[HN Gopher] Federal regulator says Amazon can be held responsibl...
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Federal regulator says Amazon can be held responsible for faulty
goods
Author : mfiguiere
Score : 100 points
Date : 2024-07-30 16:53 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnbc.com)
| ranger_danger wrote:
| Seems like this only applies to voluntarily recalled products?
| stebalien wrote:
| It means that Amazon is responsible for recalling faulty
| products, not that they're responsible for handling products
| recalled by the manufacture.
|
| In general, the seller is responsible for the products they
| sell, regardless of who manufactured it. This gives the buyer a
| clear party they can sue, likely a party that has a presence in
| their jurisdiction. Amazon can turn around and go after the
| manufacture, but that's not the buyer's problem.
|
| Amazon tried to call themselves a "marketplace" to avoid this
| liability, but nobody's buying that.
| breakingcups wrote:
| Too damn right, and about time.
| scohesc wrote:
| I think it was Louis Rossmann who tested out some automotive
| fuses purchased from Amazon to see if the fuses were actually
| rated for what was printed on the label.
|
| I believe the fuses _failed to fail_ when running amperages
| higher than what was written on the fuses themselves. Hopefully
| someone can clarify, my memory is a bit dodgy.
|
| Amazon should be liable for the products they sell on their
| market place. They should not be able to absolve themselves of
| all liability just because they're a "facilitator" of these
| marketplaces.
|
| They have the ability to manipulate reviews, manipulate what
| products you see in your search queries, etc. etc. They're
| culpable in some way as well - since theoretically, if they're
| manipulating search and reviews, then they must be vetting the
| products in some way, right?
|
| I do not have recourse via the law for the thousands of VONEO,
| ARKANEL, POESLLE, BUSSUE companies that crop up every day to sell
| the same products that may or may not be following well-adopted
| standards.
|
| I'm not sure what the answer is, but I'm hoping we see less
| potentially dangerous and less counterfeit products on Amazon and
| other online retailers as a result of this.
| moepstar wrote:
| > I'm not sure what the answer is
|
| Stop buying from Amazon, at least for me it is - i pretty much
| go out of my way to actively avoid buying there and encourage
| others to do so.
| calmbonsai wrote:
| For basic electronic components and fasteners, I use
| McMaster-Carr https://www.mcmaster.com/. Their website is
| also amazingly free of cruft.
| kube-system wrote:
| For a broader selection of electronics components, one may
| also consider
|
| https://www.digikey.com/ and https://www.mouser.com/
| google234123 wrote:
| For a hobbiest, ebay or aliexpress is cheaper. Straight
| from china.
| ted_dunning wrote:
| Yes. Aliexpress is cheaper, but they have the sample
| problem with counterfeit and mislabeled products.
| Furthermore, they also manipulate ratings and comments. I
| got an electronic filter from there that was seriously
| mislabeled and sent in a comment and rating based on
| that. It never appeared on the product page.
|
| Amazon's electronic parts are a complete shambles of
| junk. Take, for instance, this page which is selling
| "Germanium Schottky diodes", a thing that does not exist.
| They have a part number for a Germanium diode, but are
| apparently selling a silicon based Schottky diode
| instead. This is simply fraud, but only different from
| vats of other frauds on the site because it is so
| blatant. Yes, the Amazon parts are typically more
| expensive than the Ali parts, but there is very little
| reason to use either one.
|
| If you actually want to receive the part you ordered, go
| to Digikey or Mouser. The prices will often be better as
| well.
| kube-system wrote:
| They're okay most of the time for non-critical hobby
| tinkering, but counterfeit/clone/approximate parts are
| very commonplace on those platforms.
|
| The advantage that specialty electronics distributors
| have is that they have supply-chain relationships
| directly with first-party manufacturers. A part with a
| manufacturer's name on it will come from that
| manufacturer. By contrast, marketplace-type sites don't
| care about an item's provenance.
| bsder wrote:
| Only if your time debugging has no value.
|
| If you are doing everything in China, you should at least
| go with LCSC (https://www.lcsc.com/) as they are bargain
| but _generally_ not completely counterfeit.
|
| Note: That "generally" is doing a _lot_ of heavy lifting.
| I 'll use LCSC for hobbyist stuff or prototypes. I'll
| generally use Digikey/Mouser/Arrow/Future/etc. if I need
| intermediate production (up to about 10K units). Once you
| get above 100K units, you can utilize Chinese suppliers
| again as you have an on-site representative managing
| everything at that point.
| tandr wrote:
| This is some really nice UI - easy to understand, no cruft,
| searchable!
| justinclift wrote:
| Does anyone know if they ship internationally these days?
|
| It _used_ to be (several years ago) that they wouldn 't
| ship to Australia, and (I think from rough memory) they
| wouldn't ship to the EU either.
|
| I'm not seeing info about that on their website when look
| around now though, so it may have changed. (?)
| MattPalmer1086 wrote:
| Yep. My wife stopped buying on Amazon before I did although I
| had already stopped buying most electronic things due to the
| large amount of counterfeit or unsafe products.
|
| She took a while to convince me to stop using it at all. It
| just seems so convenient. Truth is I honestly don't notice
| any difference now. Maybe it's slightly more hassle to put my
| credit card number occasionally, but things get delivered
| about as fast as Amazon ever did, and I'm much more confident
| in what I'm actually getting.
| datavirtue wrote:
| Yeah, Amazon did its job by dragging all the other
| retailers kicking and screaming to a consumer-centric
| pricing and logistics model. That's why you don't see a
| difference because every other business has adapted to the
| same model or pricing scheme.
|
| Same for Walmart. For example, the Pet Supplies Plus
| retailer in my neighborhood smashes WalMart's selection and
| prices. There is no service at Walmart, PSP has passionate,
| knowledgeable people always on staff.
|
| Microcenter is another example. Service, price and
| ultimately convenience, make the online shopping experience
| feel like a waste of time.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I'm optimistic that if Amazon is liable then it'll probably
| sort itself out.
| datavirtue wrote:
| How is this even a debate? There is no section 230 for
| products.
| pixl97 wrote:
| These debates are heald by lawyers and when dealing with
| companies as large as Amazon you're talking about a massive
| amount if expense getting anywhere.
| fragmede wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B90_SNNbcoU
| NickC25 wrote:
| > _Amazon should be liable for the products they sell on their
| market place. They should not be able to absolve themselves of
| all liability just because they 're a "facilitator" of these
| marketplaces. They have the ability to manipulate reviews,
| manipulate what products you see in your search queries, etc.
| etc. They're culpable in some way as well - since
| theoretically, if they're manipulating search and reviews, then
| they must be vetting the products in some way, right?_
|
| Amazon also sells its own products on its marketplace, which
| kinda negates the whole "we're only a facilitator" message they
| are desperately trying to push.
|
| Ebay is just a facilitator. If Amazon wants to just be a
| facilitator, it can stop spending money trying to copy top
| selling products via its Amazon Essentials line of goods.
| Amazon doesn't get to straddle the line and pick and choose
| what to call itself depending on which way the legal wind is
| blowing on a given day.
|
| Amazon is the poster child of having their cake and wanting to
| eat it too, and using lobbyists and lawyers to get their way.
| howard941 wrote:
| >I think it was Louis Rossmann who tested out some automotive
| fuses purchased from Amazon to see if the fuses were actually
| rated for what was printed on the label. I believe the fuses
| _failed to fail_ when running amperages higher than what was
| written on the fuses themselves.
|
| Do you remember if he took his fuses' time-current curves into
| account? Fuses will generally pass more than their rating for
| some period of time, blowing faster if the current's
| significantly over the rating, slower (maybe much slower) if
| it's only a little bit over. By preventing nuisance blows it's
| considered a feature rather than a bug.
| Rygian wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B90_SNNbcoU
| howard941 wrote:
| At your link I saw that my point had been brought up in the
| comments. The 2 amp fuse passing 8 amps for minutes is for
| sure a problem. I'm not sure about those other fuses, they
| didn't seem to be far off. And there was a 2 amp fuse that
| blew at 4 amps after a few seconds which is what I'd
| expect. I didn't have enough patience to watch all 31
| minutes of the video though, I was jumping around. In all
| fairness I think he proved his point.
| ffhhj wrote:
| Begin with all the fake laser safety glasses being sold for
| decades.
| klyrs wrote:
| Curious to see if this survives Ohio vs. EPA.
| Animats wrote:
| Amazon settled a product liability case in Pennsylvania to
| avoid an adverse decision that they are the "seller".[1]
|
| [1]
| https://www.law.com/thelegalintelligencer/2020/09/23/product...
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| In the UK under the Consumer Rights Act the seller is responsible
| for goods being of "satisfactory quality" (Section 9?).
|
| Very surprised if all jurisdictions don't have similar
| legislation as it seems like a very basic, rudimentary, customer
| protection.
| kube-system wrote:
| There are similar provisions in the US, but they are
| rudimentary in nature.
|
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/implied_warranty_of_merchant...
|
| A product recall, in the US, goes beyond what would be required
| by this -- requiring a seller to attempt to contact purchasers,
| provide proactive remedy, etc.
| cassianoleal wrote:
| This is about the marketplace though. Amazon position
| themselves as an intermediary only, and from their point-of-
| view, the actual seller should be liable.
|
| I'm not sure what the UK law says about this specific case.
| Carrok wrote:
| They take products from multiple sources and literally dump
| them all into one bin, from which they sell. If they were an
| actually an intermediary only, they would not co-mingle
| items.
| mbreese wrote:
| I think this is a good point. At what point do business
| practices (co-mingling) remove any sort of liability
| protections (if they exist) here? Is Amazon just an
| intermediary if they don't keep good from different vendors
| separate?
|
| I think there is a good argument to be made here.
| jjk166 wrote:
| I think the big thing is that Amazon does not own the
| items listed by these 3rd party vendors.
|
| The CPSC is claiming Amazon is a distributor.
|
| > A distributor is an independent contractor who buys
| goods on their own account from an exporter or supplier
| and resells the goods to customers in their own
| territory.
|
| > They do not act as a communication channel between the
| supplier and the customer and normally do not have
| authority to create a contract between the customer and
| the supplier or exporter.
|
| I would say Amazon is legitimately in a gray zone between
| providing 3PL services and being a distributor. Amazon is
| facilitating payments, but it's not really reselling
| things it has already purchased. Amazon can make a strong
| argument it does facilitate communication between the
| supplier and customer, given that the person making the
| listing can put lots of information on the sale page and
| there is a mechanism for the seller to directly answer
| consumer questions, though conversely Amazon has a lot of
| influence over that communication and the government has
| a strong argument that the consumer is only entering into
| a contract with Amazon.
|
| Really the issue is that Amazon is just too horizontally
| integrated. If it were split up into a pure 3PL service,
| a pure financial transaction handler, a pure online sales
| listing platform, and a pure competing retailer, none of
| those four entities would have an obligation to recall a
| third party vendor's product. It's only when you combine
| these into a monstrous chimera that the lines blur.
| datavirtue wrote:
| Let's not complicate this. My credit card says: AMAZON.
| layer8 wrote:
| Retailers are generally intermediaries. It's not clear what
| the difference is when Amazon sells Marketplace items from
| their own storage and are handling delivery, payment, and
| returns.
| tracker1 wrote:
| I don't buy it... they do fulfillment and commingled
| inventory in the process. They cannot reasonably separate
| themselves from independent sellers.
| SR2Z wrote:
| That's literally the point - this behavior has always only
| been legal insofar as the government (the Executive branch)
| has not been criminally prosecuting Amazon for selling
| used-as-new or outright fakes.
|
| Biden has been a substantially more pro-consumer president
| and he has given the FTC and CPSC real teeth to crack down
| on this stuff. This is incidentally why the recent SC
| ruling shooting down Chevron deference is so devastating.
| cassianoleal wrote:
| To be clear, I agree. Especially since they don't make it
| obvious that you're buying from a 3rd party seller. The
| whole website is made to look like a unified front.
| nytesky wrote:
| My sister said they received a counterfeit book -- how is that
| possible since I thought Amazon guarded their book supply chain
| at least?
| wil421 wrote:
| I received counterfeit G skill RAM from Amazon and the seller
| was Amazon. It was a space blanket put into an obviously fake
| RAM box even the dimensions were wrong. I bought 2 and one was
| fake, same shipment too.
| justinclift wrote:
| Amazon is famously awash with counterfeit books. It's been an
| ongoing problem for years. :(
|
| * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37055909 (1 year ago)
|
| * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32287936 (2 years ago)
|
| * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19199135 (5 years ago)
|
| * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13924546 (7 years ago)
| datavirtue wrote:
| It almost as if they created this problem. Where else would
| this have occurred in the past? I have no idea where I could
| have gotten a counterfiet book before Amazon.
| frumper wrote:
| A flea market was a great place to get cheap knock offs of
| all sorts of things.
| floxy wrote:
| As if. Take a look at the very first line in the description
| for the book "Visual Differential Geometry and Forms: A
| Mathematical Drama in Five Acts".
|
| "FROM THE AUTHOR:
|
| All legitimate copies of VDGF produced by Princeton University
| Press are crisply printed on high-quality paper. If you obtain
| a shoddily printed copy, it's a fake: please return it and
| purchase a genuine PUP copy."
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Visual-Differential-Geometry-Forms-Ma...
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