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Businesses

Inside the Unrelenting Scams of the Amazon Marketplace (theverge.com) 76

Posted by msmash from the dirty-dealings dept.
Fascinating article on The Verge on the many ways Amazon Marketplace, the ecommerce giant's the company's third-party platform, sellers sabotage each other and defraud customers, and how Amazon is run its own government, so to speak -- with its own rules that its suppliers have no choice but to follow. And, of course, sellers have little choice but to continue with Amazon. The story starts with this anecdote: framing a seller for false advertising by buying fake five-star reviews for their products. Select excerpts from the report: For sellers, Amazon is a quasi-state. They rely on its infrastructure -- its warehouses, shipping network, financial systems, and portal to millions of customers -- and pay taxes in the form of fees. They also live in terror of its rules, which often change and are harshly enforced. A cryptic email like the one Plansky received can send a seller's business into bankruptcy, with few avenues for appeal. Sellers are more worried about a case being opened on Amazon than in actual court, says Dave Bryant, an Amazon seller and blogger. Amazon's judgment is swifter and less predictable, and now that the company controls nearly half of the online retail market in the US, its rulings can instantly determine the success or failure of your business, he says. "Amazon is the judge, the jury, and the executioner."
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Inside the Unrelenting Scams of the Amazon Marketplace More

Inside the Unrelenting Scams of the Amazon Marketplace

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  • You basically can't buy a PS3 gamepad (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Thursday December 20, 2018 @12:47PM (#57836724)
    from Amazon or Ebay. They're all cheap bootlegs. They work and they're playable, but have terrible battery life.
    • Or button cell batteries... it is starting to increase my brick and mortar spending...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Are they copies or are they just old? If they have been sitting on a shelf for years the lithium batteries might be quite badly degraded.

      All batteries self-discharge slowly over time. If lithium cells get over-discharged they are damaged. So if you leave one sitting around for long enough it will kill itself with self-discharge.

      A lot of phone batteries have this problem. Even if you manage to find a genuine battery for an older model it might be a dud by now anyway.

      • they come in "official" Sony packaging and are sold as new. I use them on my PC and the current drivers (a package called "SCP Toolkit") can spot them in software, but once you have them in your hand it's pretty obvious. The Analog sticks don't perfectly center. It doesn't hurt the gameplay (at least not that a scrub like me can tell) but it's an eye sore.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Interesting. There is an issue with the official remote (genuine) that makes it eat batteries. It's Bluetooth and the host has to put it into sleep mode, and even then it only goes a couple of weeks on cheap cells. Maybe there is an issue with the PC drivers not putting the gamepads to sleep properly.

          I use the remote with Kodi on a Pi and had to change some settings to make it sleep IIRC.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Real court includes rights (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20, 2018 @12:51PM (#57836752)

    Of course they're more worried about Amazon than actual court. In actual court, you have rights. In the private sector, you don't. It's neofeudalism.

    • Re:Real court includes rights (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Thursday December 20, 2018 @01:04PM (#57836840)

      It is more rule of the Mob. I have never worked for a business where all the customers were happy, no matter how hard you try, there is always going to be that group of customers who will buy a product with their preceded notions, even if you explain your full intention as truthfully as possible, people will just not read it and get what they think they are getting.

      That iPhone X case will not fit on your iPhone 4 or your Samsung Galaxy. But that doesn't stop them from buying it, then hitting your company hard for selling them something that doesn't work with their product. Sometimes you find some one who is both stupid and influential, so in their rage they spur a mob to complain about you. .

      Amazon will just follow the mob, and not due process.

      • The thing is, this bit here: "Amazon will just follow the mob, and not due process." this is the only part of your comment that matters. You seem to be blaming the mob, but it's Amazon doing it. If I start going around and punching people because my invisible unicorn friend told me to, it's not my invisible unicorn friend who you should blame for that.

        The point that the parent was making was that Amazon is not being governed, they are doing the governing.

  • When can a company be obligated to follow reasonable laws and stop this crazy arbitrary rule making and enforcement?
    Being able to just kick a company off and causing dozens of people losing their jobs without a genuine appeals process is ridiculous.

  • Examples of insufficient management at Amazon (Score:5, Informative)

    by Futurepower(R) ( 558542 ) on Thursday December 20, 2018 @12:58PM (#57836800) Homepage
    I have seen many, many examples of insufficient management at Amazon.

    It is VERY important to recognize ALL of the abusiveness of Amazon. Only a small part of that is mentioned here, in this re-post of a former comment, with added information:

    My opinion: Jeff Bezos is not a sufficiently capable manager. Evidence: Look at any Amazon web page. As you are researching some product that is interesting, you are often distracted by other products. One fix: Put any distractions at the bottom of the page. There are many other shortcomings of the Amazon web site besides those mentioned in this Slashdot story.

    A few of the stories about Amazon being abusive:

    Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace. [nytimes.com] (New York Times, Aug. 15, 2015)

    Quote: "The company is conducting an experiment in how far it can push white-collar workers..."

    Amazon warehouse jobs push workers to physical limit [seattletimes.com] (Seattle Times, April 3, 2012)

    Worse than Wal-Mart: Amazon's sick brutality and secret history of ruthlessly intimidating workers [salon.com] (Salon.com, Feb. 23, 2014)

    Amazon paid no US income taxes for 2017 [seattlepi.com] (SeattlePI, Feb. 27, 2018)

    Undercover author finds Amazon warehouse workers in UK 'peed in bottles' over fears of being punished for taking a break [businessinsider.com] (Business Insider, April 16, 2018)

    The undercover author who discovered Amazon warehouse workers were peeing in bottles tells us the culture was like a 'prison' [businessinsider.com] (Business Insider, April 18, 2018)

    Amazon Gets Tax Breaks While Its Employees Rely on Food Stamps, New Data Shows [theintercept.com] (The Intercept, April 19, 2018)

    Quote: "Though the company now employs 200,000 people in the United States, many of its workers are not making enough money to put food on the table."

    Amazon Under Fire Over Alleged Worker Abuse in Germany [bloomberg.com] (bloomberg.com, Feb 19, 2013)

    Quote from the Wikipedia page for Jeff Bezos. [wikipedia.org] (Nov. 29, 2018):

    "Journalist Nellie Bowles of The New York Times has described the public persona and personality of Bezos as that of 'a brilliant but mysterious and coldblooded corporate titan'. During the 1990s, Bezos earned a reputation for relentlessly pushing Amazon forward, often at the expense of public charity and social welfare."

    In my opinion, Bezos is not "brilliant". No one who is habitually abusive can be called brilliant; his abusiveness damages the quality of his own life.

    Would you fly into space if the company has a manager who shows serious limits? Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos owns Blue Origin. [wikipedia.org]. Blue Origin does NOT now have the capability of orbiting the earth. Would you fly into space with a company owned by someone who makes huge mistakes and doesn't detect them?

    • Re:Examples of insufficient management at Amazon (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20, 2018 @01:41PM (#57837018)
      I worked for them (engineering) and loved it. I know plenty of people that still do and they love it. The work is good, the pay is very competetive, benifits are good, hours are good, perqs are great (best coffee Ive ever had among other things), management was pretty good overall with reasonable schedules and goals. It was always made clear that they would never let money get in the way of progress. I met Bezos briefly and I thought he was impressive. If I have one complaint its that they are infatuated with young inexperienced people with half-assed ideas, but most companies in the world suffer from this to some degree. And sure the non-engineering folks may not be as well off, but I interacted with a lot of customer service and warehouse people and they are generally much happier than all the media is trying to portray them. And yes I would fly into space on Blue Origins' maiden flight if I could, no questions asked.

  • What were you trying to say? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by aitikin ( 909209 ) on Thursday December 20, 2018 @01:01PM (#57836822)

    ...on the many ways Amazon Marketplace, the ecommerce giant's the company's third-party platform, sellers sabotage each other and defraud customers, and how Amazon is run its own government, so to speak -- with its own rules that its suppliers have no choice but to follow

    I'm a little bewildered at this passage...because I just cannot understand it...was it supposed to read:

    on the many ways the Amazon Marketplace (the ecommerce giant's third-party platform) sellers sabotage each other and defraud customers, and how Amazon is running its own government, so to speak -- with its own rules that its suppliers have no choice but to follow

    or am I just insane? The choice to utilize commas turned this into an incoherent run on sentence...

    • Amazon is run its own government

      I was bewildered by this sentence alone.

      One more proof that msmash is a dumbass.

  • Recently bought a product (Aug'18) (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 20, 2018 @01:15PM (#57836896)

    Seller gets to early Dec'18. Said for a 5-star review I'd get a 99%-off coupon to get a 2-pk battery and charger for said product. Mind you, under $10 for that, and this guy pleaded with me to give him a screenshot of my 5-star 'review' so I'd get this. The weird thing is, it is a good product. I offered two suggestions that would make it a 5-star product, but never heard anything about that. Had several exchanges by e-mail (oddly, the person sent an image of this company's e-mail, rather than putting it in the e-mail itself -- one that Amazon no doubt looks at before sending it to me). Okay, may not oddly given that. Still, this is my first time getting this sort of thing, and I've been buying on Amazon since 1998.

    No, not going to report this one to Amazon. This person sounded almost desperate. It does the obvious, which is to reinforce my belief that most Amazon 5-star reviews are not 5-star reviews.

  • The Solution is so Easy (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    If Amazon wanted to fix this, it could in the flip of a bit.However, it does not want to confine reviews to verified purchases.

    The fact is, however, that Amazon is complicit in this mess, because it allows them to beat down sellers and keep them compliant. In fact I would not be surprised if Amazon were the one purchasing a lot of these fake reviews.

  • eBay (Score:3)

    by mspohr ( 589790 ) on Thursday December 20, 2018 @01:56PM (#57837110)

    I can usually find stuff cheaper on eBay. Amazon is for suckers.

    • Re:eBay (Score:4)

      by jwhyche ( 6192 ) on Thursday December 20, 2018 @02:46PM (#57837522) Homepage

      Amazon has a better return policy.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mspohr ( 589790 )

        you pay for that.
        Most eBay merchants accept returns. You may have to pay for shipping but you'll save unless you return a lot... (Why are you returning a lot?)

        • you pay for that.
          Most eBay merchants accept returns.

          I've been pricing solar equipment on Amazon and eBay and it's all cheaper on Amazon. But I just bought an ATX pin puller (what are those connectors actually called, anyway? the audio amplifier in the bus uses them, too) on eBay, because it was cheaper to get a half-decent looking one there. So you pay... less for that?

          Most eBay merchants accept returns, and eBay will grant you a refund on pretty much anything that doesn't match its description if the seller doesn't take it back. At least, that's been my exp

  • Amazon is totally screwed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Going_Digital ( 1485615 ) on Thursday December 20, 2018 @02:35PM (#57837428)

    * The catalog is full of inaccurate listings that have been duplicated multiple times and put in multiple categories.
    * There is mass manipulation of product reviews and seller feedback
    * There are huge scale fraudsters on the site that use tricks like those in the article to get their higher price duplicated listing at the top of the search ranking
    * The humans that have any sense and can speak your language have been replaced with minimum wage slaves in the poorest countries in the world, is it any wonder they are targeted for bribes? And because that still costs money even those poor sods are being replaced by keyword bots, that Amazon laughingly calls AI.

    Amazon knows all this is going and just doesn't give a damn. I no longer buy on Amazon as it is a fraudsters paradise, both so called buyers and sellers are exploiting it. The buyers that are claiming they didn't get their package is pushing the prices up for genuine people, the fake sellers are also pushing prices up. Every time Amazon does do anything to try and fix it they bring out a thermo nuclear warhead to crack a mustard seed, causing massive problems for everyone and causing more damage than the problem they tried to fix.

    There is just no point in going to Amazon for anything, it is hard to find what you want and chances of a bad buying experience are high. Ebay used to be the crooks paradise but they have all moved to Amazon now.

    • Re:Amazon is totally screwed (Score:4, Informative)

      by Fly Swatter ( 30498 ) on Thursday December 20, 2018 @03:43PM (#57837910) Homepage
      Sold by or Fulfilled by Amazon. Stick to this and so far I have had no problems - but then I don't buy much from them anymore and I do my due diligence before buying anything.

      Their prices are generally the same now as other retailers, and the marketplace just gets in the way when I do try shop there.

      • Fulfilled by Amazon are subject to commingling. Fraudulent products in the same bin as equivalent to the real thing. Innocent sellers get penalized because they are the seller of record when the fraudulent product gets to the consumer.

    • Totally screwed=$58 billion in revenue per quarter and increasing fast.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • I dropped Prime when they started putting commercials at the beginning of Prime videos. Really dumb commercials, like ads for Prime on a Prime video.

    Still loving:
    1. Free 2 day shipping that when you go to check out defaults to pay shipping.
    2. Endless pushes/pestering to try 30 day Prime and you can have your Black Friday order in 2 days. When you struggle through it it finally , after wasting your life tells you you are ineligible when Amazon already knew that. When you finally get back to your order it has

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