[HN Gopher] All 10TB portable SSDs on Amazon (UK) are scams
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All 10TB portable SSDs on Amazon (UK) are scams
Author : AlexMuir
Score : 44 points
Date : 2023-01-30 22:19 UTC (41 minutes ago)
(HTM) web link (www.amazon.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.amazon.co.uk)
| Buttons840 wrote:
| How does a company that consistently sales scam products not get
| sued into oblivion? Is there some legal loophole Amazon is using,
| or is it just that they have enough money to buy the legal system
| outright? Is there a legal protection for marketplaces or
| something? Is Amazon a marketplace?
| partiallypro wrote:
| Not just scam products, their catalogue is flooded with stolen
| goods. Many of which were stolen from their competitors that
| have physical stores. They just turn a blind eye to it. They
| also have a horrible counterfeit problem. It's pretty insane
| what Amazon gets away with. I shop at Amazon for many things,
| so I guess I'm part of the problem, but generally know what to
| avoid.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I believe that is their loophole, yes. They're just the payment
| processor and shipper, you are not buying the product from
| _them_. To me it seems like another area where the Internet has
| exposed gaps in the law that were not foreseen, and legislators
| have not caught up.
| _tom_ wrote:
| Because they will give you your money back. That's one thing
| they are good about.
|
| Edit: even if the fault is not theirs.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Thinking of the poor folks that never even realize they've
| been scammed by Amazon.
| mavu wrote:
| Well, same as all the other big IT giants.
|
| They all moved a lot faster than society and government, know
| when they must dish out lobbying money (and have enough to do
| so) and give more people what they want at the expense of fewer
| people.
|
| It's coming to an end though. The boomers that don't understand
| the current state of the world anymore are moving out finally.
|
| The next 10 years will be filled by the tears of abusive
| companies that don't understand why they are suddenly required
| to follow rules they didn't make themselves.
| jonatron wrote:
| Generally, marketplaces are not liable for trademark/copyright
| infringement listings until they are made aware. Amazon have a
| form for reporting that. In the case of items not as described,
| there are consumer protections to allow returns, but I don't
| know if they have to remove the listing.
| fancyfredbot wrote:
| I was thinking that surely Amazon would lose money selling a fake
| product which everyone would return, but I guess some people
| don't realise and don't return it so that selling these ends up
| being profitable for both Amazon and the manufacturer. At least
| until someone files a class action lawsuit anyway.
| gruez wrote:
| >I was thinking that surely Amazon would lose money selling a
| fake product which everyone would return,
|
| This got me curious about who pays the return costs, and after
| some searching it looks like the seller eats it[1]. In other
| words, Amazon might be making money even if the item was
| returned. Regardless, it also means that it might be possible
| to shut down these scams (or make them unprofitable) if
| activists purposely buys these scam listings, only to return
| them. The scammer would have to eat the fees, which eats into
| their profits. The only downside is your time plus the
| possibility of your amazon account getting banned if you return
| too much.
|
| [1] https://blog.sellerboard.com/2022/09/19/the-actual-costs-
| of-...
| AlexMuir wrote:
| Went looking for an SSD earlier - the "SD-card in a box" scam is
| going great guns on there. Must be selling hundreds a week. Not
| just the ludicrous 10TB, but also 2TB.
|
| https://www.amazon.co.uk/LuBanSir-External-Design-Portable-C...
|
| Note the reviews refer to all different stuff - phone chargers,
| arm slings, extension cord organisers. What a total shitshow.
| voidwtf wrote:
| This is among greatest abuse Amazon allows in its product
| listings. Any change to a page should reset the reviews unless
| otherwise vetted by an Amazon employee. Changes shouldn't be
| material in nature, only corrections. A new revision/version of
| a product IS NOT THE SAME PRODUCT. Different product ==
| different listing.
| duskwuff wrote:
| That might be going a little far. Adding an extra-large size
| to a listing for a T-shirt (for example) shouldn't invalidate
| all of the existing reviews.
|
| A more targeted approach might be to disallow sellers from
| adding variants to products which are not currently for sale.
| I suspect that would cut down on most of the abuse.
| duskwuff wrote:
| > Note the reviews refer to all different stuff - phone
| chargers, arm slings, extension cord organisers. What a total
| shitshow.
|
| This is an exploit which has been abused for years -- as I
| understand it, Amazon sellers can list their products as a
| "variant" of another (often unrelated) product which is no
| longer available for sale. When they do so, their product
| inherits all of the reviews from the previous product.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Sometimes I wonder if I've been taken. The only external SSDs
| I've bought from Amazon were brand name Samsungs, sold-by-and-
| shipped-from Amazon, but both have been flaky and one failed
| outright. I should open them up and see if they're just really
| good counterfeits.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| Amazon itself is a scam now. Moved away from it a long time back.
| It is not an Alibaba clone with better English copy.
| hrunt wrote:
| If I take that amazon.co.uk URL and replace it with amazon.com, I
| get zero scam-looking SSD drives. The only results that are 10TB
| are 7200rpm portable drives, and the largest SSD drive is an $800
| 8TB drive.
|
| I wonder what makes Amazon show all those junk on its UK site,
| but not on its US site.
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