Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

kleinbottle.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 628 posts

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#41

Post by awslattery »

xvector wrote: post #2

These days I avoid Amazon where possible since so often it's just cheap Chinese knockoffs or obviously returned products sold as new. B&H has been a godsend for tech, especially since there's no tax with their card. Crutchfield/Headphones.com has been great for speaker and audio gear. West Elm has a consistently premium quality for kitchen, home, and furniture items (though furniture is a story of its own, with even…

+1 for Crutchfield, a great price match/protection policy, and support that is responsive yet not overbearingly so.

I would also add rtings.com; they do a great job of documenting their process and the results themselves from their reviews with incredible detail.

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#43

Post by II2II »

Nicksil wrote: post #11

This seems completely insane to me. How is this possible? I like Cliff Stoll and have been looking forward to my first Klein bottle purchase for some years now, so I say this without any insinuation Cliff's not telling the whole story: There's got to be more to it than this, right? Can someone really go on Amazon, effectively take over someone's storefront, and completely ransack the place this easily? Because Cliff…

I don't know if it is easy, but I wouldn't be surprised if Amazon is aware of the problem.

There was a discussion about selling products through Amazon on The Amp Hour a few months back, and part of the discussion included trademarks as a requirement. They made it sound like a new and expensive hurdle to deal with. Given Stoll's comments, it sounds like the lack of a registered trademark was a contributing factor to his problem. Putting the two together leads me to believe that Amazon is aware this can happen. (From the show notes, it looks like https://theamphour.com/523-a-keyzermas-story/ is the episode in question.)

Edit: for clarity.

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#44

Post by ixtli »

cfqycwz wrote: post #28
xvector wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. B&H is sort of unusual in this regards, but from what I hear their employees are treated well, and the lack of tax is well worth it!

Fwiw there has been some history of B&H workers being treated fairly not-well. I encourage reading past the first few paragraphs of this article as it's not all "union stuff"--there are lawsuits, DOL complaints, and OSHA fines as well: https://gothamist.com/news/bh-photo-workers-strike-on-may-da...

Thank you for pointing this out. I live in the area and showed up for the pickets when they fired all of their warehouse employees for complaining about unsafe working conditions.

If possible use Adorama or some competitor.

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#45

Post by davidw »

dflock wrote: post #6

That sucks. Nice write-up of how this scam works, I wasn't aware of the details previously. Also, if anyone is unaware, this is this Clifford Stoll: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford_Stoll - who wrote this brilliant (and true) book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cuckoo%27s_Egg_(book) - which is a really good read and perfect for HN.

He has occasionally stopped by this site: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=CliffStoll

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#46

Post by cperciva »

chx wrote: post #42

A mathematical side note: I might be woefully ignorant but I thought it's not possible to make a Klein bottle in the real world...? This is not to belittle Stoll's work, it might be a model or approximation... or I'm just missing something.

You are correct. Stoll makes a projection of Klein bottles into 3-space which results in them being self-intersecting.

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#47

Post by hef19898 »

moepstar wrote: post #12

They're still in denial that they have a problem. Just read the thread on the previous occasion where listings got hijacked on their own fora [0] - its sad to see the sellers so powerless, helpless and just left to themselves. You really have to wonder why they even bother... Edit: also, reading that thread you can also get a feel why big brands have completely left AMZN as a platform (like Adidas, Birkenstock are a…

The one thing I don't get, and I worked for AMZN in logistics, is the co-mingling of inventory. It is so easy to solve, poses so many problems and yet the logistics benchmark company fails to do it right.

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#48

Post by zmix »

tomnipotent wrote: post #39
xvector wrote: post #2

These days I avoid Amazon where possible since so often it's just cheap Chinese knockoffs or obviously returned products sold as new. B&H has been a godsend for tech, especially since there's no tax with their card. Crutchfield/Headphones.com has been great for speaker and audio gear. West Elm has a consistently premium quality for kitchen, home, and furniture items (though furniture is a story of its own, with even…

> B&H has been a godsend for tech Let's hope they don't go the marketplace route while chasing growth. Shopping on Amazon feels like late 90s eBay, guessing whether or not the seller is going to screw you.

> [...] feels like late 90s eBay, guessing whether or not the seller is going to screw you.

Has that become any better?

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#49

Post by wyldfire »

jamestnz wrote: post #21
xvector wrote: post #2

These days I avoid Amazon where possible since so often it's just cheap Chinese knockoffs or obviously returned products sold as new. B&H has been a godsend for tech, especially since there's no tax with their card. Crutchfield/Headphones.com has been great for speaker and audio gear. West Elm has a consistently premium quality for kitchen, home, and furniture items (though furniture is a story of its own, with even…

I stumbled upon an unusual policy when trying to order from B&H the first time. They are not open for business on Shabbat (NYC local time), and this includes their online checkout! I could fill up my cart, but had to come back later to do my purchase.

I respect people's religions but adherence to constraints like these -- to the extent that the automatons cannot even work -- are silly.

Re: A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

#50

Post by ChuckMcM »

xvector wrote: post #2

These days I avoid Amazon where possible since so often it's just cheap Chinese knockoffs or obviously returned products sold as new. B&H has been a godsend for tech, especially since there's no tax with their card. Crutchfield/Headphones.com has been great for speaker and audio gear. West Elm has a consistently premium quality for kitchen, home, and furniture items (though furniture is a story of its own, with even…

Exactly right. Watching Ebay and Amazon converge on being "Aliexpress" has really made me sad. I understand the folks who are measuring themselves by how effectively they promise quality and deliver crap to their customers. I understand their goal is maximum profit as their best score. And I understand that enough of the market doesn't care that it is crap that they prefer this over a quality good.

Back when Walmart started and everyone was all about "wow, their prices are great!" and nary a mention of their quality. I realized that Walmart was going to do the same thing to groceries.

Without re-invigorating the UCC with stronger consumer protections so that the "costs" are born not individually by consumers but by the market maker who pushes an inferior product, I don't see it getting much better.

Post reply on HN