[HN Gopher] Hard disk fraud: long runtimes on new Seagate hard d...
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Hard disk fraud: long runtimes on new Seagate hard disks
Author : namanyayg
Score : 110 points
Date : 2025-02-09 14:50 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.heise.de)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.heise.de)
| OptionOfT wrote:
| https://archive.ph/2025.02.09-074637/https://www.heise.de/en...
|
| As you cannot deny cookies without paying.
| anilakar wrote:
| And this BS comes from a German company. Oof.
|
| Stop pushing EU-wide laws you cannot yourself adhere to.
| rcthompson wrote:
| Are they breaking the law? I don't love that they're
| requiring either payment or allowing cookies, but at least
| they're fully disclosing that and giving you the choice. I'm
| pretty sure that's what the GDPR requires.
| flotzam wrote:
| "The tactic has been criticised by privacy advocates and
| non-governmental organisations such as NOYB and Wikimedia
| Europe, which claim that it is illegal under the GDPR. On
| 17 April 2024, the European Data Protection Board released
| a non-binding opinion stating that in most cases, consent-
| or-pay models do not constitute valid consent within the
| meaning of the GDPR."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consent_or_pay
| joblessjunkie wrote:
| GDPR states that consent must be freely given. If there are
| financial incentives, the consent may be invalid.
| tyfon wrote:
| This is under consideration now due to the meta case.
|
| The GDPR states that consent should be freely given and one
| can argue that forcing you to choose between payment our
| tracking is not a free choice but cohersed. I personally
| think that interpretation is correct.
|
| Since a large part of German media in also doing the same,
| they are lobbying for this to only apply to "large online
| providers".
|
| Here is a good writeup on the situation:
| https://iapp.org/news/a/pay-ok-or-a-third-way-context-
| analys...
| alistairSH wrote:
| You forgot the 3rd option... don't consume their content.
| Pay, allow cookies, or surf elsewhere. GDPR doesn't
| require them to give away content for free.
|
| Edit - ok, being downvoted - how should content be
| monetized if both targeted ads and subscriptions are off
| the table? Are we saying GDPR requires a site to operate
| off generic, non-targeted ads?
| Tarq0n wrote:
| Targeted ads aren't the only kind of ads. Disregarding
| for a moment that you can do some amount of targetting
| without collecting PII too.
| IshKebab wrote:
| _Some_ sites can do that. E.g. Hacker News would easily
| be able to do targeted advertising without collecting any
| data because it 's a self-selected audience. Even someone
| like The Verge could probably do a decent job (just
| advertise games and tech stuff). But what the hell would
| The New York Times advertise? They're back at TV-style
| cars and perfume advertising which isn't profitable
| enough to sustain most businesses.
|
| I think Google's flock was the only serious attempt to
| solve this, but obviously it got heavily criticised by HN
| fundamentalists who think that the web should be entirely
| free and ad-free with zero tracking. To be fair it does
| have a rather big practical issue in that only Google has
| any incentive to actually implement it (I don't see why
| Microsoft or Mozilla or Apple would ever bother).
|
| We're probably stuck with tracking unless the EU gets
| some sense and mandates a do-not-track style preference
| system, _and actually enforces it with fines_.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Sure, but do those ads generate enough revenue to stay in
| business?
|
| How is this site's "Pay or Take a Cookie" approach worse
| for the consumer than a total paywall?
|
| I'd rather we didn't have to have annoying ads, but
| generating and hosting content costs money.
| dvdkon wrote:
| The downside of this approach is that the publishers
| don't want to remake their business model, so they make
| the subscription fee so high that they couldn't possibly
| ever lose money on people they don't track.
|
| Then even the small part of the population that would
| consider going through the process of adding yet another
| subscription to their life either leaves or consents to
| tracking, because who's going to pay 5 EUR (and Heise is
| pretty "cheap" compared to some) for access to one
| article?
|
| I would not be so angry with the concept if the costs,
| and the effort necessary to pay, was more in line with
| the income from personalised ads. Pay two cents per view
| with the push of a button? Sure. Pay 2 EUR for a week of
| access? Maybe. But so many publications want me to pay
| almost a print subscription price for any access, clearly
| showing they don't intend this as a real alternative.
| dvdkon wrote:
| They could use non-tracking ads, though I understand
| serving ads without spying on people is much less
| profitable. Or they could mandate a subscription or per-
| article payments, maybe only on certain long-form
| articles? Maybe keeping news articles behind a paywall
| until they're a month old, like LWN, could work? And I'm
| sure the subscription fees would drop dramatically once
| they're not just a half-hearted attempt to appease the
| EU.
|
| There's plenty of options, but they can only be explored
| once nobody offers news in exchange for personal data.
| People used to pay for physical newspapers, and it
| _worked_ , better than the current web approaches IMO.
| nomius10 wrote:
| Alternatively the "reader view" feature in Firefox can be used
| as the entire article is loaded in memory (as opposed to other
| websites where they'd load a preview till you agree to cookies
| / pay for a subscription)
| neilv wrote:
| Unless it's been fixed recently, Firefox Reader View
| inexplicably bypasses your uBlock Origin, so you actually get
| violated _harder_ by using Reader View.
| ce4 wrote:
| Is there more information on this?
| nickthegreek wrote:
| Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42864788
| metalman wrote:
| loads for me, have cookies,java script, dom storage, off by
| default..add blockers on, I get just the text which is just fine
|
| still dont understand how a major disk maker got caught up in
| something as skeezy as this though
| bbarnett wrote:
| It sounds like Seagate has nothing to do with this. It sounds
| like someone is scamming retailers and distributors.
|
| None of the drives in this article were shipped by Seagate,
| only some by authorized resellers.
|
| EG, Amazon, newegg are authorized resellers.
| ldoughty wrote:
| Indeed. Force the seller to be the retailer itself and see if
| you still have this problem...
|
| Any other seller is (at a glance) indistinguishable as a
| legitimate business or a scalper/scammer.. and there's plenty
| of legitimate businesses operating in the grey area in-
| between too.
| metalman wrote:
| ok, then. A hardware solution. These drives are not
| mechanicaly serviceable, at least by meer mortals. So pot
| everything, with all of the fasteners and ports, injection
| molded with simple breakaway covers, that get removed by
| snapping them off, little holograms torn, it is now
| evidentialy used. It wont be worth the effort refurbish in
| such a way as to look new. got to be worth the trivial
| extra effort by an oem, just to return serv. Alternative
| would be a tiny window, with a tiny fuse, attached across
| the input power, blows the first time it powers up gota be
| a hundred easy ways to fox em, just keep switching up
| geor9e wrote:
| >dont understand how a major disk maker got caught up in
| something as skeezy as this
|
| I'm not sure what you mean by "caught up in". You make it sound
| like their employees were involved. It's a pretty universal
| organized crime problem affecting all sorts of industries -
| used part dealers rolling back the odometer on things and
| sneaking them back into the supply chain as low milage or new.
| A store might be an "authorized distributor" but that doesn't
| mean they can't be tricked by a fake salesperson. Every brand
| battles counterfeiters and fraudsters somewhat. Here's a
| Western Digital odometer reset for example
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WL9u6QwTsW8 Gotta be careful
| what alleyway you buy your rolexes from.
| daneel_w wrote:
| The same scheme is very common on the market for "new" laptop
| batteries sold by Chinese retailers on for example eBay. The
| batteries will come with a reprogrammed charge cycle count of 0,
| an unlikely serial number of all-zeroes/ones/nines or 123456789
| etc., and with about 50% of its marketed capacity.
|
| As soon as you bring up a refund/warranty errand with the
| retailer they will offer a 50% discount for the battery in return
| for you not giving them a 1-star rating. Now you've still paid
| them for a bad battery, and you've helped keeping the systemic
| economic crime alive by not warning other customers.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| This stuff is trivial to detect by the platform. At best the
| platform could say they don't search for it, but the only
| reason not to would be because they don't want to find it. In
| essence they're knowingly outsourcing fraud to sellers.
| greggsy wrote:
| Handling the seller appeals would quickly become expensive
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| I concur, fraud is much cheaper and more profitable
| thayne wrote:
| All they would have to do to prevent it is make it so if you
| give a 1 star review, you can't change it to something else
| later.
| gruez wrote:
| What happens if a customer made a hasty negative review but
| the vendor reached out and genuinely resolved/fixed the
| issue?
| aaronax wrote:
| You know, 1 star reviews are ok. It's like people want to
| do anything to keep from a single undeserved 1 star
| review from happening. What if the same logic was applied
| to 5 star reviews?
| gruez wrote:
| >What if the same logic was applied to 5 star reviews?
|
| I see plenty of 5 star reviews being edited to 2-3 star
| reviews afterwards though?
| aspenmayer wrote:
| It would be nice to see the entire interaction, from
| verified purchase on Amazon, to first review, and any
| subsequent changes or updates to the review, and whether
| or not a return or replacement of the product in the
| original verified purchase has occurred on a timeline per
| review.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| If you do let people change it then annotate it with
| (edited) so people can perform their own heuristics, if 10%
| of 5 stars were edited then it's a bit suspect. Or keep the
| history of the reviews - it doesn't take much to spot check
| and if platform users can do this on an individual basis
| then obviously the platform could do this algorithmically.
| They've just made the conscious decision not to.
| bluedino wrote:
| Amazon and eBay should crack down on this crap.
|
| I bought some tools on Amazon, sent them back because of
| quality issues, and left a 1 star review (they don't allow zero
| star reviews but that's another issue). Sure enough I get an
| email offering to send me a replacement, asking me to remove my
| review, I reported it and who knows what happens from there.
|
| Now, I have had very similar things happen on a website like
| HomeDepot.com, the manufacturer reached out, sent me a
| different tool as a replacement, and said I did not have to
| remove my review but they would appreciate if I did.
|
| Just as bad, IMO. The whole point of reviews is to let other
| consumers know your experience with the product.
| teddyh wrote:
| > _Amazon and eBay should crack down on this crap._
|
| Amazon and eBay are companies, which will do whatever is
| profitable and legal. The entity which should crack down on
| this is the government.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| Yes and no. Once (if) the government cracks on the
| retailer, the retailer cracks down on sellers who use their
| platform.
|
| Additionally, the retailer could actually have ethics of
| their own and choose willingly to raise the bar.
| teddyh wrote:
| > _Additionally, the retailer could actually have ethics
| of their own and choose willingly to raise the bar._
|
| And my grandmother could get some wheels and become a
| bicycle.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| That transcends laughably unlikely and is instead
| impossible. At least it's _possible_ for ethics to come
| without law and it's worth recognizing that.
| NilMostChill wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-RfHC91Ewc
| yndoendo wrote:
| Worked for a company that made a machine used for
| automated. Built with USA government specifics and it
| could remove limbs. Over 1600 Newton force, equivalent to
| an adult panda. Model A.
|
| It was risk assessed and needed a complete redesign for
| the EU market. Model B is so safe it cannot even take off
| a finger.
|
| Now model A is no longer built and model B is sold in the
| USA and EU. It was not the goodness of the company that
| re-engineered safety into the product. It was EU laws and
| regulations that demand safety be built into the product.
|
| The cost savings of manufacturing only model B is why A
| is no longer sold in the USA. Economic side effects of
| multinational trade is what gave USA a better and safer
| product.
|
| Proper regulation works. It saves limbs and lives. USA is
| one of the countries with the lowest standards. USA
| companies and law makers care about money, not your
| safety or not consumer protection. And if they do they
| are the GREAT minority.
|
| EU has better quality of food standards. USA allows for
| designing food to be addictive. Just look at the
| difference in sugar in bread standards. USA consumes
| sugar loafs.
|
| Japan has their food packaging to resemble what is
| actually inside. USA will edit mold riddled images to
| look fresh and a dream of what is actually being sold
| versus the real thing. Learned that from a family member
| that delivered food product to a marketing company.
|
| Norway requires advertising photos to be labeled if they
| are modified and unnatural. USA helps promote unrealistic
| body standards which amplifies emotional, mental, and
| physical harm. Something I have been trying to help a
| family member with for over a year. Anorexia and suicidal
| behavior of go hand in hand.
|
| USA standards are more harmful than other 1st world
| countries. USA companies and lawmakers actively harm
| their citizens for profit.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| The problem is they're both doing it wrong. The way you
| protect consumers is with a competitive market and a low
| rate of fraud. So the government is primarily responsible
| for preventing market consolidation and prosecuting
| fraud.
|
| The problem in the US is that they don't do either of
| those things well and then you get consolidated markets
| that are insulated from competition or competitive
| markets where fraud is rampant, and the latter tend to
| become the former because a high rate of fraud causes
| people to turn to major brands to protect themselves
| until the market consolidates.
|
| The problem in Europe is that they not only don't prevent
| market consolidation, they pass rules that make it worse.
| You don't need to micromanage how stuff is made or how
| people interact with each other as long as you have
| competitive markets and informed consumers, because then
| people just don't patronize abusive businesses because
| they both have alternatives and know about them. But if
| you do micromanage everything then compliance costs go
| up, which are fixed costs that increase barriers to entry
| into the market, which reduces competition and then
| you're screwed again. The _best case_ there is cost
| disease where everything costs an order of magnitude more
| than it should because everyone is paying for an army of
| bureaucrats to check boxes, but even more common is that
| you get that _and_ abusive cartels that take advantage of
| consumers in every way that hasn 't already been
| regulated. Which becomes a vicious cycle where more
| abuses lead to more regulations which lead to higher
| costs and even more market consolidation.
| yndoendo wrote:
| Lets look at one regulated area of the EU. Color coding
| of cables. Colors are defined by what they are used for
| and their voltage and amp allowed levels. In the USA
| black can be source while red can be ground, highly
| deregulated area.
|
| EU allows for ease of maintenance because opening the
| electrical cover allows for quick glimpse of what wires
| do what. In the US, you need access to the production
| manual, or a lot of time with a multi-meter, to know what
| that black wire really does. This saves money and time by
| having color coding standards, for the manufacturer and
| consumer.
|
| Electrical standards is another example. In the EU
| extension cords must supply the amperage they are being
| plugged into. Often the cord and surge protector need
| fuses to prevent fires. In the US, they sell 13 amp
| extension cords for 20 amp outlets. This greatly increase
| the chances of an electrical fire in the US and pushes
| the EU to near zero.
|
| I know not to buy anything below the outlet amperage when
| buying an extension cord or surge protector. This
| requires education that the average person does not have.
| Regulations help remove the need for this type of
| education while providing a quality and sound solution
| that does the least chance of harm.
|
| Talking to those from EU and Japan, they often restate
| the same benefits the the USA has. 1) Access to natural
| resources. 2) Fast changing business strategy pivots. Not
| once have I talked to someone from their wished they had
| the low standards in the food and other industries.
|
| This free market and competitive market that people
| always talk about does not exist and never can truly
| exist. How many companies can sell the automation to
| place the chocolate dots on mass-produced cookies?
|
| Should the EU abandon the USB-C charger and allow Apple
| to keep producing the lightening charger, increase
| unnecessary e-waste? Selling the lightening exclusive
| helped increase Apple's bottom monetary line. So should
| EU allow Apple to move back to the lightening charger?
|
| Should we remove all regulation so that Grunenthal can
| sell thalidomide again?
|
| Should we completely abandon all food manufacturing
| standards and allow Johnson and Johnson to sell asbestos
| in their baby powder or Abbott Nutrition's Sturgis to
| sell baby formula with cronobacter?
|
| USA McDownlad's has show they are willing to lower their
| standards when they can make more money from having to
| service their franchise's ice cream machines instead
| having quality and making money on the profit of their
| ice products.
|
| Regulations need a proper balance. Zero regulation is an
| improper balance. If you believe in no regulations you
| don't have any standards yourself.
|
| Which machine would you prefer using daily, along with
| your loved ones? Model A or Model B? One that can take
| off a limb and even decapitate you or the one that
| cannot?
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > In the US, you need access to the production manual, or
| a lot of time with a multi-meter, to know what that black
| wire really does. This saves money and time by having
| color coding standards, for the manufacturer and
| consumer.
|
| Excellent example. Let's suppose you pass a law requiring
| the red wire to be source and the black wire to be
| ground. Now you go to manufacture your new solar battery
| system. The system has wired connections for the AC power
| grid, DC power from the solar system, DC power from the
| batteries and AC power to supply the building. The system
| contains an inverter so if you want it to it can take
| 220V 50Hz input and produce 110V 60Hz output or vice
| versa. The system also has a USB port being supplied with
| DC power. If the law requires the source to be red, you
| now have five different sources at different voltages,
| some are AC and others DC, different frequencies, but
| they're all the same color. The law is then requiring
| something confusing and dangerous. Is a red wire the 5V
| DC for the USB port or the 220V AC from the power grid?
|
| Okay, so then we'd need a much more complicated law that
| specifies a bunch of different wire colors. Now the law
| is creating something complicated and dangerous, because
| there are lots of different combinations you could have.
| What if there is three-phase power and a neutral? What if
| there is a third AC connection for a backup generator? If
| the law says that systems using both AC and DC power
| should use different colors for AC and DC, you now can't
| produce a modular component that contains any wires
| because what color they need to be would depend on what
| other components are in the system. If you try to assign
| a separate permanent color to each possible combination
| so they could be modular, you'd need so many colors in
| the standard that many would be confusingly similar to
| each other.
|
| The better solution is, have best practices that nobody
| is required by law to follow if they don't make sense in
| context, but everybody is required to document whatever
| it is they actually do.
|
| > How many companies can sell the automation to place the
| chocolate dots on mass-produced cookies?
|
| > In the US, they sell 13 amp extension cords for 20 amp
| outlets.
|
| The US has two standard 110V power outlets, 15 amp and 20
| amp, and 15 amp plugs are compatible with 20 amp outlets
| under the theory that the 20 amp outlet is more than
| sufficient to supply a 15 amp load. That decision was
| made in the 20th century and is impractical to change.
| Prohibiting <20 amp cords from being plugged into a 20
| amp outlet would then effectively be a prohibition on <20
| amp cords, but 20 amp cords are more expensive and almost
| never necessary, especially in homes that typically have
| 15 amp breakers.
|
| Should they have designed the plugs better before, so
| that you can plug a 15 amp load into a 20 amp outlet but
| not a 15 amp extension cord? Sure, but it's too late for
| that.
|
| You're essentially asking for a law that wastes many
| metric tons of copper and raises prices on everyone in
| exchange for a marginal safety improvement in an edge
| case for people who aren't paying attention. It's exactly
| the sort of poor cost/benefit rule that shouldn't exist.
|
| > This free market and competitive market that people
| always talk about does not exist and never can truly
| exist. How many companies can sell the automation to
| place the chocolate dots on mass-produced cookies?
|
| It's not just a question of how many companies currently
| sell them, it's a question of who else would sell them if
| that company started abusing its customers and the
| customers started soliciting alternate suppliers. In
| other words, what would it take for someone else to start
| making those machines?
|
| And putting more rules on how you can do it makes it
| harder to compete, and reduces that competitive pressure.
|
| > Should the EU abandon the USB-C charger and allow Apple
| to keep producing the lightening charger, increase
| unnecessary e-waste? Selling the lightening exclusive
| helped increase Apple's bottom monetary line. So should
| EU allow Apple to move back to the lightening charger?
|
| The premise here is competitive markets. Apple is a
| vertically integrated conglomerate, which impairs
| competition. The EU shouldn't be demanding they use a
| particular standard (which is now enshrined in law and
| prohibits any future innovations), they should be
| breaking the company into operating systems and Apple
| Silicon and phones, so that the phone maker has the same
| incentive to use the current standard as any other.
|
| > Should we completely abandon all food manufacturing
| standards and allow Johnson and Johnson to sell asbestos
| in their baby powder or Abbott Nutrition's Sturgis to
| sell baby formula with cronobacter?
|
| Selling baby powder with asbestos in it without listing
| asbestos as an ingredient is fraud. Listing asbestos as
| an ingredient is not likely to garner a lot of sales.
|
| > USA McDownlad's has show they are willing to lower
| their standards when they can make more money from having
| to service their franchise's ice cream machines instead
| having quality and making money on the profit of their
| ice products.
|
| But why is this a problem when you can buy ice cream from
| Wendy's or become a franchisee of some other restaurant
| chain?
|
| > Which machine would you prefer using daily, along with
| your loved ones? Model A or Model B? One that can take
| off a limb and even decapitate you or the one that
| cannot?
|
| But that's the point, isn't it? If there is competition,
| i.e. both are available, which one do you buy?
| likeabatterycar wrote:
| No one in history has ever looked at a piece of machinery
| and thought, "You know what would make this better?
| Castration by EU government regulations."
|
| Meanwhile the EU bathes in the same Chinese garbage
| imported by the boat-load as long as it carries the CE
| mark, which they are allowed to self-certify in nearly
| every case, making it meaningless.
| jalk wrote:
| Yet the Chinese Garbage is not CE marked, but CE marked
| :( https://www.hqts.com/differences-between-ce-
| conformite-europ...
| teddyh wrote:
| That's a fake urban legend: <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/i
| ndex.php?title=CE_marking&oldid=...>
|
| Yes, some products have been found with incorrect
| dimensions on their CE markings. Yes, some products have
| been found with non-compliant specifications. But AFAIK
| _no_ products, having been accused of non-compliant
| specifications in spite of CE markings, have ever
| defended themselves with the excuse that the mark is not
| a true CE mark but instead some mythical "China Export"
| mark. It has never happened. It's an urban myth.
| omer9 wrote:
| This is so true. But the message is too complex for
| simple minded people to understand.
|
| They are easy targets for populists with their lies and
| oneliners: - EU is suffocating us with their laws. - EU
| is meddling with what we eat. - Plants need co2 to grow,
| so more co2 is better.
|
| But when you ask the same people: - Do you want to be
| screwed over by companies so that they can make more
| profit? - Should companies be allowed to mix everything
| in your food for more profit? - Plants also need water,
| would it be OK to flood them?
|
| They would answer NO to all of the above. But people seem
| not capable of asking the same questions themself.
| ajb wrote:
| The UK now has an offence of "failure to prevent fraud",
| but it seems to me that it doesn't include this case (it
| includes things like fraud by employees and associates who
| "act on behalf of" the organisation).
|
| Amusingly the same legislation also mandates that "A
| company must not be registered under [the companies act] by
| a name that, in the opinion of the Secretary of State,
| consists of or includes computer code."
|
| So no more "drop tables" company names.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Amazon and eBay are companies, which will do whatever is
| profitable and legal. The entity which should crack down on
| this is the government._
|
| Amazon and eBay should crack down on it so the government
| doesn't.
|
| History is full of examples of companies doing the right
| thing if only to prevent government regulation.
| rjmorris wrote:
| > History is full of examples of companies doing the
| right thing if only to prevent government regulation.
|
| Citing a couple would help your argument.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Everyone but Apple going for mini-USB, micro-USB and
| finally USB-C is probably the most well known example.
| Another decently well known example was the early stages
| of social media moderation.
|
| The "business model" of the EU is to check if something
| is going wrong or could be changed to make the life of
| European citizens better, to then show that to the
| industry with "hey, we noticed X - you got a chance to
| clean up shop on your own, or we will force you by
| passing laws".
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Citing a couple would help your argument._
|
| I'm not making an argument. I'm stating a fact that is
| well-known if you follow business at all.
|
| In the United States, it is common for:
| 1. Politician to complain about situation. 2.
| Congressional committee holds hearing about situation.
| 3. Congressmen threaten to pass laws about situation.
| 4. Industry involved in situation makes changes so that
| laws are unnecessary.
|
| The airline industry is full of examples. This is basic
| knowledge. Google is your friend.
| csomar wrote:
| Losing consumer confidence is not profitable. There is a
| reason people spend more with credit card protections.
| Amazon is abusing its dominant position to make short-term
| profits. It is short-sighted and negligent.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| It's been going on for at least a decade, Amazon is still
| the online retail leader, the main competitors are
| scammers on Instagram, Temu and AliExpress. Some people
| will make a point in patronizing more local platforms,
| but that's far from the critical mass.
|
| I'm curious where you see the short-sightedness of this
| objectively successful and already long lasting strategy
| ?
| Ekaros wrote:
| Ebay to me is always bit of an uncontrolled market. But on
| other hand I fully expect Amazon and other such
| marketplaces to fully vet their suppliers. And if they are
| doing fulfilment take any legal hits from not doing
| reasonable due diligence with stolen or fraudulent merch.
| onli wrote:
| A reasonable, but unwarranted expectation. Amazon's
| marketplace functions without effective oversight since
| basically forever now. Heck, they sell radioactive metals
| without warnings and despite those being illegal, see
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmJNllQyoRI.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I'd argue that it's the opposite. eBay has a lot of
| individual grifts. They tend to be responsive to grifts
| that can be easily enforced and proven.
|
| Amazon is next level -- it has made a lot of money from
| being the world's largest fence. Co-mingled inventory
| makes it trivial to launder stolen goods. They react to
| things very slowly, as they are at arms length and both
| make money having criminal FBA sellers operate and by
| weakening the competition. Walgreen's pain is Amazon's
| gain.
|
| The brands slowed down for some things -- you can't sell
| Tide easily on Amazon now. But now Walmart is locking up
| men's briefs because the gangs move to the next
| commodity.
| sneak wrote:
| In thirty seconds you can find fake 2TB flash drives for
| sale for like $25 on amazon.
|
| So can amazon staff.
|
| They are still for sale. Lots have negative reviews from
| people who lost data because these are 64gb drives with
| reflashed firmware to report 2048gb.
| tlb wrote:
| It's profitable for Amazon and eBay to have reliable
| reviews and fewer dissatisfied customers.
| sneak wrote:
| Not all customers are created equal, and amazon and ebay
| control what reviews are shown on their own websites.
| waltercool wrote:
| Nah, this is not government competence. They will make
| everything more expensive and we will pay those salaries.
|
| Just put a bad score and ask for refund. Amazon does a good
| job here as you never interact with the seller
| unyttigfjelltol wrote:
| > The entity which should crack down on this is the
| government.
|
| The problem with fraud is what _else_ these same people are
| organizing themselves to do. Today it 's fake gadgets,
| tomorrow it's fentyl precursors, the next day it's kidnap
| for ransom. You go after it for the same reason the US
| Federal government took on the mob 60 years ago.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| Customers avoid your platform because they associate it
| with scams is unprofitable, but since the effect is
| delayed, it'll be ignored until it's a blatant problem and
| the majority of customers have learned the hard way.
| stevenwoo wrote:
| Or they have incorporated the cost of returns into their
| pricing and it is still profitable, like Amazon.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Unless you succeed in killing half of the competition in
| the meantime and the remaining sellers follow the same
| pattern as you as you're getting away with it and they
| see the end game.
|
| Customers will then suck it up and it becomes the new
| normal.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Amazon rarely does anything that won't benefit them first.
| Even the customer first policy is a way to attract more
| people so they spend time on their listings, which are
| degrading and full of cheap / scam parts and prices nowadays.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Why? They make money off it too.
| UltraSane wrote:
| Amazon enables this by commingling products from multiple
| vendors making it impossible to know which vendor you are
| actually buying from.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| > As soon as you bring up a refund/warranty errand with the
| retailer they will offer a 50% discount for the battery in
| return for you not giving them a 1-star rating.
|
| So I take the 50% and give them a bad rating once the money is
| in my bank account, complete with the documentation of their
| bribe for a good review. What do they do, realistically?
| (Probably get the review taken down by the platform
| administrators, but I did not contribute.)
| gruez wrote:
| It's unlikely, but theoretically such offers constitutes a
| non-disparagement/NDA contract, which means if you break the
| contract by leaving a 1 star review they can go after you in
| court and probably win.
| daneel_w wrote:
| They are Chinese retailers, and these frauds are organized.
| They won't go after anyone in an overseas court - just as
| they don't worry one bit about an overseas court trying to
| reach them in China.
| daneel_w wrote:
| Realistically they will do nothing, because only a fraction
| of the customers will put up a fight like this. The 99%,
| which make up the customers these organized fraudsters are
| banking on, won't bother because "it was still cheaper than
| buying it in the computer shop", and it's likely that most of
| them won't even notice in the first place.
| y-c-o-m-b wrote:
| This has happened to me on eBay twice for items marked as "free
| returns" which claimed to have a hassle-free return process. My
| response was that they're obligated to return full price, or
| they can expect me to open a claim with eBay to get it, and
| that I am for sure giving negative feedback! Both times they
| caved and gave me 100% refund and told me to just keep the
| broken item. I still gave negative feedback. I'm not just
| losing money with these bastards, I'm wasting valuable time,
| and that is not something that can be refunded.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| > Both times they caved and gave me 100% refund and told me
| to just keep the broken item.
|
| This is because eBay will ALWAYS side with the customer, and
| the seller will get a ding to boot.
|
| Never ever do a return with Chinese sellers, they will use it
| against you and you will lose your chance to dispute the
| transaction.
|
| If you are sold junk complain to the seller, then if they
| don't refund you go ahead and raise a dispute. If they offer
| a return then ask them to refund you ahead of time, in full,
| and to provide a label for the return.
| mock-possum wrote:
| > As soon as you bring up a refund/warranty errand with the
| retailer they will offer a 50% discount for the battery in
| return for you not giving them a 1-star rating.
|
| Wait how is that supposed to work - why would you buy another
| bad battery from them at 50% off? why would they have any say
| in why review you leave?
| hyperdimension wrote:
| I believe it was a 50% refund on the (purchased) battery; not
| a 50% off coupon on another. That's how I read it anyway.
| daneel_w wrote:
| Correct.
| ryanhecht wrote:
| > about 50% of its marketed capacity
|
| > they will offer a 50% discount
|
| I feel like I would need more than a 50% discount in order to
| go along with this...needing to charge/swap a battery more
| frequently is added cost! :p
| curiousObject wrote:
| Frustratingly bad article about an interesting story. Has no one
| moved on the obvious step of checking the drives for deleted data
| to track down where they've come from?
| gist wrote:
| Also what happens to a user whose hard drive is seized (and
| forensic tools are used) to find deleted files? Hard to believe
| (and why would they) take time to properly sanitize the drives.
| waltercool wrote:
| Are you new at technology? China is well known to produce
| counterfeit products.
|
| Most of the time, they just resell products from factories who
| didn't pass the quality tests.
| Havoc wrote:
| Wow. Heise takes #1 prize in most anal advertising consent form.
| Literally a individual reject button for every one of their
| billion individual ad partners and consent to advertising as a
| whole has only an Accept button.
|
| At that point you may as well just cover the entire screen with a
| "Agree to anything" button
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