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Comment by dlcarrier | Hacker News Reader

I buy mostly from liquidators, where everything is sold as-is, but that doesn't stop end users from trying to make a claim, so many manufacturers often have methods for marking items that are not covered by the warranty. For example, Ryobi brands the items with a plastic welder, leaving a tell-tale wavy mark.

A robust liquidation market does a lot to prevent waste, and it reduces the cost of living for those who participate, so finding ways to allow products to be truly sold as-is is vital, otherwise the next most logical option is to put those items in a landfill.

It's also important that there's no legislative hurdles to seelling items as-is, or there may be no legal way to sell a salvage products without completely overhauling them, which is usually not cost effective.

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> so many manufacturers often have methods for marking items that are not covered by the warranty

With textiles this is usually a hole punch or something with the tag. With hardware we had the serial number recorded.

But consumers don’t care. If they buy something from a vendor they think is selling them something as new and the vendor tells them to go the manufacturer, the customer doesn’t care that you marked it as not eligible for warranty. They just want that coverage

We even had customers write ragebait Reddit posts claiming we were unfairly denying warranties, people sending stories to popular newsletters and journalists, and other attempts to make us look bad for not honoring warranties on products they bought through gray market channels.

> ... the vendor tells them to go the manufacturer...

Maybe this is the problem. Retailers should cover the statutory warranty on any product they sell.

What do you mean, 'statutory warranty'? At least in the US, aside from a few specific circumstances (door to door sales for example with a '3 day cool off' period) there is no mandatory return policy or timeline.

There is a U.S. federal law which gives warranty of merchantability among others (not sure about E.U.).

A major store sold me an expensive item that didn't work, and the store's return policy didn't cover it, so the store said file a warranty claim with the manufacturer. I just did a credit card charge back instead, because the store has to sell me something that works.

If for whatever reason the credit card charge back didn't work, I could use the store in (small claims) court and win.

AI: "The implied warranty of merchantability is a legal guarantee that a product will function as expected for its ordinary purpose, such as a toaster toasting bread. It is automatically applied to most consumer goods sold by merchants and does not need to be in writing."

Typo, should be: "could sue the store"

I swore I fixed that earlier.

Is it the iOS keyboard?!

That sounds like another problem then :)

In the EU (or maybe just my country of origin?) there is certainly statutory warranty. Length and coverage varies per product category.

This is mostly how statutory warranty works in most countries. It’s actually the retailer who bares the responsibility, but good/big manufacturers will just provide the same direct to consumers.

> We even had customers write ragebait Reddit posts claiming we were unfairly denying warranties, people sending stories to popular newsletters and journalists, and other attempts to make us look bad for not honoring warranties on products

These days this is often the only recourse you have, because going the legal route you get stonewalled unless you are willing to spend serious money on pursuing a case. And it'll cost you gobs of time. An example is my mother buying new pants for 220 bucks from a reputable seller, the stitching starts to disintegrate after 7 months, and both the retailer and the manufacturer tell my mother to go pound sand.

So please do not portray customers trying to get their due as "ragebaiters".

Resellers fraudulently claiming a liquidated item is new, or that they are an authorized distributor allowing for the product to be warranted, is its own problem. It's usually not a large enough fraud that it's worth it for law-enforcement to follow up on, but generally online marketplaces, like eBay, have their own enforcement practices to keep traffic away from fraudulent sellers.

On the author hand, Amazon has made it difficult to avoid fraudulent sellers, but they also don'e even sort items by price when that option is selected, so I avoid buying through their site.

It's not like you wouldn't have this problem anyway though? Like customers have a % of crazy people regardless.

I mean the "ididnthaveeggs" subreddit exists purely to make light of people who post reviews on recipe sites where they overtly use the wrong ingredients and then downvote the recipe as a result.

Hah, I just read a one-star review on Goodreads, because the narrator was boring. Goodreads is reviewing the book itself, not an audiobook adaptation.

Also, all I could think of was the Seinfeld episode where George wanted audio books, because he couldn't stand reading in his own voice, but the narrator ended up sounding exactly like him.

Goodreads also has listings for audiobooks. Reviewing the narrator in an audiobook is like reviewing the font choice in a paper book. Both are legitimate. (If someone's posting a review of an audiobook to the listing of the main format, that's wrong)

I like the double entendre where "liquidator" can also mean that you hired a hitman to acquire the goods.

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