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A foreign seller has hijacked my Amazon Klein bottle listing

kleinbottle.com

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

#51

Post by fredsir »

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…

Does it really? With what I’ve been reading about what is going on over at Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook, this doesn’t surprise me at all. It’s awful, but not surprising. And reading about how Amazon treats it’s employees, as has been covered on this site numerous times in the last while, it’s even less surprising.

And continuing to use those services is giving a vote for those practices to keep on keeping on, and that people still use them? Well, no, it’s not surprising but it’s sad.

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

#52

Post by onion2k »

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.

I might be woefully ignorant but I thought it's not possible to make a Klein bottle in the real world...?

I think Cliff Stoll sells 3D models of Klein bottles rather than the impossible 4D version.

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

#53

Post by nxpnsv »

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.

Also, he did a numberphile podcast which was truly fantastic. I laughed and cried. Do listen to it.

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

#54

Post by vtail »

xvector wrote: post #35
spoonjim wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that B&H has been sued for discriminating against its non-Jewish employees: https://m.jpost.com/diaspora/new-lawsuit-claims-b-and-h-disc...

That's horrible. Thanks for letting me know!

Could you please clarify what do you think is horrible? Anyone can sue anyone in the US, for any reason, and allege a lot of bad things. It also true that cost of litigation is often much, much higher than a settlement - e.g. the 3 employee suing asked for $200k in damages, which I assume is just an opening offer. A reasonable lawyer can easily cost upwards of $500/hr, and require many, many hours of work even if the process never gets to the court.

My close friend is been sued for ridiculous reasons by ex-partners. It already costed him $750k in legal fees,and although he is very likely to win the case, it’s expected to take another 2 years before the case is resolved, at which point he will be allowed to file for recovering his costs (easily anothe couple of years).

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

#55

Post by seanwilson »

> To make their blackhead remover listing look legit, Amvoom then submitted several hundred orders over Amazon, and immediately cancelled each order. These depleted my Klein bottle inventory on Amazon - even though nothing was paid for, and nothing was shipped. In turn, this removed the "second color option" for their blackhead-remover, since Amazon felt that the Klein bottles were out of stock. Result: their black-head remover listing got 199 positive reviews, and the Klein bottle did not show up as a "color choice" in the Amvoom black-head listing.

How do people manage to figure out such elaborate ways to manipulate Amazon results without getting banned? Getting banned has minimal cost? Poor detection? Inside information?

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

#56

Post by bhrgunatha »

Taniwha wrote: post #13

Cliff - if you're reading this - you own the images they're using - time to claim copyright with Amazon ....

I have a further question.

Since he has common law trademark, why wouldn't that still apply? Someone else is selling via Amazon in the US using his common law trademark.

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

#57

Post by [deleted] »

adrian_mrd wrote: post #24
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.

Has anyone read his other book ‘Silicon Snake Oil’ [1] from 1995 lately? Sounds like most of his predictions in it (eg e-commerce will fail, digital books will not be viable, etc) were wildly off the mark - but were any prescient? [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Snake_Oil

[deleted]

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

#58

Post by ElViajero »

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…

> If you're too lazy to figure out yourself which products are quality

Amazon is a gambling company. People buys things with the hope that, this time, they are getting a bargain. And, as any gambling company, the customers will lose in the long term.

But, people gets addicted to gambling. Maybe next item, maybe I will do a smart purchase. The more randomized the experience the more irrational the consumer.

I prefer traditional business that follow regulations and are subjects to my country laws. I used Amazon when it started, because they had a great recommendation engine for books. Even that is now a shitshow that offers you what Amazon wants to sell regardless of what you look for.

Amazon works as intended, and that is terrifying.

p.d.: People is not lazy. It is just that most people are not experts on the products that they purchase, and they are already spending a lot of their time working hard and taking care of their families to add another ten hours of investigation to purchase a pair of shoes.

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

#59

Post by KirillPanov »

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 am confused too. Especially this part:

On June 22nd, they used Amazon's Brand Registry to re-brand my listing on Amazon (replacing my brand, "Acme Klein Bottle" with "Amvoom") They could do this because Amazon's Brand Registry only respects issued trademarks.

I don't get this at all. Attacker has a trademark on "Amvoom". The word "Amvoom" does not appear in Stoll's product name or description. It isn't even close to any of the words in the product name.

FWIW I fully 100% believe Stoll. But the real question here is why is a "brand registry" allowing product takeovers that don't involve said brand? That seems to rise far beyond the usual Amazon bullshit, to straight-up algorithmic incompetence. How is this possible?

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