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Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

thewirecutter.com

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Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

#71

Post by mav3rick »

joshgachnang wrote: post #43
thaumaturgy wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went from being an enthusiastic fan of Amazon Prime and a $50k spend one year [+] to closing my Amazon account and then warning other people away from it in the space of about five years. I can't recall any other business from which I've moved so quickly and so far from one end of the spectrum of enthusiasm to the other. [+] Most of it was for business -- parts and equipment for customers, it was often cheaper that…

Google has been about the same for me. I went from total Google fanboy to migrating a lot of my life away from them and advising others to do the same.

No non tech person is going to use Duck Duck Go.

Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

#72

Post by heavyset_go »

amylene wrote: post #62
heavyset_go wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they already have a pretty generous return policy. Yet there is no option to indicate that "This product is a counterfeit" when filing a return, despite it being a documented problem. The purchaser must choose a different, and inaccurate, reason for their return when filing for one. One way to read into this is that Amazon doesn't want to keep records of counterfeit items sold on their marketplace because of the li…

Another way to read it is that amazon doesn’t believe the consumer is a reliable counterfeit detector, versus “crappy product”, etc.

This can be solved with an "I believe the item I received is a counterfeit" option alongside the "Item is defective or doesn't work" option already present during the return process.

Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

#73

Post by wombat-man »

someonehere wrote: post #5

I have friends who are no longer buying from Amazon. Especially friends with kids. You can’t trust anything safe for your kids when crap like this is allowed. Amazon is in a race to flood the market with availability at the cost of consumer confidence. Remember all the hoverboard fires you saw on the news several years ago? They weren’t knock offs, but items sold that didn’t have any real safety certifications in min…

Cancelled my prime this year, haven't looked back. A lot of retailers offer free shipping if you order a certain dollar amount and while they have a smaller selection, I can be pretty sure I'm not receiving anything fake. They also tend to have a lot less noise in search results.

main downside is I'm having to order from multiple places, but it hasn't been too bad.

Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

#74

Post by wombat-man »

ng12 wrote: post #21

This happened to me the first time this Christmas. Bought a $25 electric doodad that was "sold by Amazon" for a family member and it was obviously a fake. It came in a very generic white box with the company logo stamped on it, inside was a product that looked completely different and was non-functional. Not only that, but the product was difficult to return (I had to contact support) which makes me suspect Amazon kn…

They'll actually pro-rate refund for your remaining time with prime if you cancel. At least they did for me.

Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

#75

Post by gdulli »

birdyrooster wrote: post #49
quickthrowman wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you convince Congress to pass that legislation when there’s lots of money on the other side lobbying for the status quo?

By having a President that holds rallies on getting these issues passed and sets a agenda for the people to vote for congresspeople who support consumer protection laws like these. This is where the office of the Presidency really has impact, it can direct the attention of millions of people to exert great pressure on its target.

Hypothetically, what if the executive branch also ever happened to be nonfunctional?

Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

#76

Post by richardxia »

101008 wrote: post #34

Sorry if this is offtopic, I was planning to buy a Google Pixel 3A from Amazon in a week (It's cheaper than from Google Store). Are mobile phones also forgered on Amazon? or they don't aim to forger stuff like that? Thank you. (I am from a 3rd world country and travelling to USA next week)

I would be a little bit careful. I don't know if there's a risk of counterfeiting, but I once bought what I thought was supposed to be a US region Moto X2 but instead got a European region one. The most important difference, besides getting a different power adapter, was the fact that there's actually a different wireless antennae chip, where it did not have LTE bands for my carrier in the US.

Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

#77

Post by Nasrudith »

squarefoot wrote: post #45

Fake reviews also contribute to more fake and low quality products being sold. It looks like Amazon simply doesn't care. https://thehustle.co/amazon-fake-reviews FTA: "One stay-at-home mom from Kentucky told me she makes $200-300 per month leaving positive reviews for things like sleep masks, light bulbs, and AV cables." “Do you actually like the products?” I asked. “I don’t know,” she wrote. “I never use them.”

I'll bite - how would them caring make any difference in terms of quality of "fake" reviews?

The way I see it the problem is unsolvable. There is no mathematical way to absolutely determine truth of reviews and it is fundamentally an arms race. No measure they could do could keep it true and free of deception.

Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

#78

Post by Nasrudith »

tyingq wrote: post #41

"Getting the fake gloves removed from Amazon can be a long process, Hirsch said, taking weeks or even months of playing whack-a-mole with counterfeit sellers" That's the brand owner saying that. I'd love to see an Amazon response to that.

Personally the brand owner makes me trust them as far as I can throw them as they have a fundamental interest in hampering secondary markets and undermining right of first sale. Sure there are valid concerns but it becomes "CEOs claim higher CEO compensation main factor linked to better company performance".

Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

#79

Post by gurumeditations »

101008 wrote: post #34

Sorry if this is offtopic, I was planning to buy a Google Pixel 3A from Amazon in a week (It's cheaper than from Google Store). Are mobile phones also forgered on Amazon? or they don't aim to forger stuff like that? Thank you. (I am from a 3rd world country and travelling to USA next week)

Personally, any expensive electronics I buy in person, not from Amazon. Best Buy and the like are trustworthy.

Re: Which of these Amazon Prime purchases are real?

#80

Post by bencollier49 »

I feel like I can't trust anything I buy on Amazon now. For the last month I've been buying from UK registered businesses which pay tax and which I can trust to send me goods which aren't counterfeit and potentially dangerous.

And wow! The dark patterns they use when you try to cancel Prime are really quite impressive!

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