up with rocks.)

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

#338

Post by markrages »

zionic wrote: post #180
callmeed wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

looking at you, Lua ...

Don't forget about CRAPLAB

That feeling when porting from MATLAB to Python and all the "+1"s in array index expressions go away. And the obscure cornercase bug disappears as well.

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

#339

Post by cyphar »

joshontheweb wrote: post #306
haburka wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I found it interesting to see that building floors in Australia are zero indexed. The first floor there is what Americans would call the second. Not sure why they chose to do it that way but it works fine in the real world.

That's not the case in all Australian buildings. Usually we call the ground floor "ground floor" (which you could argue is 0-indexed), and the floor above it is "the first floor". But there are a lot of buildings that follow the American style of "the ground floor is the first floor".

We also don't use negative numbers, basements are prefixed with a B, so B1 is like -1.

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

#340

Post by bitexploder »

cortesoft wrote: post #274
bitexploder wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends. At a strictly transactional cost it is probably 20+ hours of effort all told to use small claims court. I think there is more at play here, though. They wrote a blog post and have clearly been wronged. Holding Amazon accountable is one of the only ways to change their behavior. It is like fighting a speeding ticket. Some shockingly high percentage are never contested. People just take their lumps and move on…

How does fighting the speeding ticket, or taking Amazon to small claims court, going to change any behavior? The police are not inconvenienced that much if you challenge a ticket - they can just not contest and let you win. No pain to them, and they can keep writing tickets that are easily challenged. Same with Amazon - they can just agree to immediately give you your money back when you file a claim in court; no rea…

If enough people do it and hold them accountable it will change their behavior. They have to answer your claims and that costs them a lot of money to deal with small claims in whatever place in IL the blog author lives. Speeding tickets also work on the principle of everyone's ignorance of defending themselves in court if enough people fought them lawd and society would respond to this.
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