
Amazon can be held liable for third-party seller products: U.S. appeals court - Shivetya
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-liability-idUSKCN1TY2HM
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crazygringo
Doesn't seem like a big deal, because:

> _In Wednesday’s opinion, Circuit Judge Jane Richards Roth, writing for a 2-1
> majority of a three-judge panel, said Amazon may be liable in part because
> its business model “enables third-party vendors to conceal themselves from
> the customer, leaving customers injured by defective products with no direct
> recourse to the third-party vendor.”_

Seems like Amazon can just force third-party vendors to reveal their full
legal identity to the customer then?

I don't care who's liable as long as _someone 's_ liable and it's fully
enforceable within the US court system.

~~~
paxys
It is still a big deal, because customers are going to be a LOT more hesitant
to buy stuff if they realize it's sold by a random Chinese dude and not
Amazon.

~~~
sin7
And they should be.

~~~
empath75
Not really. Amazon’s entire supply chain is filled with counterfeits.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Why do you think that refutes sin7's point?

And, if Amazon's entire supply chain _is_ filled with counterfeits, all the
more reason why Amazon should 1) reveal who the seller really is, or 2) be
liable for the counterfeits.

~~~
derefr
You misread the comment you're replying to, I think. empath75's claim
"Amazon’s entire supply chain is filled with counterfeits" is intended to mean
that parties _other than_ the seller—such as warehouse employees, delivery
companies, importers, etc.—are _also_ inserting counterfeits into Amazon's
supply chain, such that even products "sold by Amazon" in the strictest legal
sense, can potentially still be counterfeits.

Given this, customers should _already_ have been wary of purchasing from
Amazon, enough that finding out that they're often purchasing from third-
parties shouldn't further affect their opinion (i.e. they should already have
as low an opinion of Amazon as if they had already known that, because of the
other supply-chain problems.)

~~~
munk-a
Most people don't have that opinion though - things brought through Amazon are
viewed as being vetted and high quality when compared to items through eBay or
Wish - Amazon has made no effort to disabuse people of this conception and I
personally think they've worked actively to downplay the role the third party
plays in product delivery.

I've also always been a bit curious if amazon might be liable for defective
products shipped through their warehouse by virtue of the transfer of custody
alone. This sort of business model is quite new (it's worlds different from a
flea market) and there are several interesting commercial responsibility
questions around it.

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maaaats
People think they buy from "Amazon" and not a "marketplace", as it's how it
used to be. Even though it's now more or less just a high-valued ebay clone.
Hundreds of duplicates, lots of shitty items.

~~~
Waterluvian
I always thought that "shipped and sold by Amazon" means actual Amazon (except
for the group binning issue). And "fulfilled by Amazon" means they're holding
and selling some other company's stock.

Is this not accurate?

~~~
jacobolus
I have found that “shipped and sold by amazon” also involves a very high
proportion of defective or counterfeit items.

Even with books, there are many copyright-violating counterfeits, alongside
many “printed on demand” copies at horrible quality (but not advertised as
such) under some kind of shady deal Amazon forced down publishers’ throats.

Unfortunately Amazon has driven many alternative vendors out of the market, so
it’s sometimes hard to find things elsewhere online.

~~~
Waterluvian
I hear this complaint about quality a lot online. But I've been buying for ten
years, hundreds of orders. And not once have I had a complaint. The closest I
got was a broken Amazon branded space heater but they recalled all of them
last week so that feels like an anomaly. So I'm not really sure what to think.

~~~
cannonedhamster
I've definitely noticed a huge drop in quality over the years. Depending upon
what you order it's safer to go through AliExpress. I wouldn't buy anything
that I value my life or my data for from Amazon.

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lostmymind66
The amount of counterfeits on Amazon these days is astounding.

I was a legitimate seller about 10 years ago and I had a competitor buy one of
my products and complained to Amazon that it was a counterfeit. My account was
suspended and I had no recourse. To this day, I can't be attached to any
seller account without it being put under review and eventually banned.

At this point I had 100% positive feedback and I spent lots of time to please
all of my customers. My money was held for 90 days and it nearly bankrupted
me.

I learned two things from this:

1) Don't base your entire business on a third-party platform. They become your
boss and a single point of failure.

2) Fuck Amazon. I hope they get broken up and destroyed by the US government.
They abused their third-party sellers for years and then when they couldn't
extract enough profit anymore, they were systematically put out of business
and pushed out.

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jammygit
In the meantime, the top “recommended by amazon” result for windows 10 is
counterfeit software sold for half price (at least in Canada). The whole first
page of reviews is people complaining about fakes or licenses not working

~~~
taurath
4/5 stars, all top reviews are “I was provided with a no cost product for an
unbiased review” after the cut.

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mrpigeonpants
I was just on Seller Central yesterday and the only current barrier to
committing fraud or selling dangerous goods on the worlds largest marketplace
is a $40 monthly fee, a bank account, and enough creativity to make up a
company name.

I hope this will help crack down on fraudulent product listings as well. There
are a lot of bad actors. Youtube and facebook aren't the only major players
with moderation issues

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ikeboy
Every new account requires proof of identity to be verified.

~~~
robryan
So what happens once you identify as Chinese national/ Chinese business, sent
some counterfeits for a bit and eventually get kicked off?

The penalty is just no longer being able to sell, nothing will happen with the
products you have already sold unless a customer complains.

~~~
astura
And you can just pay another Chinese person to use their identity to sign up
again and keep sending in more counterfeits.

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jpambrun
I don't and shouldn't have to care who the supplier is or what kind of
agreement they have with the store; I am conducting business with the store.
My contractual interactions are with the store. It process the orders, handle
payment, shipping, etc.. I don't get how they can claim otherwise.

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JamesMcMinn
Meanwhile, I can't ever get Amazon to accept liability for the 3 bits of
cardboard and a deck of playing cards I received instead of a £209 SSD that
was sold by Amazon directly:
[https://twitter.com/JamesMcMinn/status/1144537350602678273](https://twitter.com/JamesMcMinn/status/1144537350602678273)

~~~
yourfate
Has anything come of this yet? Did you report it yet?

~~~
JamesMcMinn
Nope. I am still down £209 and have gotten no further. I have:

\- Sent them a video of me opening the 2nd delivery to find playing cards
(Literally from opening the Amazon box through to finding the playing cards
inside the Samsung SSD box)

\- Reported the matter to my local police, who phoned Action Fraud on my
behalf. I've got me a crime reference number from Action Fraud.

\- Signed 2 affidavits declaring what I did / did not receive

I've phoned them numerous times, and twice now that has involved speaking to
someone, being put on hold, and then redirected to my own voice mail.

If I was the only person to have received card and a deck of playing cards I
could understand their reaction, however they've removed the item from sale
because a number of other people in recent days have received the same things
[1].

When I spoke to my local police they were extremely confused by Amazon's
behaviour. I gave Amazon the details of the officer I spoke to and the crime
reference number, but that got me nowhere other that the same boilerplate
email.

At this stage, I fear I'm going to end up taking Amazon to the small claims
court here in the UK just to get my money back.

[1] [https://www.amazon.co.uk/product-
reviews/B07MBQPQ62/ref=cm_c...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/product-
reviews/B07MBQPQ62/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_viewopt_srt?ie=UTF8&filterByStar=one_star&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=recent&pageNumber=1)

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Optionally phone them one more time and inform them your next course of action
is credit card chargeback.

Phone the card you used and walk them through what happened - they should
reverse the payment. They're equally liable with Amazon. Edit: There's no
guarantee Amazon will keep your account open after this - then again nor is
that guaranteed after a CCJ.

Inform your local trading standards office and offer the same evidence.

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Jeff_Brown
If sellers can disappear, that's a problem. Amazon should be liable for
ensuring sellers can be tracked down and prosecuted. In cases where they do
manage to do that, though, should they still be on the hook?

~~~
stefan_
Amazon does the entire sales process, collects the money, overwhelmingly ships
and warehouses the products, tightly controls listings.

I'm not sure there is any case where Amazon should _not_ be liable. You buy
something "fulfilled by Amazon" and at no point in the transaction is any sort
of third party involved.

~~~
Jeff_Brown
Yeah that seems fair. And like an opportunity for an insurance market. It will
raise the price of goods on Amazon, but whatever, safety costs money.

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brightball
It’s about time. I just finished dealing with one of these vendors and they
already had a laundry list of terrible reviews showing EXACTLY what I
experienced but for bunches of other people. How in the world were they still
a vendor?

~~~
yborg
People like you keep buying from them.

~~~
brightball
Bought an item that was supposed to be Prime and it apparently wasn’t.

------
sfifs
This is interesting. Doesn't this make comingling a high business risk
activity for Amazon? If the item shipped was from a different third party
seller than the one billed, Amazon would get sued instead of the third party
seller if it turned out to be defective or fake. Amazon makes a rich enough
target that I imagine lawyers would accept cases on contingency whereas they
might not against random small third party sellers?

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rnikander
Good. Amazon has sold me garbage and dangerous products. Example: I bought a
MacBook power adapter from them (not Apple branded). When I went back to
review it the product page was gone. In 220 volt countries, it would cause all
connected touchscreens and touchpads to become unusable, and I got mild
electrical shocks from the aluminum MacBook case. If you touched the aluminum
laptop body, it felt like it was vibrating with electricity, even if it didn't
shock you. (And yes it was rated for the higher voltage just like the
authentic Apple adapter.)

------
bwb
Anyone with a legal background can you shed light on the ramifications for
other platform plays? Is this just because they say its from Amazon or more
any marketplace?

~~~
kevingadd
IANAL, but this is covered in the article:

In Wednesday’s opinion, Circuit Judge Jane Richards Roth, writing for a 2-1
majority of a three-judge panel, said Amazon may be liable in part because its
business model “enables third-party vendors to conceal themselves from the
customer, leaving customers injured by defective products with no direct
recourse to the third-party vendor.”

For context, concealment is bad here because co-mingling means Amazon doesn't
even know which vendor shipped the defective product (and as mentioned in past
posts on HN, they also blame the wrong vendor sometimes.) The fact that in
this case the bad actor up and vanished is just unacceptable.

~~~
JMTQp8lwXL
If I was Amazon, I would start tracking which vendor supplied a particular
instance of a product. Seems less costly than dealing with owning the
liability of third-party vendors.

~~~
kevingadd
You can supposedly opt out of co-mingling now, and I do wonder how much money
they really save by doing it. A few expensive legal penalties might be enough
to kill the program.

~~~
CamelCaseName
They are shifting part of this cost onto sellers with the Transparency
program. My company has had a few calls with Transparency reps and will be
enrolling in the coming months.

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harry8
So who are the wealthy companies that might use their financial might to stop
amazon changing this law to their advantage? Is there another way amazon won't
get the law changed to suit them?

~~~
pkaye
Walmart or Target might see it as an advantage since they tightly control
their supplier relationships.

~~~
sjg007
Honestly if Target and Walmart get free shipping figured out (like Prime) they
could eat away a large part of the Amazon customer base.

~~~
opo
Doesn't Walmart basically have free shipping? I've never tried it, but
according to their web site:

NextDay Our fastest delivery option, available in qualifying ZIP codes. Free
on $35+ orders of eligible items—no membership fee!

Two Day Choose from millions of select items online—no membership needed! Free
on orders of $35 or more.

[https://www.walmart.com/cp/free-
shipping/1088989](https://www.walmart.com/cp/free-shipping/1088989)

------
justhw
I've pretty much stopped buying anything over $100 on Amazon after being
burned twice. I buy direct or from other competitors. Hope a solution is on
the horizon.

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wegs
Good ruling!

~~~
mc32
This is good for consumers, so I like it[1].Amazon has been able to exploit
this asymmetry it enjoys compared to Wal __*Mart, so I think this bring them
to an even playing field with regard to that.

I’d be happy if they simply stopped commingling inventory.

[1]I guess they could argue the "Platform" angle, but I'm not sure that would
hold water for them.

~~~
bfdm
Walmart is pulling the same crap on their website now, too. Tons of products
lists sold by junk third party sellers.

I get so frustrated every time I forget to add the "available in store" filter
while searching. The results are useless otherwise.

~~~
lostapathy
I would love to find a browser extension that set this type of option for you
on various sites, or at the very least alerted you when you forgot to.

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stevespang
'Bout time someone held Amazon accountable. They have been abusing the system
for way too long.

Would like to see some law firms file class actions against Bezos operation.

