Cameras Online? How The Shysters Work 429
earlylate writes "How do certain photo and electronics dealers thrive despite widely-circulated warnings by unhappy customers? According to a new investigative website "many apparently separate and competing dealers are actually jointly owned and run" and "go to great lengths to conceal their locations and management." Further, some comparison-shopping sites "are in effect marketing partners with their affiliates," the very dealers they rate. There's a contest based on the suspicious "flood of similar, glowing reviews some dealers receive," as well as links to several sources of information and advice for the careful online shopper."
Lots of scams out there... (Score:5, Insightful)
Who You Buy From (Score:5, Insightful)
Nooooo, say it ain't so (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean to say that I shouldn't spend $100s based on the opinions of anonymous and untrusted (to me) sources.
I tell you, I'm shocked.
You'll be telling me next that the editorial in trade newspapers is somehow related to the advertising.
Always buy local (Score:3, Insightful)
The lesson? Don't buy in New York City, period. (Score:3, Insightful)
I have heard nothing but bad news about these New York City stores using bait and switch tactics and selling refurbished goods as new. You are better off using Froogle.com or cnet.com and then doing a little reading of the reviews about the sites that came back with the least expensive results.
Rule of thumb... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Lots of scams out there...yes but... (Score:5, Insightful)
1) only buy from reputable sites. this has been going on since computer shopper days. its even more true today.
2) I only use my American Express (AMEX). I can't tell you how many times AMEX has helped with fraudulent charges, merchants that don't deliver etc. AMEX is expensive and a pain in the ass for mechants to sign up. If they are not willing to do that, than I won't buy. I will pay a slight premium for sights that take AMEX. It's worth it.
If I'd done both these when I first got online in the 90s I would have saved myself a lot of grief.
Nothing New (Score:4, Insightful)
The fun part is that it highlights something that most people ignore. They will not think twice buying from someon on ebay with a 1000+ rating yet it is really simple to BUY rating points. (hint: search ebay for cupons) If you spend lots of money on something online and the price is too good to be true, be ready to lose your cash.
BTW: if it's less than $1000.00 you are pretty much hosed. I lost $500.00 to a scammer auto parts dealer on the east coast (read my blog for the name and location) and after getting my lawyer poised and finding out how much to bring the small claims suit against them It was much cheaper to simply drop it as it would have cost me $1500.00 to sue him... These scammers know this and that is why they rarely venture over that $1000.00 line.
Re:Nooooo, say it ain't so (Score:3, Insightful)
Eric
(I wish my publisher would do that to my own book [amazon.com])
Feedback System (Score:3, Insightful)
The site is up and down like a yoyo right now so I can't find out how they are gathering their information, I mean if it's all anecdotal how do they discern between legitimate issues, PO'ed customers or just plain ol' bad luck?
Personally, I only buy big ticket electronics and camera gear from local vendors because there is a bit less risk (i.e. no shipping) and I can put a human face on the store I'm buying from. I guess the other thing that makes me dubious about some online deals is when a vendor is claiming to sell something way below MSRP, that little "it's too good to be true" voice pipes up in my head.
the internet is the great equalizer (Score:3, Insightful)
you guys realize there are some negatives to this idea? such as da wiseguys in crooklyn reaching out too?
"yeah, it just fell off da back of a truck, yeah da receipt is for a refiderator, so what's it to you mr. palookaville? you gonna come to brooklyn and make something of it, huh?"
As they say...... (Score:3, Insightful)
Cheesy reviews (Score:3, Insightful)
"Timely shipping!" That one is my favorite fake review. Um, you ship via UPS or FedEx Ground. It's 3 days, no matter how you slice it. How can it not be timely?
"Great Customer Service!" Another of my favorites. The person hasn't done anything but buy something, in all likely hood. There hasn't been any customer service up to that point.
"Easy to use website ordering!" Um, yeah, that's the first thing I look for when buying electronics over the web.
If the review doesn't bring up any points, or doesn't provoke any honest thoughts, it is probably fake. Read the actual negative reviews.
Besides, why does this surprise anyone? The same thing can be said for almost every PC/XBox, PS/PS2 magazine or website. They all get such pats on the back from the companies they review, that they don't have an honest review in them. It's the equivelent of letting a lifelong, die-hard Rolling Stones fan review one of their concerts. The review is going to read "Dude, they Rawked!", even if Keith Richards was so stoned he forgot to play his guitar.
Re:Lots of scams out there... (Score:2, Insightful)
You could try to avoid that problem by putting investigative burden on the search engine's operator... which will drive small, legitimate search engine sites under (including, say, university research projects).
Alternatively, rather than trying to create a new law to quick-fix a problem, we could try intelligent enforcement of fraud laws we already have, combined wiht a campaign of consumer education. Knee-jerk law creation has caused far more problems than it has ever solved.
Finding good reviews (Score:3, Insightful)
"review " comes up with hundreds of bogus google bombs that have no valuable information in them. If you go to epinions.com, etc, unless an item has a fair number of reviews you can't trust that the reviewer isn't just astroturfing for the company's product.
For the areas I have some expertise like computer hardware or cameras, I know exactly where to look. But if I'm stepping slightly outside the bounds of my knowledge it becomes difficult. I was subscribed to Consumer Reports for a while but the flaw with them is that their information is always a year out of date it seems.
I'd definitely pay for a review site I could trust. Heck, I already do, having subscribed to Angie's List. Is there any equivalent for general consumer purchases?
Re:Free market solution? (Score:3, Insightful)
Being pro-market, you support a dreamworld that doesn't and will never exist. The problem is that you (and way too many people in way too important positions) don't realize that free market theory is based on a number of highly unrealistic assumptions and will thus never work the way it is advertised.
In an ideal free market, this problem would not even exist. One of the assumptions is that all participants have complete, truthful information. Obviously, that would be the end of any and all scammers.
What you're seeing is just one of the many corners where the whole free market thing is failing. And yes, maybe government's job is to make sure the whole thing doesn't fall apart because of the trouble near the edges.
Throwing a few people in jail certainly isn't a part of free market theory, but it does a fairly good job at replacing perfect information with honest, which while not perfect is a reasonably close substitute.
The problem is, of course, that our governments, pretty much no matter which one you choose, are not exactly breeding pools or good examples of honesty and integrity.
Re:Wow... (Score:5, Insightful)
You're new to this life, aren't you? The birth rate in the sucker demographics category is way too high for these scams to disappear anywhere within the forseable future.
Re:Lots of scams out there... (Score:2, Insightful)
/* A single law holding the engines financially liable for any losses incurred by a customer steered by their sites after fraud has been reported will cure the problem if not overnight as soon as the first lawsuit is successful. */
That's an awful idea. Akin IMO to holding the beer companies liable for a drunk driver, or a firearm manufacturer liable for the mis-use of it's product. If, however, you can show that the search engines are in league financially with the offending companies, (as in owned by the same company) then they share some of the blame. But if I own a search engine, and it gets spammed with 5 zillion messages raving about a thief, it's not my responsibilty to ensure the reviews are objective.
If you want to hold the engines accountable, then after you sue that beer company because of the drunk driver, you should go after ABC for advertising it while knowing that drinking beer and driving can be dangerous. Then let's sue the NFL for having an "official beer of the Super Bowl". Then let's sue the stores that sell the beer. then let's sue everyone who's purchased beer, because they helped to prop up the beer company, thereby allowing the company to sell to the one retard that drives drunk.[/reductio ad absurdum]
OR... we can just drive the crap companies out of business by educating online consumers. We [the geeks] should be helping people out with this stuff, not trying to shut down search engines that are trying to make a buck.
Re:Free market solution? (Score:5, Insightful)
That is NEVER an assumption -- in fact I believe the counter-fact to be true. In a free market, every transaction is based on the assumption that both parties feel they are profiting from the transaction. This case is based on the risk versus reward idea. The bigger the reward is, the bigger one assumes the risk is. If Camera W123 sells locally for $499, at Amazon for $449, and John's Photo Shop sells it for $379, you're gaining a huge reward. If you jump on that price, you're accepting a risk. It is personal greed that leads people to buy from deep discounters, and they have to acknowledge that there is always a risk in making a purchase. The reason many people buy locally for more money is to lower their risk.
The problem is, of course, that our governments, pretty much no matter which one you choose, are not exactly breeding pools or good examples of honesty and integrity
This is true -- government tends to be run by scammers and shysters, in my experience.
What you're advocating is putting government in charge of markets -- the same government that is never transparent, hides information "legally" and has zero oversight except for a vote once every 4 years or so. I advocate dumping the government provisions and letting the new Internet information sharing structure take over. Now, we have instant voting based on consumer demand. If a lot of consumers get duped by a company, we'll soon have the ability to broadcast that information over many different sources.
I'd like to see an SMS server where you can message a number "JohnPhotoShop.com" and have it return "50 positives, 300 negatives, 15 neutrals" I believe this will happen, very soon, as Google and many other companies are trying to gain brand share by providing free SMS services. I use FBOWEB.COM to track all my flights and used the free PDA version of the site for a few months. Now I purchased a subscription as the site is really worth the information I've received -- and it is always more accurate than what the airlines provide.
I don't think government has protected us from scammers, ever. If anything, the platforms made by government are only used by scammers to find new loopholes (as is seen in the New York Photo scam that has been going on for 20 years). Now that information is available to EVERYONE, there is no excuse to getting scammed. Even some posts on slashdot today show that people didn't research the too-good-to-be-true pricing, and got scammed. Greed: you get what you deserve.
Not always (Score:5, Insightful)
So there ARE reputable dealers in New York, you just need to be careful. One thing to check is to see if they are authorized dealers. You can't fake something like that (Yamaha does the listing on their own site) and that's not something that a scammy, fly-by-night is going to do since the company wouldn't license them anyhow. If they are an authorized dealer for the companies that do that kind of thing, they are probably on the up and up.
Re:Finding good reviews (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Finding good reviews (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Free market solution? (Score:4, Insightful)
And soon, there will be 50 competing services of that kind, half of which receive kickbacks from the companies they rate well. How do you choose which service to trust? Maybe a meta-service that rates the info-services? Soon, there will be 50 competing meta-services...
I don't think government has protected us from scammers, ever.
I actually think it has. Not 100%, not ever perfectly and completely. However when I travel on the train and I'm not afraid of robbers, then to be quite honest it's not because I think any of my fellow travellers would stand up and stop them - it's because government has been successful in keeping crime rates at such a level that being robbed is an unlikely event.
Re:Finding good reviews (Score:3, Insightful)
Consumer Reports "best buy" computer every year ends up being a Compaq or a Dell or an HP machine. Anyone who knows anything about computers will get a good chuckle out of their rationale for that rating.
I know a guy who has said much the same thing about their ratings of HVAC equipment.
I'd rather have the opinion of an expert than a purposefully ignorant "consumer".
Re:Happens in real life, too. (Score:5, Insightful)
Paranoid, possibly, but not necessarily racist. The question is whether he would have jumped to the same conclusion that he was not dealing with two independent retailers if the clerk at the first store was the same race as himself, and the clerk at the second store was as well, but bore what might have been a family resemblance to the first clerk, and spoke quietly into the walkie-talkie so that he couldn't hear. I suspect that he would have reacted exactly the same way. Not everything has to be about race.
Re:Finding good reviews (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, reliability reports in CR are and always have been based on quality surveys sent out to (all) subscribers of the magazine.
I think CR gets a bad rap just because they're relatively incompetent at rating computers and electronics.Their automotive coverage has vastly improved in recent years, and they nail the reliability of cars and trucks. And they are the standard benchmark for home appliance reviews. Ultimately, though, CR is just one tool, and can cover only so many products even within one class of appliances. If you're making a major purchase, you should use many tools to find information about it. And you definitely shouldn't discount CR as one of those tools (unless you're buying electronics...).
Re:Finding good reviews (Score:5, Insightful)
You have a beef with CR, fine. That's no reason to go making shit up.
CR has experts do the testing, which is plainly and comprehensively explained along with their testing methodology.
A horrible quote (Score:2, Insightful)
This is a horrible quote.
It's a quote that was born from the realization that someone could take advantage of a trusting public on a mass scale. In other words, someone could easily make money through fraud using the trust of an inexperienced public as the lube, so to speak.
This means that the public likely hasn't encountered an asshole as big as the person saying, "There's a sucker born every minute." The notion of calling them "suckers" is a way of making it seem like they *deserve* to be defrauded. Have you had "friends" who thought it was smart/funny/cool to take advantage of your trust? Do you have a high opinion of a human who wants to make a *career* of that skill?
To me, the fact that the quote exists and isn't derided in the same way that we deride "Let them eat cake" is a sign of degeneracy in our culture. Yes, that's a value-judgement-charged statement, and I make no apology for it. We all have to stand somewhere, and I think fraud (and especially the notion that some people deserve to be defrauded) sucks to high hell.