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Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

economist.com

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Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

#491

Post by ksenzee »

LawTalkingGuy wrote: post #332
ksenzee wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, so this is a hugely political issue right now. Don't be surprised to get wildly differing answers. Republicans are pointing at public disorder and screaming about crime, and Democrats are accusing them of being fragile suburbanites who can't handle normal urban life. I'm a left-leaning independent, and I tend to agree with Democrats on a lot of their talking points, but I will say that everywhere I go I see mo…

How's the housing work? Victoria and Vancouver tried this by buying old hotels and turning them into apartments but they filled them with junkies and were surprised that they soon became worse than the outdoor camps. Any solution that doesn't segregate the sick can't work.

Depends how you define "work." It would have to be pretty damn bad to be worse than what we had. I think King County is doing the "buy hotels and turn them into housing-first apartments" thing, so I do expect those to turn into really bad places. I would also rather have the really bad places behind walls and a roof.

Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

#492

Post by JCharante »

adrr wrote: post #210
coredog64 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chains in Manhattan put stickers on the merchandise that tell you where it came from. While you could remove them, it’s a PITA and cuts into your margins. If you don’t remove it, there is a clear signal to Amazon that these are stolen goods.

There’s a whole industry based around arbitraging price differences between Amazon and brick and mortar merchants. Just search YouTube for “get rich with FBA”. How would Amazon know if it was stolen or retail arbitrage?

Wow this opened me up to a whole new world. Even managing to flip items with a 1% loss would let you spend $25k for only $250 (the amount of spend you need on delta co-branded cards to hit the MQD waiver for up to platinum).

Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

#493

Post by prvit »

woodruffw wrote: post #488
prvit wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s literally impossible to sell goods from third parties at scale without inevitably accepting stolen goods. There’s no amount of vetting that could solve this. > "We run such a large and haphazard business that we inevitably do a little crime" is textbook culpability via negligence Accepting goods for sale from third parties is not negligent.

That's why the standard is negligence and/or recklessness. Nobody expects Amazon to catch every single illegal use of their platform: the expectation is that they apply reasonable effort to doing so, including demonstrating a response to publicly known incidents of crime rings operating on their site. I said exactly as much in my first comment. Edit: This is at least the second time you've minimized an important piec…

> the expectation is that they apply reasonable effort to doing so, including demonstrating a response to publicly known incidents of crime rings operating on their site.

Again, rule of law. Reasonable effort is to do nothing unless they have information that would make a reasonable person believe that the specific goods were stolen.

There’s no expectation that Amazon would investigate the providence of the goods they receive.

> Edit: This is at least the second time you've minimized an important piece of context: the problem is that they're accepting stolen goods, with multiple municipalities repeatedly warning them about it.

No, I’m not. Amazon receives unimaginable amounts of goods, of which only a vanishingly small fraction is stolen goods.

> Treating that as a "scale" issue doesn't wave the crime away, any more than throughput at a meatpacking factory would be a defense for the occasional employee being caught in the slaughter line.

Are you serious? Surely the odds of an employee ever getting caught in the slaughter line must be greater than zero?

Surely you understand that if we were to infinitely scale the meatpacking factory, we’d be essentially guaranteed to see employees get chopped up.

Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

#494

Post by eek2121 »

bushbaba wrote: post #462
el_nahual wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To further underline your point, if the chain is (thief)→(amazon)→(end user) then the fence isn't "anyone with an Amazon" account: the fence is amazon .

Except products like deodorant are considered health products. Amazon doesn’t just let you easily sell health products, you need to produce invoices, receipts, etc. More likely this stuff is sold on ebay

No, instead they reach out to Amazon to school a sweet deal directly. I think a lot of people forget that a typical retailer relationship is manufacturer => distributor => retailer. Large companies like Amazon often can (and do) negotiate directly with manufacturers, however, sometimes larger distributors can offer a better deal. This is why, for example, you'll sometimes find Amazon themselves selling fake SD cards.

Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

#495

Post by pyuser583 »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #333
notch656a wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

mens rea

You don't have to intend to commit a crime to have mens rea. You merely have to intentionally do all the steps involved in the crime. Ignorance of the law is not an excuse, and neither is intentional ignorance of whether you are breaking it or not. Pawn shops got the receiving end of this deal a while ago. Now it's Amazon's turn.

I thought pawn shops exist in kind of a weird in between place.

As long as they feed info to the police, they can deal in property that’s “possibly but not probably” stolen.

And even “definitely stolen” provided certain circumstances are met: like if the item was insured and insurance paid out.

Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

#496

Post by JCharante »

nostromo wrote: post #124
fragmede wrote: post #53

I've lived in the same city now (not NYC) for 10+ years, so I'm moderately connected with all sorts of people and not just a bubble of affluent tech people. So I'll be real, I know some sketchy people that probably do drugs or at least know where to find some. What I don't know, however, is any "fences". That is, someone that traffics in stolen goods. Or maybe I do, they don't exactly advertise their services. I've n…

Blaming Amazon is misplaced. Blame the people stealing and the system that refuses to prosecute them.

Why doesn't amazon just simply require receipts or invoices when you send stuff to their warehouses for FBA?

Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

#497

Post by echelon »

bushbaba wrote: post #462
el_nahual wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To further underline your point, if the chain is (thief)→(amazon)→(end user) then the fence isn't "anyone with an Amazon" account: the fence is amazon .

Except products like deodorant are considered health products. Amazon doesn’t just let you easily sell health products, you need to produce invoices, receipts, etc. More likely this stuff is sold on ebay

> Amazon doesn’t just let you easily sell health products, you need to produce invoices, receipts, etc.

I sure hope so.

Amazon seems to only carry many common household items through dubious 3rd party sellers.

On the subject of deodorant, I've received the wrong type from Amazon multiple times, including some that obviously came from a foreign market. I ordered Dove. That can't be difficult to source from the manufacturer.

I just want Target to bring back Subscribe and Save so I can ditch Amazon completely. Third party fulfillment ruined Amazon's store.

Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

#499

Post by pyuser583 »

TillE wrote: post #350
prvit wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Without American cop show bluster, without pretrial detention except for serious crimes, and without lengthy prison sentences.

And without the same commitment to privacy. Police have much greater search powers in Europe and there is massive surveillance of public spaces.

In the UK, junior policemen walk up to you and ask you to remove your hat. So the camera can see your face.

Re: Why it’s hard to buy deodorant in Manhattan

#500

Post by woodruffw »

prvit wrote: post #493
woodruffw wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why the standard is negligence and/or recklessness. Nobody expects Amazon to catch every single illegal use of their platform: the expectation is that they apply reasonable effort to doing so, including demonstrating a response to publicly known incidents of crime rings operating on their site. I said exactly as much in my first comment. Edit: This is at least the second time you've minimized an important piec…

> the expectation is that they apply reasonable effort to doing so, including demonstrating a response to publicly known incidents of crime rings operating on their site. Again, rule of law. Reasonable effort is to do nothing unless they have information that would make a reasonable person believe that the specific goods were stolen. There’s no expectation that Amazon would investigate the providence of the goods the…

> No, I’m not. Amazon receives unimaginable amounts of goods, of which only a vanishingly small fraction is stolen goods.

This simply does not matter in the eyes of the law. What matters is receiving stolen goods, period. The degree to which they do will solely determine the degree of the statute applied.

I think I'm just repeating myself at this point, so this will be the last time: there are different standards for culpability, and each exists for a reason. Accidents happen all the time, and we don't generally refer them for criminal prosecution unless they meet a standard of intentionality, knowledge, recklessness, or criminal negligence.

To use the slaughterhouse example again: nobody expects a slaughterhouse to be perfectly safe. However, we do expect a slaughterhouse to not recklessly or negligently expose its employees to danger. Nobody expects Amazon to perfectly avoid sales of stolen goods. However, we do expect them to pursue reports of stolen goods made by victims and investigating DAs.

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