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Comment by dstaley | Hacker News Reader

One of the upsetting things about this crackdown is that some of the brands mentioned in the article actually produced good products. I'd have much rathered people purchase products from Ravpower and Aukey than DiHines, AINOPE, Ailun, yootech, SMALLElectric, TT&C, or Amoner, all of which appear on the first page of results for "USB C charger".

Besides the review misconduct, I do think a lot of people's issues with Amazon stem from purchasing no-name products from unknown sellers, an action that is made horrendously easy by Amazon's UI. I've purchased tens of thousands of dollars worth of items from Amazon, and I have had a perfect experience by following two rules: (1) always buy from Amazon (not a marketplace seller), and (2) always buy a reputable brand.

Others have mentioned the issue of co-mingling inventory, and while I believe it's an issue, I've never come across a purchase from Amazon that looked anything less than legitimate.

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Just buy them from Aliexpress. All those noname Chinese products on Amazon are available on Aliexpress for somewhere between a significant discount and a fraction of the price. Buying Chinese electronics on Amazon is a complete ripoff.

Aliexpress is definitly not as cheap as it used to be. Also, expect to wait many weeks for shipping and returns are trivial at all.

The difference is that whilst you're paying the 'drop-shipping fee' you get the product within days (next-day delivery in the UK on Amazon) rather than waiting for the item to make its way from China which can be flaky at the best of times.

Time is money.

Aliexpress delivery has not been faster than a month for me ever

Look for products that advertise 10 day delivery. I usually get them around 1 week after ordering.

10 and 7 day listings, with full refund if they're over.

That's to England, and it does work. I've used it a lot since the flu made it essential.

Time is money, which is why I'll be saving both by not using amazon anymore. A week and a half ago I bought a small item I need soon. I found a listing which was clearly a no-name Chinese seller but the listing was prime. Today I checked on why the package hadn't arrived yet. It turns out it shipped from China a few days ago and was expected to show up sometime in a month. I got a refund and ordered from Home Depot.

Amazon is good for nothing right now.

Many Chinese sellers now actually have warehouses in the EU.

So you buy from AliExpress and it's shipped from Poland or even Germany with DHL/Hermes/etc.

Which I guess might not help British buyers anymore, but look for "UK fulfillment/warehouse", maybe some will have them.

I have found that purchasing SanDisk USB thumb drives and SD cards from Amazon is like playing Russian Roulette. It’s not until you plug them in that you realize you have been scammed. Now I only buys these items from Micro Center.

Genuinely curious: would you mind confirming that the seller of those items was Amazon (your order details should mention the seller)? I've purchased Samsung microSD cards nine times, and various flash drives also nine times over the past decade and all have been genuine. Small sample size, I know, but hardly a Russian roulette from my experience!

One thing to be aware of. To verify if flash drives work, you have to fill them fully with data and then verify the integrity of all the data.

The scam for many flash drives is to provide a working one that's only a fraction of the size (but it reports the full size).

It works fine as long as you don't use more than the real capacity, that may be a just few percents or as much as half.

I am convinced relying on "seller is Amazon" thing is useless. Even if the product you buy is genuine, it seems manufacturers aren't sending their best to Amazon. This really becomes apparent for things like shaving razors.

How would you know they're genuine? Some of the fakes looks pretty good.

Either way, it doesn't matter if they're sold by Amazon since they intermix inventory in their warehouses anyways. Might as well buy the same, cheaper item from the sketchy seller, because it's getting fulfilled out of the same bin anyways.

I bought 32GB microSD cards that were actually only 2GB. Close inspection reveals the number 3 was added later (misaligned font and lighter white).

Each was also somehow doctored to report back as showing up as 32GB in windows explorer but would freeze once you tried transferring more than 2GB onto it.

Was the microSD card shipped and sold by Amazon? You should be able to confirm on your order details page.

No that particular bad experience was eBay.

Nowadays I rarely buy from eBay unless it is niche/unique/local.

Never buy from Scamazon any more. Used to love them now it's just a gamble hoping you get exactly what you paid for

If they're not genuine, these things are absolutely remarkable forgeries. Indistinguishable.

I mentioned the mixing of inventories, but as I've said, I've purchased literally tens of thousands of dollars worth of items from Amazon. I average about 1.5 orders per week over the past decade, and I've never received an item that I doubted the legitimacy of. Furthermore, after some research it seems that Amazon does not mix their own inventory with third-party sellers inventory; they only mix third-party seller inventory when the seller opts into having their inventory mixed.

> Furthermore, after some research it seems that Amazon does not mix their own inventory with third-party sellers inventory; they only mix third-party seller inventory when the seller opts into having their inventory mixed.

Would you mind sharing the source of this information? If this is true it I think it would be a relatively recent change as this particular issue has been at the center of several high-profile consumer products liability lawsuits in the last few years.

I saw those lawsuits as well, and I was also unable to find a definitive mention of Amazon selling an FBA seller provided item under the "Ships from and sold by Amazon" descriptor. The Daimler lawsuit from 2016 alleges that Amazon did in fact do this, but as far as I can tell that lawsuit didn't go anywhere, so I'm not sure if any evidence was presented.

I did read the FAQ that Amazon provides to sellers[1], but it doesn't definitely say whether Amazon Retail items can be fulfilled by FBA merchants. (Interestingly, it does say that consumable products like cosmetics aren't eligible for virtual tracking, and a lot of the online reports from people are those types of products.)

[1] https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/external/G200141480

Amazon's fulfilment system co-mingles. Checking the seller is pointless, it is an accounting thing only. If it's fulfilled by amazon, then the source can come from _any_ FBA merchant.

You have to check whether the item is being sold by multiple sellers and whether or not they are using Amazon for fulfillment. I never buy anything if it’s not sold by Amazon AND if there are multiple 3rd party sellers who store their inventory at Amazon.

Does anyone know whether this type of co-mingling is also done by Amazon UK?

It still specifies "fulfillment by Amazon" in the text under the price, though, implying they aren't selling it directly.

A clear indicator that it's directly from Amazon and not intermingled is "Ships from and sold by Amazon". Any mention of fulfillment in that text should make you slightly more cautious.

Obviously, this entire situation is stupid and they shouldn't force you to parse their little blurbs about selling/fulfillment, but the information is there.

I've gotten a counterfeit SanDisk microSD card from Amazon.ca with them as the seller. I think maybe it was my first or 2nd SD card from them too. Now if I get one from there I only pick smaller known real brands that only have 1 seller like Silicon Power.

I’m so grateful that I live close (enough) to a MicroCenter and I genuinely regret the years I purchased from Amazon instead. I no longer buy anything from Amazon that goes in my body or in my machine because the risk just isn’t worth it.

Yeah, I don't think cracking down on the most prominent brands is going to fix the Amazon fake reviews problem. It means that companies can't build an actual reputation based on the quality of their products, so buyers are more reliant on the easily-faked Amazon reviews and ranking of listings.

I’ve had a few mpow bits and they are good. Shame.

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