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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

#61

Post by erk__ »

nxpnsv wrote: post #53
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.

Here is a link to the youtube version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxdcBD4ppF0

And I will double up and say it is a great episode of a great podcast.

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

#63

Post by Rantenki »

vtail wrote: post #54
xvector wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's not a mere allegation, they lost a similar suit about hispanic employees, and had a HUGE settlement ruling against them: https://www.eeoc.gov/newsroom/eeoc-and-b-h-reach-43-million-...

They've been proven to discriminate, in a court of law. I'd give this new lawsuit the benefit of the doubt.

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

#64

Post by Hnrobert42 »

bhrgunatha wrote: post #56
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.

Total speculation here, but probably because common law trademark would have to be proven in a court of law. That is, he would have to sue the Chinese company, present evidence like newspaper clippings or testimony from customers, win, get a judgement, and present that to Amazon. Until then, Amazon looks in the USPTO database.

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

#65

Post by DetroitThrow »

vtail wrote: post #54
xvector wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>Could you please clarify what do you think is horrible [about an employee discrimination lawsuit]?

I wonder why so many forum users frame statements they want to make as questions which challenge innocent comments.

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

#66

Post by unclekev »

seanwilson wrote: post #55

> 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-h…

> 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?

They don't actually ban the accounts doing this. They only remove the reviews/listings, but don't take any action on the accounts (so they just re-list 24 hours later)

Apparently when Amazon acts, they are just removing the fake reviews, sometimes the whole product but never actually banning the sellers account (even if every product that seller is listing is pumped full of fake reviews)

It seems to be a endless cycle of a item being hijacked or a item filled with fake reviews, then when reported to Amazon they simply remove the fake reviews or the product but don't take any action at all against the seller (or accounts making the fake reviews)

This thread[0] on the Amazon Seller forums is crazy with people finding products that are scam listings (with 10,000+ fake reviews), they report them, the products get taken down, then 24 hours later the same sellers have re listed with more fake reviews.

Amazon simply do not care, if they did they would:

A) Address the root problem

B) Ban the seller accounts clearly manipulating the system.

Amazon is quick to permaban accounts from real sellers, who make a single mistake (sometimes completely out of their control) but are happy to let these fake review/sellers keep their accounts.

[0] https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/review-manipulatio...

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

#67

Post by sombremesa »

wyldfire wrote: post #49
jamestnz wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, the website being up and somewhat usable means the automatons are working. Makes this policy even more nonsensical.

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

#68

Post by seanwilson »

unclekev wrote: post #66
seanwilson wrote: post #55

> 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-h…

> 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? They don't actually ban the accounts doing this. They only remove the reviews/listings, but don't take any action on the accounts (so they just re-list 24 hours later) Apparently when Amazon acts, they are just removing the fake reviews, som…

> Amazon simply do not care

Why though? How does this not hurt Amazon long term? What are they gaining from attracting dodgy sellers in the short term?

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

#69

Post by mprovost »

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.

His TED talk is amazing, his energy for learning is so infectious. I just meant to post the link here but had to watch the whole thing again!

https://www.ted.com/talks/clifford_stoll_the_call_to_learn?l...

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

#70

Post by neilv »

wyldfire wrote: post #49
jamestnz wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

IIUC, it's a religious/cultural observance that's very important to them, I think a kind of reminder. I'd say respecting that means respecting that.

Also, I loved B&H when I was seriously into photography, and even if the closed days had been a practical inconvenience (they weren't, IME), it would've still been worthwhile.

Speculating... Maybe something in the culture of dutiful adherence also helped them to provide such well-respected service at great prices? Diversity is good.

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