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Comment by ardy42 | Hacker News Reader

> I don't think it's reasonable to expect that a single reported case is going to result in visible action. (competitors/griefers can easily abuse this).

In this case it's quite reasonable to expect prompt, visible action. The grefier problem is easily solved with a modicum of due diligence by Amazon. All it has to do is conduct an investigation to confirm the complaint, which is as easy as ordering the item in question and confirming it contains the offer reported by a single customer.

If it's too onerous for Amazon to spend $20 our of its billions to conduct and investigation, it could even write in terms to its contracts saying it reserves the right to inspect any seller inventory for compliance.

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>All it has to do is conduct an investigation to confirm the complaint, which is as easy as ordering the item in question and confirming it contains the offer reported by a single customer.

The number of humans available to perform daily investigations versus the total number of products sold makes this most decidedly not "easy".

The easiest thing to do here would be to simply return the item because the seller crossed your personal ethical line, and state that as the reason. A large number of returns on an item will definitely get the sellers and Amazon's attention.

> The number of humans available to perform daily investigations versus the total number of products sold makes this most decidedly not "easy".

Only if you're taking the blinkered tech mindset that employing people to do anything is hard. Amazon employs 1.2 million people [1], and has people employed that literally touch every single physical items it ships at least once. Every time you contact them you talk to one of their thousands of customer service agents. It's totally easy for an organization like that to staff a compliance department to investigate policy violation complaint.

[1] https://www.yahoo.com/now/amazon-projects-strong-holiday-sal...

That is completely absurd. I too can "touch" tens of thousands of packages a day. That doesn't mean I can perform compliance on tens of thousands of customer complaints per day. You are simply asserting it is easy without providing actual evidence of how they would achieve this. Sorry, I don't see anything remotely logical in your comment that I can respond to.

You're not saying Amazon needs to spend $20. You're saying Amazon needs to buy one of every product on Amazon that gets a complaint.

> You're not saying Amazon needs to spend $20. You're saying Amazon needs to buy one of every product on Amazon that gets a complaint.

Amazon, being one of the largest and most successful companies in the world, can afford to do that and then some. Yeah, it won't be exactly $20, but it will still be a tiny amount for a company that size.

I mean, "inspecting the products you sell for compliance" shouldn't be an optional thing, but a basic function of a retail business.

And we're back around to the quote "It's very difficult to make someone understand something, when their salary depends on their not understanding it."

Unless Amazon loses because of these misrepresentations, they're not going to care. Cash flow and sales volume up, and they'll let anything go unless it somehow causes lost sales at scale.

Always, always, buyer beware.

Even if Amazon orders one of every product, it's easy to beat that system.

I make two fake companies selling the same product. Each of them asks buyers to write a fake review 50% of the time. One of the companies should pass the Amazon inspection.

Well, then you say Amazon can place more than one order for each product. I just keep tweaking the numbers. I'll have 2% of customers for each of my fake companies get asked to write a review. One of them will not get flagged and the fake reviews will help them rise to the top.

> Even if Amazon orders one of every product, it's easy to beat that system.

I wasn't talking about proactively ordering one of everything, but ordering something in response to a specific complaint about a specific practice. So, while we're making up numbers, they might actually end up ordering 10 copies of 0.01% of their items. Make the penalties for getting caught onerous enough, and they might deter the practice completely.

Sure, some vendor might then only put a solicitation in 1 in 20 items, but they'll still have a significant chance of getting caught, and it's not like Amazon should be so transparent about the process so a vendor can game it.

But to my original point: it's totally practical for Amazon to take visible action in response to a single complaint, without opening the door up to griefing.

The reason for this is that they don't need to rely 100% on crowdsourced feedback for compliance enforcement (and to think they would shows a really blinkered webtech-centric viewpoint). The complaint -> investigation -> substantiation -> enforcement process is tried and true technology that's even older than UNIX.

The cheapest solution would just be to add a thing to the T&C that says that Amazon reserves the right to place a reasonable number of undercover orders, which the vendor must accept as a refund (other than the shipping fees). Then Amazon is only on the hook for the shipping for one of every product they get a complaint on. That seems like a pretty reasonable amount for them, especially given that there is 0 shipping fee for anything from Amazon's fulfillment. Unless merchants are hiding these things inside the actual product box, instead of inside the shipping box. In that case, they should just ban the manufacturer's goods from Amazon entirely.

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