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Comment by A_Crazy_Idea | Hacker News Reader

I think we should return this tit for tat measure and stop using these product aggregation sites altogether. I think at this point any idiot with money can fill a warehouse with product and some sql tables and pass PCI. There's really no technical reason any longer we have to trust single retailers. It's simply momentum and finance and it really doesn't scale beyond obfuscated-pyramid scheme technology here, there's no value or service being provided by these companies, they're simply middle men.

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As a consumer, there is a massive benefit to me of shopping online with a single retailer: if my card gets compromised, I know exactly who did it. I don't have a million accounts on a million sites with my credit card sitting in a million databases. I have an account at Amazon, Amazon has my card, and if that card gets popped, it's Amazon's fault.

Remember when people didn't trust online shopping? Amazon (and to some extent, eBay/PayPal) was responsible for changing that perception. There are very few websites I would type my card number into.

Why's it such a huge deal if your credit card gets compromised?

Just check your balance every few days. If you see anything suspicious, do a chargeback and have the card cancelled.

> Why's it such a huge deal if your credit card gets compromised?

Because it's a pain in the ass.

You have to spend time with the bank to dispute the charges and get the card replaced.

It's also extremely common to get a new card number when they issue you a new card. So all the companies that have your card saved, won't be able to charge your card anymore.

And you might say "well surely it isn't that many sites" but it's still an effort to change your card details everywhere.

Then there are the "important but infrequent" charges, like a domain name renewal. If your card is cancelled and you forget to change your saved card, you'd better be attentive to the renewal notice or you'll lose your domain name.

I don't get why more banks don't let you generate a unique card number per merchant so if it's compromised it affects at most one place.

> I don't get why more banks don't let you generate a unique card number per merchant so if it's compromised it affects at most one place.

A lot of them do. Here are some examples:

https://www.cardbenefits.citi.com/Products/Virtual-Account-N...

https://www.bankofamerica.com/privacy/accounts-cards/shopsaf...

I don't get why more banks don't offer this. I am aware that this exists at certain US banks.

Except of course that Amazon now sells tons of counterfeit goods, some of which are downright dangerous. The majority of Apple chargers on Amazon are fake according to Apple itself. I bought a USB adapter from Aukey on Amazon and later found out its UL tag was fake and it had a habit of burning itself up. Turns out Aukey has quite a few of these on Amazon. Amazon ignores reports about it.

It's a problem yes, and I hope they work on it. Nothing I'm about to say excuses Amazon for knowingly selling shoddy and dangerous merchandise.

That being said, the production of these inferior cables is an inevitable outcome of the race to the bottom on everything. If you (metaphorical "you", not yourself in particular) believe the price for an official Apple ($20/2 meters) or Google ($25/1.8 meters) USB-C cable is too much and go looking for something cheaper, you've already started down a dangerous road. You've said your safety isn't worth $20 and are outsourcing your life to the lowest bidder. Then you find a 6 meter cable for $5 and say "I knew it! Apple/Google were ripping me off!". If you're lucky, it breaks and you grumble and buy another one. If you're unlucky, it lights your house on fire while your family is sleeping. Quality comes at a price, and shysters count on people not being willing to pay that price.

But yes I completely agree. Amazon should not be selling known counterfeit cables (or any other merchandise). There's no excuse for that, you should be able to inherently trust anything Amazon sells you to be genuine (even if it's genuine crap).

Also, as a consumer there's massive benefit to me to be able to have competitors.

I'm not sure how to convince you otherwise.

How about this suggestion, instead of a million, lets try 3 or 4.

Amazon, Jet/Walmart, and eBay (alternatively AliExpress). Throw in a handful of niche marketplaces like AdaFruit or SparkFun, and it sounds like the market is working as intended.

You don't need to convince me, I know what you mean. But I don't want to have to buy Hachette books from Hachette.com, Penguin books from Penguin.com, MiracleGro from MiracleGro.com, Cards Against Humanity from CardsAgainstHumanity.com, bleach from Clorox.com, toilet paper from Charmin.com, etc. It's really nice that for all of those things, I only need to give one company my credit card number. Worst case scenario, two or three.

It's also the same reason I do my grocery shopping at a supermarket and not buying directly from a farmer. I only need to visit one store (maybe two).

Also, it would be nice if my information wasn't so easy to datamine.

I couldn't disagree more. A consistent user experience is great, if I order a product from Amazon (Amazon proper, not 3rd party) I know it will get here fast, there won't be any crazy shipping fees, that I can return it easily if I don't like it, etc etc.

You should be aware that counterfeit goods are shipped from Amazon itself fairly regularly. Amazon intermingles goods from themself and third party sellers unless the third party seller explicitly opts out of it (which costs them more). Lots of Amazon sellers sell counterfeit goods that are fulfilled by Amazon. So, even when you buy from Amazon itself, you may get one of the goods shipped to the Amazon warehouse by a third party dealing in counterfeit goods. Some larger companies have pulled out of Amazon due to this. Birkenstock for instance: http://www.geekwire.com/2016/birkenstock-announces-it-will-l...

I think that is a little misleading. They may intermingle, but only in the sense that products share a product page. But you always explicitly see who the seller is, and if you buy from Amazon (seller), you will never get a product from a third party.

The problem is that if you don't know to pay attention to the seller, you can end up buying from a third party while looking at a first party product page.

It's not misleading. Look up Amazon product comingling for more details. A given product with a unique UPC has the stock from all sellers as well as Amazon itself combined by default with no distinction between who contributed which.

So, even when you buy from Amazon itself, you may get one of the goods shipped to the Amazon warehouse by a third party dealing in counterfeit goods.

That is a misleading statement because Amazon only commingles third party sellers, not their own inventory. If you buy from "Amazon itself" you aren't at risk of getting commingled inventory.

According to the Wall Street Journal's reporting on it in 2014, orders from Amazon itself were also affected:

"The system has enabled Amazon to make better use of its warehouse space and keep a wide variety of items in stock around the country. The idea is to give Amazon flexibility to ship certain products based on their proximity to customers, speeding delivery times. For third-party sellers, it saves them the trouble of having to label individual items sent to the Amazon warehouse. The bar code takes care of that. But the practice has in some cases led to mix-ups between counterfeit and authentic products, even when they are sent by Amazon itself."

That would appear to be why Wusthof knives, for instance, forbids any authorized retailer from commingling and doesn't count Amazon as an authorized retailer.

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