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Comment by ajross | Hacker News Reader

> I saw a "16TB SSD" for $70, figured it was a scam, but was curious so I bought it.

Just so folks are aware: this kind of behavior doesn't constitute a good faith purchase. If you suspect something is wrong, you aren't allowed to push the risk management off onto a retailer just because they aren't as clued in as you are. It's the same principle that says you can't take advantage of mislabeled prices or leaked discount codes.

In this case, where it's just one item and the poster was probably willing to eat the cost, it's a no-harm-no-foul thing and it was good customer service of Amazon to refund the price. But in general this is a game people shouldn't be playing.

(Edit: and as expected everyone wants to argue based on who the bad guy is supposed to be and not what I actually said. Amazon may be bad. This is still fraud if you do this expecting to get refunds if you can't use the item. Don't do that.)

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I saw your edit, and I vehemently disagree. Amazon is the scammer here. They know damn well these things can't be real, but they can't be bothered to crack down. It is perfectly kosher to agree to their offer and get a $70 16TB drive. Either it's a legitimate 16TB, which means you got a great deal, or it is not 16TB, and you can undo the transaction. The costs of these returns can be passed to their supplier.

OP didn't profit from this exercise, so "fraud" doesn't enter into the conversation. If more people did what OP is doing, incentives would maybe finally align for Amazon to do the right thing, if for purely financial reasons.

As it stands today, apparently there's more profit in ignoring these scams then there is preventing them, so Amazon doesn't apply effort in that direction.

Was OPs purchase in good faith? No, I guess it wasn't if they were certain it was a scam. But it sure isn't fraud.

Scamming a scammer may Feel Like Justice, but it is still fraud. That is my point. I'm sorry if it's not possible for you to see two bad guys in one transaction.

In point of fact, of course, neither side is a "scam" here and you know it. Amazon had an automated system that got exploited, the only human being deliberately trying to cheat was their supplier. And the above poster was just idly trying to probe the exploit and not get a free SSD. But all the same, demanding a refund (of a product that you knew was going to be fraudulent!) is a little sketchy.

There are in fact 3 bad guys in this transaction: the manufacturer, the merchant, and amazon. All of them knew or should have known that this is a scam. It isn't the buyers fault that amazon has no humans in the loop. Infinite, perfect scale isn't a right. It's an ideal that amazon is welcome to strive towards within the bounds of the law. Amazon shouldn't kill people with fake safety equipment, nor should they sell fraudulent merchandise.

Years ago I pointed out that Amazon wouldn't sell you a Google Chromecast (because Google was competing with an Amazon product at the time), but they would sell a fake one.

But this scam has been going around for a while. I remember hearing about a scammer pawning 8-track tapes as hard drives back in the day.

No law, rule, or custom was broken by the buyer, so this is not fraud on his side.

The seller on the other hand has lied to customers - they claimed it was 16TB drive and it was not. This is 100% definition of the fraud, and ideally seller would be penalized for that.

It does feel short sighted for Amazon to allow these issues to dilute their brand. They lost money FOREVER to develop a strong and loyal customer base. Now with less online programming,worse physical goods delivery, AND lots of merchandise, vendor and review scams like these, it feels like they're rapidly headed for a crash with enshittification. https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/

> Just so folks are aware: this kind of behavior doesn’t constitute a good faith purchase. If you suspect something is wrong, you aren’t allowed to push the risk management off onto a retailer just because they aren’t as clued in as you are.

Based on what law? This seems to be importing the concept of good faith purchase that has relevance to the transfer of title (if the buyer doesn’t have a reasonable good-faith belief that the seller has good title to the goods being sold, and the seller only has voidable title, the buyer will receive only a title voidable by whomever the seller’s title was voidable by), but outside of its domain.

There is, that I am aware of, no generally-applicable rule (e.g., under the UCC) applicable to the sale of goods in the United States where the purchaser’s doubts about the seller’s representation as to the description of the item that they were selling would prevent the formation of a sale contract and the buyer’s right to inspect, reject, and return nonconforming goods under that contract. You may be confusing reasonable belief that the seller is actually offering the goods with reasonable belief that the seller actually intends to fulfill the contract, which are different issues.

Could you cite statute or case law on point, or reference a work which does?

I defer to your jargon, but point out that you aren't, in fact, contradicting my point. So I'll flip the technique around: if Amazon were to read the upthread comment and refuse to honor the refund request, do you genuinely believe a court would compel them to? That's just silly, and you know it. If you order something you know is junk, that's on you, not Amazon.

I’m guessing you’re referring to a jurisdiction within the US?

In the UK the law is clear and explicit: it’s on the retailer (and not the manufacturer or wholesaler) to make sure the goods are “Fit for purpose”, “As described”, and of “Satisfactory quality”.

There’s no wiggle room for “consumer guessed the goods might not be as described”.

https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/regulation/consumer-...

I can imagine there are some US jurisdictions where something similar is also true.

You are making the statement that this is “fraud” and the commenter above has asked for legal references. The burden of proof is on you, because at this point you’re just making stuff up.

But you can’t provide references. You haven’t even explained why you think this fits into the legal definition of fraud (hint: it doesn’t).

> if Amazon were to read the upthread comment and refuse to honor the refund request, do you genuinely believe a court would compel them to?

Probably in most US jurisdictions; to my knowledge generally Amazon has failed in court where they have tried to escape obligations of sellers by pretending not to be retailer but a marketplace facilitator, and generally sellers are going to be obligated to refund if they accept money and don’t deliver the product represented.

Under the UCC, for instance, the buyer would not only be entitled to refund, would also be entitled to make a good faith purchase of substitute goods matching what the seller represented, and also recover the difference between the purchase price of the substitute goods and the purchase price of the original goods (the latter already covered by the refund) or, even if they don’t “cover” with a substitute, recover the amount by which fair market price of a substitute at the time the buyer learned the goods were not as described exceeds the refund. (See, UCC Sections 2-711 through 2-713.) [0]

> If you order something you know is junk

Suspecting and actual knowledge are…different things.

[0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/2

Isn’t it Amazon’s job to do due diligence that sellers aren’t committing outright fraud on their platform? I’m not sure what you mean by “allowed”, but I would have zero problem doing exactly the same to Amazon ethically given they actively, on purpose, create this problem in the first place.

Doing something like this is the only way to effect any sort of change anyway. It’s not like regulators are particularly interested in solving this problem. And clearly neither is Amazon. So maybe enough returns where they have to eat the cost will actually motivate them to enact some change.

Exactly. Purchasing scam items, testing them and then reporting them is a public service.

How gracious of Amazon to refund the customer after having scammed them in the first place by advertising and selling them a fraudulent product.

Should we also quickly hang up on phone scammers so we don't waste their time that could be spent convincing grandma to pay tax in Apple gift cards?

3rd party sellers on amazon's platform are not amazon.

Amazon bears responsibility for what happens on its property, particularly when it has been notified thousands of times over of shady goings-on.

Amazon is a retailer. The fact that some of their goods are never physically in their hands doesn’t stop them from being the seller.

If it is on its platform, it takes payment, and often provides fulfillment, and shipping. It does indeed sell the items that third parties put on it. See the injury suit from the dog leash, where Amazon was indeed liable.

I really don't understand the problem. If you offer me the latest and greatest pc for £1, there's nothing wrong with me taking you up on the offer even if I think there's a catch. And then when it turns out that the box was empty, I'm entitled to a refund.

One case where this might not be the case is uf the PC arrives but after that police will come knicking on your door saying the PC was stolen. Then you loose the PC and noone will refund you because at such low price you should have known it's a possibility and this risk was on you.

At least in this case, seller would be in the much greater trouble than you. Could be worth the risk :)

I would be most certainly eligible for a refund. Extracting that from the seller might be problematic unless it’s a legitimate business like Amazon.

Over the winter, up in British Columbia, we got a cold snap that looked like it was going to south of -40 degrees (where almost all common consumer thermometers, both home-weather station ones (that are very accurate, or at least consistent across multiple devices - +/- 0.2 degrees) and analog ones (including an industrial freezer thermometer). We went to our local home hardware, and for just $25 they had one that went to -60. Seemed like it was too good to be true - but they were popular, so we bought one. Put it out doors, at ~-34 degrees, the solution in the column split apart and the thermometer stopped functioning.

We took it back in the next day (with lots of photographic evidence showing our other thermometers, digital and analog, all showing -40, and the one outlier showing a scattered -34) for a refund.

When we bought it - I kind of thought it was too good to be true. So - did I commit fraud when I purchased it from home hardware in the belief that it would work as advertised, only to refund it the next day - and was that a game I shouldn't be playing (that is, taking a retailer at their word))?

The only reason it "isn't good faith" is because the seller wasn't acting in good faith. Had the purchaser gotten what was advertised there would be nothing to return. The fact that we now assume so little of Amazon products isn't an ethical issue, it's a marketing on on Amazon's behalf.

Amazon has little incentive to proactively address this issue unless their reactive measures (issuing refunds and taking down listings after people complain) are the more costly alternative.

There's an argument to be made that if we want Amazon to fix this issue once and for all, we should head to Amazon and buy these devices en masse, then complain when we get products that are designed such that they could not serve any purpose other than to deceive and defraud consumers.

There's also an argument to be made that we, as informed individuals, are obligated to take this action to prevent others from being scammed.

Amazon has to actually protect their marketplace as a healthy scam free place if they ever hope to retain the market they have, forget growth. I stopped shipping through eBay very quickly after hitting bad/lazy actors and it's the same with Amazon. If I'm expected to self police my purchases because some "vendors" are fraudulent, then this isn't the marketplace for normals and I'll find a vendor that only sells not shit.

It's 2023, maybe amazon can take some of this AWS brain power they have and use it towards anti-fraud.

Hard disagree. Both the seller and Amazon have a responsibility here. As a buyer, all I can do is go by the description and advertised price. If you made a mistake, you can ask for it back on your own dime or not ship it at all and give a full refund. If you are scamming, making Amazon or the credit card company step in is literally the only real system in place to identify and root out scams.

Buyers that risk their own time purchasing potentially scam items do a service to all the buyers that might unwittingly buy such items and not know until it is too late.

In short, skepticism of a purchase does not mean bad faith.

> If you suspect something is wrong, you aren't allowed to push the risk management off onto a retailer just because they aren't as clued in as you are.

Isn't it better from the retailer's point of view if someone buys this and returns immediately and posts a negative review? It would reduce the number of future returns and actually work for Amazon's benefit.

>Edit: and as expected everyone wants to argue based on who the bad guy is supposed to be and not what I actually said

Literally none of the comments argue that. You are just very wrong in your understanding of the relevant consumer protection laws.

> If you suspect something is wrong, you aren't allowed to push the risk management off onto a retailer just because they aren't as clued in as you are.

Says who? Surely the retailer is responsible for vetting what they're selling.

It always bothers me when people make definitive statements like this without citing any sources or providing context. Fraud is a pretty extreme accusation here. Are you saying attempting to return an item constitutes fraud because the buyer somehow acted in bad faith purchasing an item falsely advertised? Also, it’s most likely a third party seller which Amazon held the funds back from. Are you saying the scam artist deserves to get paid? The refund only happens because the fraudulent seller knows they have no recourse. The only person committing fraud here is the seller not the buyer.

/r/confidentlywrong

This is correct. I would also be highly surprised if most of these fake items are FBA or sold by amazon. Almost all of it can be avoided by being very wary of 3rd party sellers (as you should be, on any platform that allows it).

That might a proper way to manage risk but nothing else besides that. And in no way does it absolve Amazon from any blame…

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